It's time for the Kings to go back in the tank

Sacramento was awful for more than a decade before a brief respite in the competitive zone. It's time to tear it down again.

Good morning. It's Free Newsletter Wednesday. Let's basketball.

As it has always been, sometimes an NBA franchise decides to tank and sometimes that decision is made for an NBA franchise. The Sacramento Kings, who were a relatively young No. 3 seed just three seasons ago, had no intention of losing 50 games this year. That decision was made for them through transactions that haven't worked out, injuries to key personnel and inexplicable benching of players who could help. The Kings are 12-36, and likely to finish with the Western Conference's worst record. The decision was made for them, though the team's decisions inadvertently helped the process: the Kings are tanking this season.

Now it's clear that the Kings should tank for the next couple of seasons, too.

With a fandom that went through the hell of three consecutive rebuilding cycles between 2007 and 2023 with no intermediate successes during that span, no one knows better than Kings backers that not at all tank jobs are created equally. For every Thunder rebuild there are two or three botched attempts. The Kings in particular are prone to botching those attempts through bad lottery picks, poor relationship management and mindnumbing coaching hirings and firings. Even when they make an inspired pick – like Tyrese Haliburton, for example – they squander it before it bears real fruit.

We've seen teams rebound quickly in the Apron Era (and even prior) as the NBA seeks to install NFL-style parity, where almost every team has tangible hope on a year-to-year basis. Even this year, the Raptors and Suns have seen extraordinary improvement compared to expectations. Last year, it was the Pistons and Rockets. These teams' successes has lent weight to the argument that in lieu of multi-year down-to-the-studs rebuilds, retooling can work.

But that ignores that all of those teams had either superstar young talent or a broad base of talent and assets. The Kings have neither.

The Pistons had Cade Cunningham, who could very well make first team All-NBA this season. The Kings haven't had a first team All-NBA talent since peak Chris Webber. The Pistons also had a wide base of talent around Cade, including All-Star caliber Jalen Duren. The Rockets had Alperen Sengun and a rising Amen Thompson, along with a bunch of interesting if flawed young players (Jalen Green, Tari Eason) and some crucial veterans (Dillon Brooks, Steven Adams, Fred VanVleet). The Raptors have Scottie Barnes and a pretty high talent floor with Brandon Ingram, R.J. Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and multiple solid bench players. The Suns have Devin Booker and some great shooters and added the aforemention Brooks and other good defenders. The Kings don't have anyone on the level of Booker, Cade or Barnes, and while Domantas Sabonis when healthy if roughly the production equivalent of Sengun, the talent around that player even last year presented a stark difference, especially once the Kings traded De'Aaron Fox for Zach LaVine.

The theory of the post-Fox Kings is comprehensible: Sabonis plus shooting – LaVine, Keegan Murray as a small four – should provide enough offensive punch to win games. The problem is that the fourth starter on that team was DeMar DeRozan when it needed to be a defensive wing or another shooter. The additional problem is that the fifth starter on that team did not exist. There was no point guard that Doug Christie was willing to play last season after the trade, so the offense was consistently discombobulated. The Kings signed Dennis Schroder to an above-market deal in the summer, and he got yanked from the starting lineup in November, never to return.

Meanwhile, a Sabonis-DeRozan-LaVine lineup is never going to be even passable defensively. You could put prime Kawhi and Dennis Rodman on the floor with them and they might be 15th in the league in defensive rating. When it's Precious Achiuwa and Russell Westbrook? No chance.

Murray is purportedly the team's best young hope, but he's missed 29 games, is now on a large contract and has neither become a top-flight defender nor maintained his 41% rookie season clip from three. He either needs to become an efficient volume scorer a la Michael Porter Jr. or a two-way demon. He's neither, even when healthy. His development, likely disrupted by the mindless coaching change last season and certainly affected by the addition of DeRozan and eventual trade of Harrison Barnes, has been disappointing.

Sabonis is one of the league's best rebounders, a smart passer and someone who won't shoot and can't really protect the rim. He's a man increasingly out of time. The counting stats will always look good, but it's quite possible that his game only worked at a high level when paired with a quick-twitch point guard (Fox) and shooting (Barnes, rookie Murray and Malik Monk). He put up numbers in Indiana, too, but the team didn't win.

Zach LaVine is Zach LaVine. He can at times be slightly underrated and at times be severely overrated. He has a sustained record as a great shooter and solid scorer. And that's it. You're getting nothing else: little rim pressure, no defense, no playmaking.

Gods bless DeRozan, gods bless Westbrook: they are playing basically all of the time. There is no future with either, of course, but they can be a good show. The Kings have held on to DeRozan so far past the sell-by date that you might as well just keep him now. He clearly doesn't have much of a market and he's not hurting your lottery positioning by virtue of his presence.

