2016-17 Record: 32-50
Players Added: De’Aaron Fox (Draft), Harry Giles (Draft), Justin Jackson (Draft), Frank Mason (Draft), Vince Carter (FA), Zach Randolph (FA), George Hill (FA), Bogdan Bodganovic (Owned Draft Rights), Jakarr Sampson (FA), Jack Cooley (FA)
Players Lost: Darren Collison (FA), Tyreke Evans (FA) , Langston Galloway (FA), Rudy Gay (FA), Ty Lawson (FA), Ben McLemore (FA).
Projected Team MVP: Buddy Hield
The Sacramento Kings’ MVP for the 2017-18 season is tough to predict. This race is wide-open, but Buddy Hield gets the questionable nod here simply because he’s the youngest Sacramento King that showed the most potential last season. After Hield was traded to Sacramento from New Orleans in the blockbuster DeMarcus Cousins trade, Hield posted an impressive 15.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 1.8 assists in 29.1 minutes per game while shooting .428 from three, and .480 from the field. Buddy was good in Sacramento. Really good. It was 25 games, so you can insert the small sample size caveat here, but he passed both the eye-test and numbers-test with flying colors. Hield is going to have competition, however.
The Kings are loaded with young talent, and it’s impossible to determine exactly which young players will emerge from the pack like Hield did last season. Bodgan Bodganovic is finally coming over to the states after dominating overseas, and he could easily be the Kings’ MVP when all is said and done. You could say the same for George Hill, Skal Labissiere, Willie Cauley-Stein, Justin Jackson, or nearly everyone else on the roster, honestly. The Kings won’t be very good next season, but they have a lot of young talent worth watching.
Team X-Factor: Justin Jackson
If you look at the Kings’ depth chart, you’ll notice a gaping hole at small forward. Truthfully, North Carolina rookie Justin Jackson is the only player who should play there, in a perfect world, but this is the Sacramento Kings we’re talking about here. It’s never a perfect world.
They have Vince Carter, who can and will spend time at the three, but he’s 40 years old. Relying on him to hold down that position would be a mistake. It’s not happening. They have a plethora of guards that will be forced to play there, and while this will be far less of a concern on offense, having Hield, or Bogdanovic, or Malachi Richardson, or Garrett Temple defending some of the bigger forwards in the NBA could be a disaster, and that’s why Justin Jackson is the Kings’ X-factor.
Jackson is your prototypical NBA three. He isn’t the best athlete you’ll ever see, but he’s long. He’s polished offensively. He can shoot. He’s a smart kid who seems to know his limitations. If he grabs the Kings’ open small forward position and doesn’t look back, that’s a huge win for the Kings not only this season, but also many seasons into the future.
De’Aaron Fox is an honorable mention here, and if the Kings hadn’t signed George Hill, he’d probably be the guy. The Kings did sign Hill, however, meaning they can take it slow with De’Aaron Fox. They don’t need him to be good right away, because George Hill is pretty good in his own right. They kind of need Justin Jackson to give them something special, and if he does, the Kings could be a little bit better than everyone is predicting.
Best Case Scenario:
The best case scenario for the Sacramento Kings couldn’t be more clear. Due to the much-maligned pick swap salary dump trade the Kings made with the Philadelphia 76ers a couple of summers ago, they don’t have their own first round pick in 2019.
In other words, this is the last time they’ll be in the NBA Draft Lottery until 2020. They need another top-5 pick this year. They need to lose, and lose a lot while also developing their core. Thankfully, they have plenty of young talent that could provide Kings fans with a fun product on the court while they lose their way to another top draft selection.
Worst Case Scenario:
If the Kings somehow, someway make the playoffs this season, you’d almost have to count that as a win because it likely means the young talent in Sacramento is so good that they were able to carry the Kings through a brutal Western Conference and into the playoffs. That scenario is incredibly unlikely, if not impossible, but necessary to provide context for what the real worst case scenario is for the Sacramento Kings this season.
If they lose just enough games to miss both the playoffs and a top-10 draft pick, that is nothing short of a disaster for the Sacramento Kings. Anything from the 10th-14th draft selection on draft night would put the Kings in a tough spot. They really need a Michael Porter, or a Marvin Bagley, or a Luka Doncic, and winning enough games to jeopardize that could come back to bite them.
