The Kings are scary

Spooky season isn't over just yet in Sacramento. PLUS: reactions from a plethora of weekend action.

Good morning. Let's basketball.

On paper, the Sacramento Kings had one of the easiest starts in the league. Over six games, they'd face just two 2025-26 playoff teams, one of them who came in via the play-in. The other four games were against other teams projected to finish down with them in the basement of the league. Surely with four games against real bad teams, you'll win one. But no: the Kings lost 'em all, and sit as the NBA's last winless teams at 0-6 after the Brooklyn Nets picked up a win on Sunday.

Part of what's happening is that the Memphis Grizzlies, who the Kings have played twice, are actually good, sitting now as the NBA's last undefeated team at 6-0. But that's cold comfort because, as I wrote last week, Memphis was just in the cellar with the Kings and has somehow turned it all around quickly again.

The Grizzlies are a great comparison for the Kings, given their non-glamour market status and lack of championship-level success for most of their entire existences. The Kings hit the skids and reset everything circa 2006. They experienced a 16-year playoff drought. Memphis had two separate competitive eras blossom in that time: the Grit 'n Grind era (seven straight playoff appearances, a conference finals, four series wins) and what I'll call, in a tribute to the amazing Draymond Green video, the Whoop That Trick era (four playoff appearances, one series win). Amid that second era, the Kings broke their drought with a playoff appearance in 2022-23. Sacramento actually finished No. 3 in the West, right behind Memphis at No. 2. Both teams lost in the first round, the Kings in a 7-game thriller that featured Draymond stomping a mud hole in Domantas Sabonis' chest and Stephen Curry putting the Capital City to sleep, and the Grizzlies in the infamous Poke the Bear series against LeBron and the Lakers.

Memphis was already falling apart; we just didn't know it yet. Ja Morant had been suspended toward the end of that regular season due to his first social media gun incident. Another offseason incident left him suspended 25 games to start 2023-24. He got injured almost as soon as he returned, and Memphis missed the playoffs. The Kings, too, missed the playoffs, albeit narrowly despite winning 46 games. (The often unsaid trouble for the Kings: they won 48 games in '23 and were the No. 3 seed, they won 46 in '24 and were the No. 9 seed. The West got really deep really fast.) The Grizzlies bounced back the following season to make the playoffs despite firing Taylor Jenkins a couple days before the end of the regular season (OKC punted them out with ease en route to a championship) while the Kings fired Mike Brown, traded De'Aaron Fox and landed back in the lottery.

Memphis proceeded with a year-long hard reset. The Kings messed around on the edges, but were forced into a real tank after most of their best players suffered injuries. The Grizzlies ended up with the No. 3 pick, the Kings at No. 7. And suddenly the Grizzlies are 6-0 and exciting and the Kings are 0-6 and dreadful. It's happening again: the Kings and Grizzlies bottomed out around the same time, and the Grizzlies are on the path to thriving while the Kings are mired in horror of their own design.

The plan is clear for Sacramento: explore everything Darius Acuff Jr. has to offer and build on that. And Acuff looks excellent, for what it's worth. He was spectacular individually against Memphis on Saturday.

He's fluid, he understand court geometry, the stroke is there often enough. He really is a junior version of Damian Lillard in terms of fluidity and calm. He starting to finish well at the rim too, at least over the last few games. He's a real bright spot.

But he's ... like, everything?