Mike Malone Coming Face-to-Face with Longstanding Sacramento Kings Problems

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sacramento Kings coach Mike Malone has found that to be true during his first slate of games as the team’s head coach.

You don’t miss the playoffs for seven consecutive years by accident. It happens for a reason. In the case of the Kings, it’s happened for a multitude of reasons, some of them out of the team’s hands. Yet others are well within Sacramento’s control, and the Kings simply aren’t doing what’s needed to remedy the mistakes.

Lack of Effort

One thing that’s certainly within a team’s control is its effort level. In fact, that’s probably the one thing that’s unequivocally within its control. Effort isn’t subject to bad bounces of the ball, bad decisions or unfortunate calls by the refs. It’s the one thing every team can show, and at this point the Kings simply haven’t shown enough of it.

“Every night, aside from the Golden State game, we play around two-and-a-half quarters,” Mike Malone said, following the team's most recent loss to the Blazers. “We get behind, we get behind, then we make a great comeback. But it’s way too late. That’s just losing basketball. It’s a losing mentality, and the question I have for our guys is, do you like to win or do you hate to lose? And right now I’m not so sure we’ve got guys that hate to lose on our team.”

The lack of effort is something that’s not lost on the players. They know the deal. The Kings have been digging themselves in too deep of a hole virtually every game. They furiously claw their way back, only to fall short in the end.

This isn’t a new thing for the Kings. That’s not to say the team doesn’t care whether it’s winning or losing, but the reality of the situation is Sacramento isn’t good enough to go through the motions. It needs to put forth effort on every possession.

“We play bad during different stints of the game, then we make a good effort to come back,” Jimmer Fredette said. “But we always fall up short, so far. We need to do a better job of not getting into those lulls that we have and fight through that.”

Getting Beat on the Glass

Preventing NBA teams from scoring is hard enough on one possession. It becomes a nearly impossible task when you’re constantly allowing the opposition extra opportunities through offensive rebounds.

The Kings are ranked 21st in defensive rebound percentage. They’re only corralling 72.6 percent of their defensive rebounding opportunities. In other words, they’re allowing their opponent too many chances at second-chance points.

It's really reared its ugly head in the team's most recent games, two losses against the Trail Blazers. In the first one, the Kings allowed 11 offensive rebounds. It was an even bigger issue the following night, with the Kings allowing 19 offensive rebounds to Portland. 

"They dominated the glass," said Malone. "We finally get a night where we defend at a decent level, but we can’t rebound. We get outworked on the glass."

"You know, you don’t need great skill to be a guy that rebounds," he added. "Being a good rebounder’s all about effort, determination, physicality, and we lacked all those tonight as a whole."

A large part of rebounding, as Malone points out, is tied into effort and determination. In that sense, the rebounding woes could also be an effect caused by a lackadaisical mentality. Whatever the case, it's something that needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed now.

Bad Execution on Offense

Compared to the defense, the offense has actually been pretty good. However, the unit is still ranked 20th in the NBA in offensive rating, with 101.6 points per 100 possessions. The failings on this end come down to two things: a lack of aggressiveness and trying to incorporate new players into the system.

As far as the Kings' aggressiveness is concerned, it presents a real problem when the team isn't making open shots. There are too many possessions that end with open looks that Sacramento misses.

The Kings are currently 24th in three-point percentage at 30.2 percent. Yet there are long stretches where they sit back and shoot threes when they aren't falling rather than try and force the ball into the paint to get high-percentage looks.

"The problem that we have, what happened last night, is if we come down four or five possessions and miss jump shots, don’t take another jump shot," Malone said. "Get to the foul line. Drive the ball. Sometimes we’re so reliant on the jump shot, and that becomes long shots we miss, and they get run-outs."

The other factor bogging the team's offense down is adjusting to a new system. Most notably point guard Greivis Vasquez, who was brought over in an offseason trade from New Orleans.

After averaging 9.4 assists per 36 minutes last year, Vasquez has started the season averaging 5.7 per 36. It's been an adjustment period for the point guard, who isn't fully acclimated to his new team and new system.

"I just feel like I’ve still got to pick my spots," Vasquez said. "It’s a different culture, it’s a different team, so I’ve got to adjust myself. That’s my homework. That’s on me. I’ve got to do better at that. As a pro you’ve got to take responsibility for that. It’s going to take time, and to me, I’m very impatient. I’m impatient because I want to do so well, but I’m not doing well. As a team we aren’t doing well. I really do care. Hopefully I pick up my play and we all pick up our play, because we’ve got to show a better effort than this."

If there is a silver lining in all of this, it's that the team does care. Everyone in the locker room is upset after losses. It's not like the players are simply going through the motions. They acknowledge that things need to change, and they acknowledge that it's on them to bring about that change.

"I think we play good for periods of time," Vasquez said. "We play good for almost eight minutes, then we go back down. There are too many up-and-downs. In this league, there are too many good teams. You can’t be inconsistent. You need to be a pro for 48 minutes. As a team, we have to get better at that. We have to understand that you’ve got to hate losing. We’ve got to play for pride. No matter what our record is, we can’t continue this. Nobody said this was going to be easy. It’s not easy for anybody. Who wants to be 1-5?"

Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand.

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