Top 2016 Offseason Priorities for the Sacramento Kings
The Sacramento Kings are bad. Really. Really. Bad.
They have now gone 10 years without a playoff appearance and, during that span, they own the second-worst winning percentage in the NBA, according to Basketball-Reference.com. The only team that’s worse is the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Kings have been one of the 10 worst teams every year since 2007-08, the only franchise with that dubious claim. They’ve had top-10 picks every season since 2009, but only three of those—DeMarcus Cousins, Ben McLemore and Willie Cauley-Stein—are still with the team, and the Kings tried to dump McLemore on the Chicago Bulls at the trade deadline, according to The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski.
At least with the Timberwolves, the prolonged failure has resulted in a young core to build around, but the Kings have basically one disgruntled star and little else.
And the worst part of it all is that Cousins will be an unrestricted free agent in two years. If they haven’t hit the playoffs yet, it’s a pretty good bet he’s out of there.
The only thing Sacramento's been good at is firing coaches. Eric Musselman, Reggie Theus, Kenny Natt, Paul Westphal, Keith Smart, Mike Malone, Tyrone Corbin and now George Karl have all been shown the door.
So, with that heartwarming introduction, what can the Kings do this summer to start the turnaround? Maybe these steps won’t make them a contender, but it could at least get them into playoff contention (or, you know, respectability).
Get a Coach
They really need to get a coach. And not just any coach but one who DeMarcus Cousins will sign off on. Because the last thing they need is a whole redux of the George Karl situation.
Marc Stein of ESPN.com tweeted who was in the early mix for the job:
Wojnarowski reported that Mike Woodson would also interview, along with Kevin McHale, (who hadn’t indicated if he was interested in the opening).
Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee reports:
"The Kings have reached out to several candidates, according to league sources. After Mitchell, the Kings intend to meet with former head coaches Vinny Del Negro, likely next week, and Jeff Hornacek. Also on the Kings’ radar are Los Angeles Clippers assistant Mike Woodson, Golden State assistant Luke Walton, former Warriors head coach Mark Jackson and former Houston head coach Kevin McHale.
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All but Luke Walton are so-so retreads. And Walton is going to get much sexier offers.
That’s the fallout of firing your coach once or twice a year for the better part of a decade. You kind of stop being a preferred destination. Just pack a bag and rent a hotel to coach in Sacramento; you don’t move your family.
Of those options, the best choice is probably Jackson, who had a modicum of success with the Golden State Warriors and a good relationship with his team (though, not his front office.) That might be where having an amiable general manager like Vlade Divac could help.
Jackson also did a reasonably good job of coaching defense. He inherited a unit ranked 26th in defensive rating and turned it into a top-10 outfit in two of his three years there. He had a .526 winning percentage and made the playoffs twice.
That’s not an eye-popping coaching career, but at least it’s something. Cousins is an underrated defender with a 3.32 defensive real plus-minus, 13th best in the league, per ESPN. It’s possible Jackson and Cousins could be an arranged marriage that works. Jackson's also had a good rapport with players in the past, and that might be all that matters here.
Trim the Roster
The Kings don’t have a horrible roster, in spite of all the blundering they’ve done over the last decade. These are the players under contract, according to Spotrac.com:
| PLAYER | POS. | 2016-17 |
| DeMarcus Cousins | C | $16,957,900 |
| Rudy Gay | SF | $13,333,333 |
| Kosta Koufos | C | $8,046,500 |
| Marco Belinelli | SF | $6,333,333 |
| Darren Collison | PG | $5,229,454 |
| Willie Cauley-Stein | C | $3,551,160 |
| Ben McLemore | SG | $4,008,882 |
| Omri Casspi | SF | $2,963,814 |
| Caron Butler | SF | $1,551,659 |
| James Anderson | SG | $1,139,123 |
| Quincy Acy | SF | $1,050,961 |
| Seth Curry | SG | $1,015,696 |
| Duje Dukan | PF | $874,636 |
| Total | $66,056,451 |
Caron Butler, James Anderson and Seth Curry have player options (all will probably opt out). Duje Dukan has a non-guaranteed contract, and he’s not likely to be back considering he only played the last game of the season.
