Sacramento Kings Are Actually Good?

16 years, 192 months, 5,845 days, over 500 million seconds. That’s how long it has been since the Sacramento Kings made the playoffs, which is the longest playoff drought throughout NBA history. But there seems to be hope for Kings fans as Sac-town has climbed up to the 5th seed with a 17-13 record.

And it all started back in February 2022, the Kings traded their very promising young star, Tyrese Haliburton, who is arguably a top 3-point guard in the NBA right now, for Lithuanian big-man Domantas Sabonis. Everyone was clowning the King’s front office and many Kings fans were ready to be put on suicide prevention. “dumb franchise”, “Why did you trade him, this franchise is horrible”, ‘Y’all idiots for trading him”, “Y’all are an L organization”, “at this point y’all want to lose”, “SACRAMENTO IS THE BIGGEST L ORGANIZATION”, “L team”, “what a joke” and someone even thought it was the worst trade in NBA history.
But this couldn’t be further from the truth, as Domantas Sabonis is playing incredible, his last 4 games, he’s averaging 21 points, 19 rebounds, and 8 assists on nearly 70% FG and 60% from 3. Domantas has also had three 20-point 20 rebound games so far, leading the NBA in rebounds per game with 12.4.

But Sabonis isn’t the only player on the Kings doing well, De’Aaron Fox is playing better than ever. In his last 4 games, he’s averaging 28 points 5 rebounds and 7 assists and this season is his most efficient shooting season by far. Fox had this third 35+ point game this season with 37 points in a loss to the Charlotte Hornets. Scoring 17 points in the fourth quarter, continuing his emergence as one of the league’s most elite clutch scorers.

The new addition of Malik Monk and Kevin Huerter was great for the Kings. Both are great high-volume, highly efficient shooters, creating pressure for the defense on the perimeter. Kevin Huerter is shooting over 40% from 3 with 7 attempts per game and Malik Monk is averaging career highs all across the stat sheet. Not to mention the addition of Keegan Murray, the 4th pick in the 2022 draft, who is top 4 among rookies in points per game, and in his first 5 games, he went crazy averaging 17.4 points 4 rebounds, and 1.4 assists on near 50/40/90 efficiency.
With all this added shooting, the Kings are actually able to space the floor and allow De’Aaron to attempt more drives to the rim, and it’s certainly working as De’Aaron is converting 79.5% of his finishes around the rim. That’s nearly 80%, which is usually seen with big men and centers, certainly not point guards.

All in all, it seems that the Tyrese/Sabonis trade was actually a very equal trade. Both teams went from Wembanyama sweepstakes to playoff contenders.

And none of this would’ve been possible without the almightly BEAM. The Sacramento Kings introduced the purple ‘victory beam’ after a win against the Heat on October 29th and ever since then, the #BeamTeam has been unstoppable.

(Kings are good, Kings are actually good, No one expected this, Playoffs, Beam, Victory Beam, Sacramento Kings Win)