With their rebuild underway, the Sacramento Kings will have to rely on retaining and adding the right mix of veteran players to nurture the development of their many young and promising players.
Just three games remain in the regular season for the Sacramento Kings before the start of a long and hopefully eventful offseason.
The beginning of the post-DeMarcus Cousins era has mostly gone how everyone predicted it would and there is the real need for the Kings to keep their draft picks they currently have tied up in pick swaps with the Chicago Bulls and the Philadelphia 76ers.
Of course, there’s been more to the story for the Kings, as they’ve gotten an extended look at the many young players who they hope will bring them out of their mediocrity in the years to come. Players like Buddy Hield, Willie Cauley-Stein and Skal Labissiere have all impressed in their steady amount of minutes and each has come up big in various ways down the stretch.
Same goes for a player like Georgios Papagiannis, who has shown flashes in his growing amount of minutes. But as the “kids” have started to come into their own, it’s also come at the expense of the many veterans that are still present on the roster, even through the many changes.
Ranging from players like Darren Collison and Garrett Temple to Kosta Koufos and Anthony Tolliver, the Kings, specifically head coach Dave Joerger, have turned to resting multiple veterans at a time for many of the team’s games over recent weeks.
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Needing to keep their pick as well as getting some much-needed experience for Cauley-Stein, Labissiere, Hield and Papagiannis, it’s ultimately the right play for the Kings to make down the final stretch of the year.
However, it’s just the start of the balance the Kings need to strike for the foreseeable future between playing the newcomers and playing the tried and true players.
Many of the veterans were originally acquired to help build a productive supporting cast around an All-Star talent in Cousins and fight for playoff contention. Now, they’re doing their part to help foster positive development from a player’s perspective.
In a recent interview with Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee, Garrett Temple addressed the change in mentality and going from playing on a team with a superstar talent like Cousins to playing with rookies or second-year players who have limited experience:
"“The players that are playing have gotten a lot younger so it’s more of a teaching, mentoring role,” Temple said. “Whereas when Cuz was here, if I’m talking to him it’s more of a keeping him calm, talking more nuances of the game, things that we can do better as a team. But with the young guys it’s a lot of specifics about how to get open, how to defend, ways to teach them the veteran tricks we all have learned in our years in the league.”"
That shift from a team focused on making the playoffs to focusing on the future could have had disastrous effects following the Cousins trade. But that couldn’t be any further from the truth, even as winning results have remained elusive.
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The question now for the Kings is how to carry this formula over into the next year and beyond.
Due to some shrewd negotiating last offseason, the Kings will be able to retain a few key players like in the case of Temple and Tolliver (it should be noted that Tolliver’s contract has a guarantee date on June 1, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders).
On the other hand, some veterans could be expendable (Arron Afflalo quickly comes to mind) and others like Darren Collison may have some demand from teams around the league this summer.
At this stage of the season, the Kings can take a long look at what the future holds and the stars have aligned where they can do so. But even with the change in philosophy, real roles will still have to be in place for players who have years of experience under their belts and will be looked upon to help push the many young players in the right direction.
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Selling the rebuilding situation to free agents this offseason is not an easy task, but at this point, that’s the necessary thing to do for the Kings to truly move forward.