Sacramento Kings: 5 reasons to be excited for 2019-20 NBA season

3. Marvin Bagley III at powering forward

Having only started four games last year where he spent 54 percent of his time playing the center position, Marvin Bagley III is now primed to fight for the starting power forward role.

Bagley had a solid rookie season last year, posting numbers of 14.9 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.0 assist per game on 50.4 percent from the field and 31.3 percent from deep. Those were respectable numbers but even more impressive when it’s your rookie season.

Having a summer of development under his belt, Bagley will be looking to earn more starts this year. Following the addition of Dedmon, this doesn’t seem unlikely, as the two of them compliment each others game incredibly well.

Bagley can face-up on most power forwards in the league and either hurt them with a jumper or beat them off the dribble. Synergy has Bagley in the 83rd percentile for mid-range jump shots.

Dedmon figures to spend the majority of his time behind the arc on offense which suits Bagley’s mid-range game exceptionally well, hitting 46.5 percent of his mid-range attempts and ranking in the 83rd percentile. He will also be able to operate out of isolation situations should the need arise, seeing how he averaged 0.91 points-per-possession during isolation sets this past season.

Offensively Bagley looks to be ready for this change in role, but defensively he will need to show improvement before cementing the starting spot. He ranked only in the 29th percentile when guarding big men rolling to the basket and showed an inability to stop opponents in isolation where he allowed 1.1 points-per-possession while defending that play type. Dedmon should ease this though, by providing a solid anchor in which the other members of the team can pivot.

After averaging 25.3 minutes per game last year, Bagley will not see much of an increase in this aspect. Rather, he will see more of his minutes towards the start and end of games.