Sacramento Kings: 2017-18 NBA season preview
Storyline 1: Developing the foundation
If the second half of last year was the start of a youth movement for the Kings, this season will only prove it to an exponential degree with two-thirds of the roster made up of players who have either just started or are on their rookie-scale contract.
Of this foundation of promising players, there are five rookies (De’Aaron Fox, Justin Jackson, Harry Giles, Frank Mason III, Bogdan Bogdanovic), four second-year players (Buddy Hield, Georgios Papagiannis, Malachi Richardson, Skal Labissiere) and Willie Cauley-Stein, who will be heading into his third season.
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As you can see, the Kings have more players in need of playing time and seasoning than they have places for in the team’s rotation. Now, not every one of these players will see significant time on the NBA level.
Both Giles and Papagiannis will more than likely spend the majority of their development this year with the Kings’ G League affiliate, the Reno Bighorns. There’s a decent chance Richardson could follow them as well, who experienced a good deal of success individually while in Reno last year.
That theoretically leaves the rest of the Kings’ youngsters to battle for minutes between themselves as well as the team’s more established players up and down the lineup. Even then, some players may struggle to truly break through the rotation more often than not.
Through this lens, the youth movement won’t be exclusive to Sacramento as the development that occurs for the players who suit up with the Bighorns will share an equal importance this coming year and beyond for the entire organization’s rebuild.
How both coaching staffs in Sacramento and Reno go about managing the development of this many inexperienced players will be no easy feat and plenty of trust and patience will have to be developed to set this rebuild off on the right first step.