Sacramento Kings: A Revitalized Rudy Gay Faces Uncertain Future

With plenty of uncertainty looming over him and his future with the Sacramento Kings, Rudy Gay is playing with something to prove, based on his hot start to the season.

Change has been nothing new for the Sacramento Kings over the last several years.

After an offseason with yet another coaching turnover and a massive overhauling of their roster, the Kings have looked like a team that’s working their way through a new style of play, now set under new head coach Dave Joerger.

At 4-7, there’s been a few signs of encouragement as well as impressive victories for the Kings in the opening weeks of the year, the biggest being a victory over the Toronto Raptors a week ago.

Nonetheless, the challenge of assembling a roster to compliment their star DeMarcus Cousins still exists for the Kings, thanks to an eclectic roster in place that’s largely underachieved to start the season.

With that said, the Kings have had as dependable of a go-to player outside of Cousins so far this year, one whose future with the team for the foreseeable future is also cast with doubt.

Coming into the season, all eyes were on Rudy Gay for the reasons you’d expect when it comes to the Kings.

Similar to the almost constant trade talk that looms over Cousins, Gay’s name surfaced in multiple trade rumors, often at the most frenzied times of the offseason.

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His ensuing public comments regarding the trade rumors only added more fuel to the fire and it once again brought up the “same ol’ Kings” line of thinking that continues to emerge time and time again.

Now in what will likely be the final season under his current contract as he’ll reportedly opt out of the final year of his deal, Gay’s already showing he’s motivated with something to prove for this year and beyond.

In his first ten games of the season (Gay missed one due to injury), Gay’s averaging 22.3 points per game and has the highest true shooting percentage (58.8 percent) of regular rotation players on the Kings.

As a result, Gay’s scorching start has made him essential to the Kings as he holds a plus-4.3 net rating per 100 possessions when he’s on the court, per NBA.com/stats.

Conversely, Gay has the worst net rating (minus-20.9 points per 100 possessions) of all players on the Kings in the 191 minutes he’s been off the floor.