Rajon Rondo will be a free agent, and the Kings should have no qualms about letting him walk. His numbers were decent, but the Kings were better with him on the bench than on the court because Rondo didn’t seem to care about anything other than his numbers.
In any case, the Kings look to have somewhere between $60-64 million in contracts, leaving them $30 million or thereabout in free agency. They might have a chance if free agents were inanimate objects to be merely bought and sold on the open market. But they’re grown men who have to agree to a contract, and that infernal free will is going to be meddlesome.
Here is the part where we remind you of the Kings’ history and overall ineptitude. The best players may be reluctant to go there because of that. And with nearly every NBA team having money to spend this summer, there will be plenty of options.
All things else being equal, the Kings are probably going to lose. See: Wesley Matthews' rejection of them last summer, for example.
Go Against the Grain
For the Kings to compete, maybe they have to think outside the box. Maybe while everyone else is racing to compete with the Warriors and trying to find all the three-and-D wings, the Kings should do something radical and go in the other direction to build a bully ball team?
Hassan Whiteside started his career as King. Why not bring him back? It seems like he has a massive chip on his shoulder, and he’s probably not going to turn down a max deal, particularly if you use his ego to your advantage. Tell him how wrong you were ever to let him get away.
Then, play him at the 5 and Cousins at the 4. Radical? Sure, but it could be effective.
According to Seth Partnow’s estimates at Nylon Calculus, Cousins played 13.3 percent of his minutes at power forward this year and had a better effective field-goal percentage (52.1 to 47.1) and true shooting percentage (58.0 to 54.8) when he did so.
Cousins also plays a lot more away from the basket than most centers already with 52.7 percent of his shots last year being jumpers. And surprisingly, based on his defensive shot chart at NBASavant.com, he did a fair amount of defending shots away from the basket last year, and with better-than-average results:
Rudy Gay did his time with the “grit and grind” of the Memphis Grizzlies and has an idea of how to play that kind of basketball.
Keep Seth Curry (45 percent from three) and along with Darren Collison (40.1 percent) and Omri Casspi (40.9 percent), you have enough shooting to open up the court. Even Cousins made 70 threes on 33.3 percent shooting.
It’s a ridiculous gamble where a million things can go wrong, but it could go right.
And it might hinder the development Cauley-Stein. But by the time he matures, Cousins' contract will be over, and the latter could be gone anyway.
The other caveat is that Whiteside and Cousins both have what we’ll politely call “big” personalities. And when they were teammates before, this happened:
Even with all that, if it worked it would give the Kings arguably the best frontcourt tandem in the league (along with DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin) and could at least potentially put them on the road to success.
Cross Your Fingers
The Kings aren’t going to get better by trying to be like everyone else; they have to go against conventional wisdom. If that specific plan isn’t appealing, find a different way. The Kings must win in ways other teams aren’t.
They’re just not an attractive enough option to get the players everyone else wants.
There’s not much to say about what they should do in the draft unless they get lucky and draw a top-three pick (a 6.8 percent chance according to Sam Vecenie of CBSSports.com). Whomever they end up taking is not likely to be a big difference-maker in the next couple of seasons (particularly with their recent history of selecting).
Their best option there is to go with a perimeter player with a little more mileage behind him. Think “high floor” more than “high ceiling.” If he’s there, Kris Dunn from Providence. Otherwise, they could consider trading down a few spots for someone like Demetrius Jackson out of Notre Dame or Denzel Valentine from Michigan State.
With a few moves, they could get themselves back in the playoff hunt and become a destination for free agents again. Then they can start thinking about building on that.
But they’ve been so bad for so long it’s going to be hard for them to do much until they prove they can be competent.
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