Fantasy Basketball: Sacramento Kings Coaching Impact Change
In the early morning hours on Monday it was reported by Adrian Wojnarowski that the Sacramento Kings had fired head coach Mike Malone and Tyrone Corbin would take over as the interim coach. Considering the Kings’ struggles coincided with DeMarcus Cousins being out it was a surprising move. Here we’re not trying to figure out whether firing Malone was right or wrong, but the impact it will have for fantasy basketball.
The first issue to tackle in letting Malone go sounds like it will have a significant impact on their style play. From all reports there was a disconnect between the front office and Malone regarding style of play. According to NBA.com, Sacramento played at pace of 95.7, which ranked 16th across the league. Sacramento’s NBADL team plays at far and away the fastest pace in the league (h to Jacob Rosen — follow him @WFNYJacob).
Tyrone Corbin’s teams with the Jazz were never known to play fast, but I’m going to assume the reason he was appointed head coach was because he agreed to do what the higher-ups in the Kings organization wanted.
From a fantasy perspective this all good news. The faster a team plays the more opportunities there are two accumulate raw stats. If you want to play fast you would also figure the team would try to play smaller. The majority of Sacramento’s top played lineups feature two traditional big men. I would expect this to change. I’d downgrade Reggie Evans, Jason Thompson, Ryan Hollins and Carl Landry more than they already are.
When Cousins comes back, Rudy Gay, Darren Collison and Ben McLemore all play plus 30 minutes and there’s no reason to see any change coming. What you probably will see is more Cousins at the five with Gay at the four.
The interesting players to keep an eye on are the wings plus guards not currently getting significant time — Derrick Williams, Ramon Sessions, Nik Stauskas and Ray McCallum all have the opportunity to steal minutes. Williams is a better fit as a small ball four, Sessions/McAllum can play in two point guard lineups and Stauskas can pick up backup PG minutes or get more time at the two with McLemore sliding over to the three.
Unless you have dead weight on your roster these are all monitor situations more than going to grab right now. If you’re really desperate Williams, Sessions or Stauskas would be the immediate adds with McCallum being a true have to see this actually happen before doing something. This change also has the potential to lead to more three-pointers which has good upside for Stauskas. He’s a tremendously skilled offensive player that can fill a variety of roles as he gets more acclimated to the speed of the NBA game.
There’s no guarantee here, but depending on how quickly Corbin implements the vision of the front office, some of the Kings’ supporting players will have an opportunity to have a bigger fantasy impact than most expected at the beginning of the season.