The 5-Step Plan for Sacramento Kings to Return to the Playoffs Next Season
The Sacramento Kings will be looking to end their nine-year drought from the NBA playoffs in 2015-16. Their opportunity to finally do that should improve for a few reasons.
Sacramento is free of salary-cap issues for the first time in years. The Kings have the necessary flexibility to improve their roster. Five different contracts come off the books.
Not to mention, Rudy Gay's extension kicks in and saves the team $7 million. Between the savings on Gay and the free agents, the Kings should save $20 million they can reallocate elsewhere.
The team also figures to get an additional asset through a draft pick. Sacramento owes its pick to the Chicago Bulls if it doesn't fall within the top 10 picks. The Kings will likely retain that pick since they currently own the league's sixth-worst record.
To top it off, the Kings now have an experienced coach in George Karl to lead them. He has made the postseason in 22 of his 26 seasons as a head coach. The team was all but eliminated before he took over.
If they play their cards right, the Kings can qualify for the postseason next year. They just have to follow this five-step process.
Get Things Settled in the Front Office
1 of 5
It makes sense that before the Kings actually go out and build a new roster, they have to get the front office that's doing the constructing on the same page.
Things have seemingly been unsettled since owner Vivek Ranadive came to Sacramento in May 2013, from disagreements over who decided to fire Michael Malone as coach in December to who is in charge of things now.
If we're to believe Marc Stein's recent report for ESPN.com, the front office has once again undergone a face-lift. The Kings hired former Sacramento great Vlade Divac as their vice president of basketball and franchise operations back in early March. At the time, he was seen as an additional adviser who would help with all aspects of the franchise.
But on Wednesday, Stein reported that Divac has emerged as the lead voice in basketball decisions, a move endorsed by Ranadive. Essentially, he's replaced general manager Pete D'Alessandro in that role, although the move has yet to be announced by the Kings. It's also unclear what this move means for the GM's future with the team.
This is just another sign of the dysfunction in Sacramento. On the one hand, the Kings are lucky to have someone with Ranadive's wealth who's willing to help finance an arena and shell out the resources needed to build a competitive roster.
On the other hand, it's another ominous sign that Ranadive is getting his hands in the cookie jar and not allowing those he hired to do their jobs. It's understandable that the owner is frustrated with a lack of improvement on the court, but making that jump is a difficult task if you're always shaking things up and changing philosophies.
At some point, he just needs to hire someone, let him work and step out of the way. That's the first step to building a contender. Until he does, this franchise will continue to flounder.
Absolutely Do Not Trade DeMarcus Cousins
2 of 5
Sacramento sports talk radio has been obsessed with the upcoming offseason for the Kings, talking about how no player is off limits when reshaping the roster.
Grant Napear, the team's TV play-by-play man and KHTK radio host, has mentioned DeMarcus Cousins as a player who could be traded if it helps the Kings. But let's be serious: The Kings shouldn't consider dealing Cousins.
Sure, no player is untouchable. If the Kings could get an equal player, a top-10 talent who's also relatively young, like James Harden, Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, LeBron James or someone of that mold for Cousins, then you consider it. But the teams with those players have no incentive to trade them, just as the Kings shouldn't have any for trading Cousins.
Players who've averaged 23.3 points, 12.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.5 blocks and 1.5 steals over the last two seasons don't grow on trees. The list of players who have done it is pretty exclusive: DeMarcus Cousins.
Not only can nobody match his production, but he's still only 24 years old and under contract for the next three seasons. That's the type of player you build around, not the guy you trade for multiple lesser parts or draft picks.
As for this notion that Cousins can't thrive in Karl's system, it's bogus. Since the coach's arrival, Cousins is averaging 24.8 points, 13.1 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.8 steals.
Add Quality Depth
3 of 5
The Kings have done the hard part. They already have a few players they can build around in Cousins, Rudy Gay and Darren Collison. The trio shared the floor for 783 minutes this season. During that time, the Kings were 11.1 points per 100 possessions better than the opposition.
The next task is finding players who complement them.
Luckily for the Kings, they have the resources to do it this time around. Sacramento should have five roster spaces available, along with $20 million to work with.
One area the team should address with that flexibility is three-point shooting. This would help out in a couple of ways: It provides spacing for Cousins to work in the post and upgrades a current weakness.
The Kings are only making 34.1 percent of their three-point attempts. That's tied for 19th in the league.
Overall, Sacramento's bench ranks 26th in the NBA in efficiency recap difference, according to HoopsStats.com. Just getting the bench to the middle of the pack would go a long way when paired with the core of players who are already in place.
Trade the Draft Pick
4 of 5
The Kings should have a top-10 draft pick coming their way, something they've had in each of the last six seasons. Assuming the team is making a push toward the playoffs next season, it would be better served trading the pick for an established player who can help Sacramento win now.
Sactown Royalty's Akis Yerocostas thinks the Kings should trade for Denver Nuggets point guard Ty Lawson. Yerocostas suggests packaging the draft pick with players in order to land Lawson.
Lawson makes a lot of sense because he and Karl have a history of success together from their time in Denver. His contract is also such that he'd be in Sacramento through 2016-17.
A proposal that would work is packaging Jason Thompson and Nik Stauskas with the first-rounder. Thompson's deal is only partially guaranteed for 2016-17, which means the Nuggets could get rid of him and gain additional cap space.
In Stauskas, they'd be getting a prospect to help their rebuilding efforts. By pairing the Kings' pick with its own, Denver would also have two likely top-10 picks in the lottery.
Spend the Offseason Preparing for Karl's System
5 of 5
With Karl coming in at the All-Star break and being such a shift from what the Kings were establishing under former coaches Michael Malone and Tyrone Corbin, it wasn't realistic to expect much success.
Part of that is the physical demands it takes to play Karl's system. The players didn't spend their offseason conditioning program emphasizing running up and down the court for 48 minutes. Now that they know what Karl expects, they can gear their conditioning toward that goal.
As he told David Aldridge of NBA.com (h/t CBS Sports), picking up the philosophy has also been a process for the Kings:
"We're careless. We're worst in the league in turnovers, and worst in the league in assists. Well, we've got to improve at some point. I don't think it's at the point where you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And again, we've got to figure out, with [Cousins], where every night he feels confident he's going to get this, this, this and this. And on the big nights, he's going to get more.
"
But the beauty of having Karl around for the last few months of the season is that it provides the Kings a head start. They're already starting to learn what Karl expects. Having a full offseason and training camp to focus only on that will make it that much better.
As Karl mentioned, he hasn't "had a losing season in 20-some years."
With the right personnel and time to work in his philosophy, there's no reason that trend has to change now.
Unless noted otherwise, all stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
