Sacramento Kings: 2018-19 NBA season preview
By Luke Swiatek
Storyline 3: Who else has star potential?
Bagley and Fox appear to be the two future cornerstones of the Sacramento Kings, but they won’t be getting any top picks in the draft this year to add a third. If someone already on the team could become a star, that would greatly help the Kings’ timeline.
Who could it be though? Guys like Willie Cauley-Stein, Justin Jackson, Frank Mason III, Yogi Ferrell and Ben McLemore project more as high-floor, low-ceiling role players. They’ll help the team out, but they aren’t players to build around.
The three main candidates are Bogdanovic, Hield and Giles. Bogdanovic was arguably the best players on the Sacramento Kings last year, and he was the second-leading scorer behind only Cauley-Stein. However, he’s pretty old for a sophomore (26), so it’s unlikely that he’ll get a whole lot better over the next few years.
Hield has shown flashes of being at least close to what Vivek Ranadive thinks he is. He increased his per-36 stats across the board from last year, and shot a scorching 43.1 percent on 3-pointers. However, he’s not much more than a scorer right now (only 1.9 assists a game) and he’ll have to round out his game to become a star.
Giles was one of the best players in his high school class, but injuries have held him back the last few years. He played well in Summer League, but he’ll need to at least stay healthy for a year before the team can figure out what he really is.