NBA Power Rankings: 2014-15 Western Conference Projections

13.  Sacramento Kings — 31-51

Hardest month:  November  (.572)

Weakest month:  April  (.436)

Back-to-backs:  17

Any organization that wins 28 games shouldn’t be the home to three  20+ point per game scorers, or provide Team USA with two extremely helpful athletes.  It doesn’t add up.  It never did for Sacramento.

DeMarcus Cousins grew up in front of us all, from a playing perspective.  There was no other center across the league’s horizon with a better PER (26.18), Value Added (534.5), or Estimated Wins Added (17.8).  The different spin that “Value Added” takes is that it estimates the number of points a player adds to his team, above what a replacement player (bench asset) would produce.

To be overwhelmed, take those figures and consider that Cousins’ production in the middle last season contributed to nearly of 18 of Sacramento’s 28 total wins.  Dwight Howard wouldn’t even walk up to you and argue that he was more significant to his team.  He knows Cousins’ attitude.

Bingo, if you guessed the part of his game that hasn’t matured, or grown to be the best of the center position.  Cousins wants Chris Paul out of his sight, and any opposing big man that gets their money’s worth on a hard foul.  He’s become the referees’ worst enemy, but still isn’t to the level of Rasheed Wallace — and never will be.

When Pete D’Alessandro pulled the trigger and sent John Salmons, Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson, and Chuck Hayes to Toronto in exchange for Rudy Gay, the belief was one of positivity on the Raptors’ end.  They were ridding themselves of a lackluster leader on the court (and locker room), and finally building around DeMar DeRozan, their true star on the perimeter.

Through 55 games with Gay, though, the Kings felt their fate change for the better.  The experiment worked in terms of playing how they wanted, and making games more competitive.  The wins didn’t come, but Sleep Train Arena rarely went quiet when they knew three guys (Cousins, Gay, Isaiah Thomas) would explode in individual spurts, or as a whole.

Before the trade for Gay (Dec. 8), the Kings were attempting 21.6 triples per game, putting them 13th overall in the league.  In return, it was making them an average squad in terms of getting into the paint and drawing fouls, ranking 15th in free throw attempts at 23 per night.

After Gay threw on purple and black?  The Kings sky-rocketed to fourth overall in trips to the charity stripe, taking 28.3 per game, an average increase of 5.3.  It also limited their outside shooting to 16.9 per game, making them more of a halfcourt threat, and a team that wouldn’t be afraid to attack the rim off pick-and-rolls.

Despite using their 2013 draft selection on Ben McLemore — an underachieving shooting guard — they elected to do the same in 2014 by grabbing Nik Stauskas from Michigan.  It only creates more room for Cousins and Gay to have freedom without seeing multiple double teams thrown at them each possession.  The constant pressure and help from other defenders forced the Kings to turn the ball over 974 times after obtaining Gay, which was the second-most since Dec. 13.

Defensively, head coach Mike Malone has to work magic and stress nothing but intensity during training camp.  There’s no making the playoffs (as Cousins predicted this summer) unless you stop getting scorched from the outside.  Losing Thomas and happily replacing him with a backup in Darren Collison doesn’t necessarily give them any assistance there, neither.

Nothing more than 31 wins for a group that won’t figure out how to limit scoring from the steeper competition.  It’s also the number of curses you hear from Cousins on a daily basis when he realizes his goal is just as impractical as last season.