Sacramento Kings: Looking back at Tyreke Evans’ historic rookie year

He might have been in decline soon after, but Tyreke Evans’ rookie season with the Sacramento Kings remains one of the best in NBA history.

The Sacramento Kings were not supposed to pick fourth in the 2009 NBA Draft. Their 17-65 record, a league-worst and the fewest wins in franchise history, was supposed to position a franchise long past its glory days for the draft’s ultimate prize. An uber-athletic and surefire All-Star out of Oklahoma named Blake Griffin.

Alas, Sacramento wasn’t the first to watch its hopes crushed under the impact of the lottery system, dropping them three spots to the No. 4 slot.

Griffin may have been on a level all his own, but the gap between his fellow draftees wasn’t too significant where the Kings couldn’t walk away with a high caliber player. After Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet and James Harden went off the board, the burden fell on Tyreke Evans to get Kings fans to forget what they believed to be missing out on.

Evans was coming off a one-and-done season at the University of Memphis with averages of 17.1 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game. He possessed a point guard’s game in a 6’6” body, shifty off the dribble and explosive getting to the bucket.

That multilayered game offered a semblance of positional versatility. Sliding into the point guard spot also ensured a positional battle between him and Kevin Martin, coming off a career-high and team-leading 24.6 points per game the prior season, wouldn’t commence.

The two may have comprised a talented backcourt, but the season’s beginning proved difficult for both to simultaneously thrive.

While Marting got off to a scorching start averaging 30.6 points over the first five games, Evans scored in double-figures only twice on a combined 22-of-62 effort. The Kings lost four of those five outings.

An injury to Martin derailed one of the league’s hottest scorers but wound up being a blessing in disguise to Evans, allowing further control of Sacramento’s offense. He responded immediately by averaging 23.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game over the next four outings, all wins.

The Sacramento Kings couldn’t maintain those winning ways, promptly losing four straight. But with Martin still on the mend, Evans was further empowered with the ball in his hands and wound up building a name as one of the games brightest young stars.

By the time Martin returned in mid-January, the franchise’s hierarchy had been permanently adjusted. He was traded to the Houston Rockets almost five weeks later.

Evans was a relentless attacker of the basket, leading the league in nightly restricted area field goal attempts at 8.5, tied at second in makes — with Dwyane Wade — behind only LeBron James.

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That aggressiveness bred 6.5 free-throw attempts per game, just the third rookie since the turn of the century to surpass that mark.

Incredible outings included nine points in the final 2:13 to help the Kings complete a 35-point second-half comeback against the Chicago Bulls in December. It was the biggest comeback since the Utah Jazz erased a 36-point deficit against the Denver Nuggets in 1996.

There was the Rising Stars Challenge MVP at All-Star Weekend after dropping 26 points, six rebounds, five assists and five steals in a victory for the rookie squad.

His first career triple-double came on March 10 when he produced 19 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in a 23-point blowout over the Toronto Raptors.

Despite missing out on the postseason for the fourth consecutive season, an eight-game improvement brought Sacramento’s record to 25-57, with Evans serving as one of the few bright spots.

Only three previous players had ever surpassed averages of 20-5-5 in their first year. Evans joined a list of Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James by producing 20.1 points, 5.8 assists and 5.3 rebounds along with 1.5 steals per game.

The exclusive club he was now a member of was more than enough to earn Rookie of the Year Honors — the year-long absence of Griffin to injury certainly helped as well.

If this was only the introduction, Evans’ potential appeared limitless. It was some type of beginning. Unfortunately, a remarkable rookie season marked the peak of a career that faded more and more with each year.

Evans’ scoring, rebounding and passing would dip in each of the next three seasons — his scoring would further fall to 14.5 a game in 2013-14. By that point, he was a member of the New Orleans Pelicans, although the change of scenery hardly helped him reclaim some semblance of his best self.

Injuries played their role. Evans missed 25 games as a sophomore while battling season-long plantar fasciitis. He sat 17 in 2012-13 and all but 25 outings in 2015-16.

After a bounce-back season with a depleted Memphis Grizzlies team in 2017-18, one year with the Indiana Pacers came before Evans was slapped with a two-year suspension for violating the NBA’s anti-drug program

As much as it says about the ups and downs of his career, none of that quite explains the steady drop off of a talent who should’ve further been elevated by the perimeter-friendly changes the NBA would undergo. Maybe such an answer doesn’t even exist, the rare instance of lightning caught in the bottle but lost soon after.

For what it’s worth, when Luka Doncic etched his rookie season in the 20-5-5 club last year, it called to memory Evans’ memorable inaugural campaign. It was a reminder of just how good he was. With a permanent spot among legends that can’t ever be taken away, no matter what the totality of his career winds up being.