Domantas Sabonis is NOT the PROBLEM in Sacramento…

Domantas Sabonis is NOT the PROBLEM in Sacramento…

Hey hey hey damont sabonis is not the problem on the Sacramento Kings team now this whole Kings season has been really funny in my opinion because they are essentially playing just as good as they did last year I mean even if you look at their record through 52 53 games however many

They played they’re like one game off from each other if not the same yet they received no love for the All-Star Game voting with thearon Fox and damont sabonis they just continued to be dis guarded amongst the rest of the West no one cares about the fact that they’re

Still a high-powered offense because every other team has gotten to their level in terms of offensive rating and they’re no longer the you know historic all-time NBA offense even though they are literally putting up the same numbers regardless Sacramento currently sits in eighth place in the Western Conference they are in that little

Cluster from that five to eight seed range where you could pretty much move anywhere in that section whether you win or lose on a given night but one thing that I do know for sure when it comes to the season is that damont sabonis is not getting nearly enough love for the

Improved basketball that he is playing as he has clearly become the most important player on the Sacramento Kings team at least you know in my opinion I love the fox he had an amazing season last year he got very popular you know clutch player of the year was the best

Fourth quarter player in all of NBA and he was a really exciting and fun player to watch but when it comes to this season I want to say he’s off a cliff but he has been more inconsistent there are stretches of games where he’s just not shooting the ball well he’s not

Getting points he’s not doing what he was doing last year and when those games and stretches occur it has been damont sabonis who has been the stabilizer keeping that offense flowing and just overall making this Sacramento Kings team still a tough team to beat every given night I mean let’s just take a

Second and look at the numbers that sabonis has been putting up ever since 2024 the you know turn of the calendar however you want to say it since that point he is leading the league in triple doubles I could be mistaken but I also think he’s just you know full season

Leading the league in triple doubles as well which you I know triple doubles aren’t cool anymore you know Russ and joic made them not cool but still a very impressive feat to accomplish but even just looking at the recent weeks his last three games he has triple doubles

Five of the last six triple doubles seven of the sorry six of the last eight triple doubles like he’s just 21 rebounds 26 rebounds 15 assists for a big man these are yic type numbers in fact even if we just check the averages from that first game of 2024 to now he’s

At 21 points over 14 rebounds almost 10 assists almost averaging a triple double not to mention he’s shooting 54% from three which I know it’s on one attempt a game but still ridiculous plus if you actually do go and watch the games it is evident that deont sabonis is the entire

Engine offensively for this king’s team and the main reason for that is because sabonis is currently the best high post player in the entire NBA you can probably throw joic in there but he just scores in such a larger variety of ways that I think if you just look strictly

At high post usage I don’t know what the numbers say but sabonis it test feels like he is the best in the league at that spot and a big reason why that assist number is so high in a lot of games recently is because he is just feeding off of these little handoff

Screens that he likes to set in the high post and whether it’s Malik monk dearon Fox Kevin herder coming off for a shot even Keegan Murray’s run a few handoffs with them it he’s just he’s just so good at it I could see how people could maybe

Say that these are like you know fake assists or something because all he’s doing is handing the ball off and setting a screen but it’s the fact that he uses those screens he is such a good screener that he’s able to get the you know ball handler the guy that he’s

Passing to so open that I it does count as an assist in the stat book so first of all you you can’t complain about that but second the point I’m trying to get to is sabonis is just an elite screen Setter and handoff guy that there is a

Reason why he gets so many assists this way and others don’t and despite the fact that he’s not the craziest ball handler and he’s not flashy or anything like that he still has a ton of strength he’s able to bulldo his way to the rim it makes driving to the rim very easy

For him especially if he fakes a hand off and then attacks the rim and he’s actually a pretty good passer off the drive I think this is kind of an underrated thing for sabonis he had one play in the game I watched where he had a nice little drive and dump to Kevin

Herder on a cut he had a few drives and kickouts to Shooters and although they’re not always assists because you know guys miss it’s still very impressive to see a big man doing stuff like this but I think perhaps the most interesting thing about sabonis career

Arc so far is you know everyone Hypes up the whole Brook Lopez thing of how he went from a post scorer to a deadly three-point shooter and I think it’s also important to talk about the Brook Lopez ification of damont sabonis as well because he too came into the league

Mostly a low post guy that would get you buckets down low he’d grab you rebounds and that was about it but he’s taken after the yic model and he is turned into one of the best passing and facilitating bigs in the entire NBA you can see him grabbing rebounds and

Pushing it up the court like a point guard you can see all the stuff from the high post that I just talked about for the last couple minutes all this is to say that you almost kind of forget that he’s actually also just a very capable

Scorer in the low post he’s again also a great rebound ER so offensive rebounds if he does crash the glass he’s really good at getting those putbacks more importantly he’s also just great as a rle man whether it’s the short roll and he’s kicking out or if he’s attacking

The rim again this goes back to those handoffs and screens that he is always setting in passing as again if the defense does decide to cover the man that he is handing the ball off to then you run the risk of leaving sabonis with

A head of steam to the rim and that is not a good sign for NBA defenses now I do think the one area where domont sabonis loses a lot of respective NBA fans is that he’s not the greatest Defender again he falls under that yic category where he is tremendous

Offensively but people just don’t respect him because he’s not the typical Rim protecting NBA Center that a lot of teams uh use in their lineups nowadays and while I can see the vision for that sabon is by no means a terrible Defender I I’m not going to sit here and say that

He’s all defensive or anything because you know guys are going to get his buckets against him but I just feel like it’s important to point out that sabonis gets his fair share of stops and has good defensive possessions as well and plus at the end of the day when he’s

Doing stuff like this on offense where he is literally controlling entire possessions and bending the defense to his will and creating baskets just off of himself by himself his you know gravitation whatever you want to say it’s fully Worth to have him on the court because he is a special talent so

Overall you I just I’m confused at this point when I see Talking Heads in the NBA media World say things like oh the Kings aren’t going anywhere until they upgrade damont sabonis or they’re not going to win a championship until they solve the sabonis problem because sabonis isn’t the problem he is the

Farthest thing from the problem on this king’s team if you want to talk about problems maybe talk about the fact that Kevin herder is wildly inconsistent and probably not a starter caliber guy in the NBA or talk about the fact that their bench is really really not good

Outside of Malik monk or maybe like the occasional good Daven Mitchell game either way sabonis has been the clear-cut best player on this team I’d be very interested to see if the Kings can secure a playoff spot and finish in that five to six seed range because obviously with the embiid injury he’s

Not going to win MVP and I would love to see not not necessarily see sabonis win MVP because that’s obviously never going to happen but I’d be interested to see what the discourse around sabonis is for MVP if the Kings do clinch that playoff spot cuz again just based off of the

Stats in it test alone sabonis has been an m VP level guy his impact on this team is incredible again with Darren Fox playing inconsistently he is the entire offensive engine for this team and if he struggles then the entire team struggles overall I would just like to see some

More love for damont sabonis because he deserves it but that’s all go for this one as always if you enjoyed make sure to like comment subscribe all those good things and I’ll catch y’all in the next one

It’s time for NBA fans to realize that Domantas Sabonis is playing at an MVP level for the Sacramento Kings and their mediocre record is not a reflection of him.

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