Keon Ellis is easily the team's best defender; he's averaging 17.5 minutes per game. There's something about him that Doug Christie refuses to relent on. You can't say that Christie is more focused on getting offense onto the floor, because Monk – the team's best three-point shooter this season – has seen his minutes shrink, too.

With the exception of Murray, whose value is low right now, the team needs to try to trade all of the aforementioned players over the next year, plus Schroder and maybe Achiuwa (who has proven useful enough to get minutes for a good team, maybe). There's no future here for any of them here, including Sabonis and LaVine.

(On Murray: he's kind of in that Deni Avdija zone in terms of evident talent and age when the Wizards decided to include him in their teardown. But per-minute statistics reflect that Avdija, who was younger when the Wizards traded him than Murray is now, has better signs of upside across the board – playmaking, rim-attacking – than Murray does. So even if you think the Wizards should have kept Avdija amid their teardown similar to the Thunder keeping Shai, Murray isn't at that – Avdija's – level of potential. Unfortunately.)

There is also not a single blue chip prospect on the roster. Maxime Raynaud has some promise; I like what I've seen from Nique Clifford and Dylan Cardwell. None of them look like future All-Stars. So the Kings need every bite at the apple they can get over multiple years. Sacramento has its own pick for each of the next five drafts (they owe San Antonio a 2031 swap from the DeRozan trade). Can they get a first for any of their existing players? Reports suggest they think they can land a first for Ellis; color me skeptical. Sabonis, LaVine and Murray are on big contracts, which are anathema to the current team-building paradigm for sub-superstar players. It doesn't matter: lose them so you can lock in the West's worst record this year, next year and maybe one more year, depending on how the drafts pan out. It's time to build a new base of talent. This build gave you one glorious season and two more weird but somewhat successful(-ish) ones. It's completely over. Rip it down, try again. Give the fans some hope for a truly better tomorrow.

More

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Cam Johnson on the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the occupation of Minnesota.

Scores

Blazers 111, Wizards 115 – Skal Labissiere is back in the NBA! Great to see it. Alex Sarr is on the right path.

Kings 87, Knicks 103 – There was an attempt ... to post up Russell Westbrook.

Bucks 122, Sixers 139 – Do you want to see Joel Embiid finish a transition alley-oop? No need to hold your breath!

Tyrese Maxey, you're a madman.

Paul George is looking real good many nights. Milwaukee's defense is awful, but nine threes is something. I remain intrigued by our dear Sixers.

Pelicans 95, Thunder 104 – Scuffle time. Lu Dort acts exceptionally rude toward rookie Jeremiah Fears at the buzzer, and the Pelicans aren't cool with that.

Fears appeared to try to make his way toward Dort in the tunnels, too, but was stopped by the Pelicans staff and Zion Williamson, who is apparently now a grizzled vet. Huh.

New Orleans had the game within five in the fourth. Oklahoma City's offense without Jalen Williams is looking shaky (for Oklahoma City), and the defensive rebounding without Isaiah Hartenstein continues to be a huge issue (the Pels had 21 o-boards).

Pistons 109, Nuggets 107 – The ramshackle Nuggets almost did it again. Tobias Harris hit a clutch jumper to put Detroit up three with 18 seconds left. Denver went no timeout and put the ball in the hands of Jamal Murray, who was 0/6 from deep for the game. He danced on Javonte Green and ... drew a foul on a three-pointer with four seconds left! But then Murray missed the first free throw before hitting the second and third. One-point Detroit lead. Denver has a foul to give, so they get in two quick take fouls to put Harris at the line; he sinks both. Denver takes a timeout this time with two seconds left. Side out-of-bounds, Denver down three. Let's take it from there.

That was damn near a BRUTAL trip to overtime for the Pistons, and instead is a BRUTAL regulation loss for the Nuggets. I'm not sure Javonte Green is allowed to guard shooters in clutch situations any more.

Nets 102, Suns 106 – Two-point game, tie-up on a loose ball, and rookie Egor Demin just ... pushes Dillon Brooks over, starting a fracas.

Demin did this and casually walked away. Incredible.

The Nets didn't score again. Hell, the Suns barely scored again after this.

Clippers 115, Jazz 103 – Lauri Markkanen played for the first time in two weeks. Let's see if he and Keyonte George can rekind – wait a minute.

Ah. Sure. The Jazz started the season 10-15. They are 5-17 since then.

Schedule

All times Eastern.

Lakers at Cavaliers, 7, ESPN
Bulls at Pacers, 7
Hawks at Celtics, 7:30
Magic at Heat, 7:30
Knicks at Raptors, 7:30
Hornets at Grizzlies, 8
Timberwolves at Mavericks, 8:30
Warriors at Jazz, 9
Spurs at Rockets, 9:30, ESPN

Be excellent to each other.