These Aren't Your Same Old Sacramento Kings
SACRAMENTO — If you were among those who watched the Sacramento Kings surrender a 19-point lead in a home loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday, it was easy to conclude the organization's offseason overhaul was merely cosmetic.
Poor execution and uninventive offense down the stretch in an overtime loss to the Portland Trail Blazers the next night provided even more support for that argument.
So much of those defeats were in keeping with Sacramento's deeper-seated tendencies: periods of stifling isolation offense, lapses on D, DeMarcus Cousins chirping at opponents during and after the game. It was enough to inspire a fatalistic inquiry.
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If a new arena, new personnel and a new coach weren't enough to scrub these familiar stains clean, could the Kings ever really start fresh?
But what happened to the Kings on Thursday and Friday were more exceptions than recent rule—lingering symptoms of an old disease Sacramento is desperately working to eradicate.
And that is why—modest results notwithstanding—this year's Kings really are different.
We're not talking in terms of sweeping changes. This isn't a rebirth or anything so dramatic as that. What's happening with the Kings under new head coach Dave Joerger is more subtle: They're trying to do things the right way, and they're aware of and made accountable for their failures in those efforts.
Joerger has been demanding but realistic. He knows years of organizational malaise—and the effects of the George Karl regime, in which the head coach essentially checked out on the job—are hard to change.
He knows giving maximum effort on defense for an entire game is not a switch to be flipped but a skill to be developed.
"It takes a while to learn how to play that hard on a nightly basis, but we're learning that," Joerger said after the Kings beat the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday. "I was impressed."
Joerger's emphasis on defense is soaking in.
Players echo his points of emphasis and his process-driven approach: "It's not something you can just come out and do," Cousins said of his team's ongoing efforts to defend consistently. "It's a mindset. It takes a lot of energy and effort and also a lot of focus. You can talk it, but you've got to come out there and perform like that on a nightly basis."
Through their first 11 games, the Kings ranked 24th in defensive efficiency. So far, they're still doing more talking than performing.
But unlike years past, there's reason to believe they can figure this out. Part of the optimism stems from Joerger's presence. His track record as a defensive coach—he developed in the Memphis Grizzlies' shutdown factory—and consistent but not overbearing focus on that end of the floor suggest improvement is possible.
In addition, the Kings are simply more talented than they've been in a while. Though there's no second star next to Cousins (Rudy Gay has come close to that label occasionally), new additions Matt Barnes, Arron Afflalo, Ty Lawson, Anthony Tolliver and Garrett Temple all have viable NBA resumes. None are perfect, but the bar for roster quality has long been low in Sacramento.
Having eight or 10 legitimate NBA talents is a step forward.
A grueling test lies ahead over the next two weeks, as the Kings stare down a Western Conference-heavy slate with the Toronto Raptors (who'll be seeking revenge for the loss Sacramento handed them Sunday) thrown in. Each of the Kings' next five opponents made the playoffs last season.
There's no way Sacramento endures that gauntlet without suffering a brutal loss or two. But even if the Kings come out the other side of that stretch battered and sporting a dinged-up record, there will still be reason for hope.
"In the past, this team would get hit in the face and just kind of hang their heads, but we're a resilient bunch this year," Barnes said.
Kings Insider's Notebook
Battling Barnes
The athlete-as-warrior trope is exhaustingly overdone, but then you see Barnes at his locker following a thrilling comeback win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Oct. 29, torso wrapped in ice, wincing because breathing sends shockwaves of pain through his body.
He's still wearing the wrap before Sacramento's win over the Pelicans, having not missed a single game in between, and it's almost enough to make you reconsider the whole warrior thing.
Joerger calls him "a coach on the floor," but even at 36, Barnes' game makes him more than that. He's still a rangy on-ball defender who isn't afraid to make a well-timed gamble. He's an opportunistic helper, a delightfully aggressive outlet passer and has already shown complete willingness to take big shots.
All those aforementioned changes for the Kings this season—a new head coach, the sparkling Golden 1 Center downtown, fresh uniforms and a dramatically altered roster—and yet the biggest change may be a new mentality. There's a confident unity—brought about by Joerger's capable leadership, sure, but also by a wildcard journeyman who's shaping action on the court and emotion in the locker room.
"It's not every day you get a junkyard dog like that," Cousins said.
Catastrophe Avoidance
The Kings have shaved 1.1 turnovers per 100 possessions off their average from last season, which is a good start but not enough to appease a coaching staff hell-bent on curtailing cough-ups.
"You cannot set your defense when you turn the ball over," Joerger said. "We call them catastrophic turnovers—the ones that don't go out of bounds or traveling. You get picked or you throw the ball to the other team, and they run down and shoot layups. That's hurting us; it has been."
Sacramento has the right motivation to improve.
"We just want to make the coaches run down-and-back suicides," Temple said after the Kings committed just 10 turnovers against New Orleans. "Because if we have less than 12, they have to run. We just want to see them run. That's all it is."
Lightning Crashes the Party
Darren Collison returned from an eight-game domestic-violence suspension against the Pelicans on Tuesday and fought through nerves to make an immediate impact.
"This was the first time in my career I didn't take a [pregame] nap. I literally stayed up and waited for the game to start because I was so anxious to play," Collison said. "Never happened before."
He played 27 minutes in his first action—more court time, notably, than Lawson, who's started the team's other 10 games this season—and Collison's constant pace-pushing and aggressive defense juiced the Kings on both ends. His energy is a real weapon—one an often standstill half-court offense badly needs.
Joerger has plans to use Lawson and Collison together, which will complicate defensive schemes. Neither point guard has the size to handle bigger backcourt matchups, but if it's pace and transition chances the Kings want, that duo could provide.
Collison was welcomed back by his teammates.
"It feels good to see Black Lightning out there," Cousins quipped.
The Kids Are All Right
The letters "DNP" have shown up next to Ben McLemore and Willie Cauley-Stein's names in a couple of box scores this season—not exactly a great sign for a Kings team in need of a boost from its young talent.
Both have shown flashes when given the opportunity to play. And though inconsistency remains a problem, each young player has also demonstrated growth.
For McLemore, it's been about confidence and an evolving off-the-dribble game:
In addition to an improved handle, McLemore has seen his assist ratio creep up to a career-high level while his turnover frequency has nosed down to a career low, per Basketball-Reference.com. He's finishing better inside the arc, and his picture-perfect stroke suggests his 31.6 percent accuracy from deep won't remain that low forever.
For Cauley-Stein, it's been about energy and ignoring the fear of mistakes.
"You're going to come out anyway, so you might as well go as hard as you can as long as you're in there," Cauley-Stein said. "You can't play looking over your shoulder, wondering when you're going to come out, and that's what I'd been doing."
All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Stats via NBA.com and accurate through games played Nov. 11.
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