Sacramento Kings: Working With What We Got

Sacramento Kings’ first-round pick Ben McLemore. (Photo Credit: NBA.com)

Interesting fact: Only two Sacramento Kings preseason games are supposed to be televised this season. Those two games already happened. So, for those of us not fortunate enough to be in attendance for the rest of Sacramento’s preseason schedule, their first two matchups — against the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers — are all we will have to go off of before the start of the season. That is somewhat limiting, especially since there was very little positive to take out of their matchup against the Warriors. But I think there may have been enough to take out of their second game against Los Angeles to form some impressions on what the 2013-14 incarnation of the Sacramento Kings will look like.

Before we get to that game, though, we should at least mention the craptacular that was Golden State and Sacramento’s first preseason game. The Kings’ looked bad on all fronts. Their defense was still unintelligibly scrambled and any offensive structure was non-existent. My favorite sequence of possessions was a collection of four or five straight Sacramento plays that led to DeMarcus Cousins post-ups. Cousins did not convert on a single one of those possessions and actually turned the ball over twice. Cousins did so some good things though — almost none of them on the offensive end, where Cousins was still content to fire away from the mid-range despite no noticeable improvement — in that he reminded us his potential on the defensive end. Cousins opened the game up by recording a steal, block and charge early on in the action. Cousins was great at accumulating defensive plays — blocks, steals and charges — last season and it appears he can continue to thrive in that capacity under Mike Malone. Whether they can parlay that into truly effective defense is still extremely questionable at this point — more on this later this week.

Game 2 brought much more to get excited about and much more for the Kings’ fans and coaching staff to hang their hat on. Specifically, it looked like the ineffectively chaotic nature of Sacramento’s offense and defense in the opener was simply a product of not having a lot of training camp time under their belt — which is understandable with a new coach at the reins. In simple terms, the Kings looked like an organized basketball team on both ends of the court against the Lakers. It is no secret the Kings were not the most structured team on offense or on defense during Keith Smart‘s tenure — Cousins has said as much — and that lack of general organization was one of the downfalls of the team over the past seasons. Those day appear to be long gone under new coach Mike Malone as the Kings look like more organized team on both ends of the court.

Offensively it is not as if they are revolutionizing the game of basketball, but again, anything is better than what was previously in place. Malone’s offense seems to be alternating between typical Horns action and early offense type sets that end with an overloaded weak side allowing two-man action or mid-post action. It is an interesting and potentially effective way to split Cousins’ time between the high post and the low post. I have talked about this before, but Cousins has a skill set that can accentuated by spending time at the high post, but playing there also hampers his ability to rebound on the offensive end and caters to his worst tendencies — pulling up from the mid-range, specifically. Spending times at both spots may bring the best of both worlds, as Cousins rebounded on both ends well against Los Angeles. There is still a problem with Cousins taking jump shots, but that seems unavoidable at this point. Despite half of Cousins’ touches coming lower, instead of at the elbow, none of Cousins offensive plays happened close to the basket. Frustratingly, every Cousins touch started 10 to 20 feet away from the basket and a large portion of them ended in jump shots. But again, there are at least offensive things happening this year, which leads you to believe they can at least maintain on that end this year.

The real improvement seems to be happening on the defensive end. Again, it is way too early to deem this teem supremely effective on the defensive end, but there is definitely a base and structure at work. The team was communicating in general, defenders played on a string in pick-and-roll scenarios, the ball was kept up the sidelines and getting the ball into the middle or in the paint was genuinely difficult for the Lakers’ offense. These are things the top defenses have been executing for a few years now and it is still questionable whether this team can execute on an above average level consistently. But based on what we have seen so far, I would project the Kings are significantly better than last year’s bottom feeder defensive production.

Two players in particular seem to be grasping Malone’s defense quicker than expected — Ben McLemore and Jason Thompson. Thompson was extremely effective defending the pick-and-roll against the Lakers. He did a good job of corralling ball handlers up the sideline and was decent at keeping them in front of him during pick-and-rolls started at the top. His general interior help still needs to improve, but it looks like he can been an effective defender under Mike Malone.

McLemore actually looked decent on both ends of the court, not necessarily with his “draft’s best” talent, but with his understanding of the game. That is, he seems to be picking up on the concepts of NBA defense much quicker than younger guards tend to. Over the first two games I cannot recall seeing him get lost on defense and against the Lakers he actually stood out as one of Sacramento’s more competent wing defenders. Offensively also, though his shot is not falling with great efficiency, McLemore is showing a veteran’s understanding of floor spacing and movement. He is rarely harmfully stationary without the ball and cuts to the basket very intuitively. He also relentlessly attacks the offensive glass, which will be a welcome addition to Kings’ below average offensive rebounding — Cousins is the only real force in that regard for Sacramento. Look, the translation of his jump shot from the the college game to the NBA is still raises questions for me and he is continuing to prove he will probably never be a player capable of creating his own shot. But wings who can create for themselves are becoming less necessary as the NBA evolves. McLemore fits the prototype of the 3D wings that are becoming a necessity to maintain teams’ defense and floor spacing. If he can keep up his work defensively, continue to show intuitive understanding of spacing on offense and develop a upper tier 3-point touch, McLemore will be a great asset for the Sacramento Kings going forward.

Overall there is a lot of good to take out of the Kings second preseason showing. We will take a look at some of the bad — specifically with regards to DeMarcus Cousins — later on in the week.

[slider_pro id=”26″]