Sacramento Kings: 2018-19 NBA season preview
By Luke Swiatek
Storyline 1: Was Marvin Bagley III the right pick?
It was reported pretty early in the draft process that Deandre Ayton was going to the Phoenix Suns, and once he shut down his workouts, that became pretty clear. After him, some Sacramento Kings fans considered Luka Doncic to be the only other can’t-miss prospect. So when the Kings took Bagley instead… they didn’t take it so well.
Bagley is gong to have his work cut out separating himself from the other mass of bigs on the roster. Randolph and Koufos saw a lot of playing time last year, and Willie Cauley-Stein and Skal Labissiere are still making cases for themselves as starters as well. Bjelica’s best position is the 4, and Giles might have the highest upside of any of them.
However, Bagley will get a lot of minutes based on his pedigree alone. It’s his job to turn those minutes into production. As a player whose best abilities are his scoring and rebounding, he could put up close to a 20-10 stat line in his very first season.
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It’s not the numbers that will define him though. DeMarcus Cousins got a lot of points and rebounds, and look how that turned out. Bagley’s athleticism could allow him to be a better player than Cousins ever was.
It starts with his defense, the biggest knock on him coming into the draft. There’s a chicken-egg problem with Bagley’s defense and the zone that Duke ran last year — did his defense look bad because he was hidden in the corner of a zone, or did he get hidden in the corner because his defense was so bad?
With Bagley’s tools, he has the capability to be a solid, multi-positional defender, but he has to show some flashes of ability and the willingness to commit to defense this year. If he could develop his right hand around the rim, that wouldn’t hurt either.