About Last Night – Kings Game 1

The season is off to a quick start (where did the summer go?), but the Kings, unfortunately, fell in their home opener to the Utah Jazz 123-117. However, the new roster showed a lot of fight and kept the game competitive deep into the fourth quarter. De’Aaron Fox kicked off his sophomore season flashing some newfound aggressiveness attacking the basket, finishing with 19 points on 8-for-15 shooting and seven assists.

The most surprising part of the game was just 12 minutes of game time for the number two overall pick, Marvin Bagley. Whether or not coach Dave Joerger believes the young forward is ready for primetime (he was a less-than-impressive -14 in the plus/minus department), choosing to play him so little in a close game is a baffling decision. Bagley is a HUGE part of this teams future and slowing his growth by having him sit during contested matchups isn’t doing anyone any favors. If this continues, Joerger might find himself as the subject of the “first coach fired” debates whether the time restriction is warranted or not.

Anyway, here are my other observations from last night:

Hot Start, Quick Cooldown

With 4:27 to go in the first quarter the Kings had a 25-9 lead and seemed to be in complete command of the game. Over the next 16:27, they were outscored 59-30. But what happened? The starting lineup (an odd pairing of Fox, Hield, Ferrell, Bjelica, and Cauley-Stein, a group that hadn’t played a single minute together in preseason) managed to pour in points, but when the reserves came on the floor, the defensive deficiencies seemed to appear in droves. Bagley made a few rookie mistakes, including a play where he died on a screen and then try to overplay to get back into the action, resulting in a foul on Crowder in the corner. He will have to show more aggression fighting through contact and then settle into defending shots without overplaying (some of the same issues he had at Duke). For a stretch of the second quarter, no one was guarding cutters on deep penetration (allowing the Jazz to shoot 16-of-19 on shots in the restricted area during the first half) and everyone seemed to forget Joe Ingles existed. Which leads to the next observation…

Small Forward is a Problem

Joe Ingles gave the Kings all kinds of fits during the last few minutes of the first quarter and all of the second, pouring in 17 points on 7-for-8 shooting. And the problem may be unavoidable; the Kings don’t have a ton of great options for defending lengthy small forwards. Right now, the only true small forward on the roster is Justin Jackson, but Jackson can be a tad flat-footed against players who can rip through and take him off the dribble. Shumpert, who pulled a few platoon minutes at the three, committed a few defensive errors, including a big one with 2:30 in the third where he fouled Jae Crowder on a three (pushing the lead from three to five in a close game). Coach Dave Joerger will need to either find some stopgap measure to address the woeful wing depth or he will have to find lineups with enough offensive potency to demand an answer.

Midrange Madness

The shot selection was downright… 90s-esque. In the first quarter, seven of the team’s fifteen baskets came between 8 and 18 feet, 7 of 10 in the second, 6 of 14 in the third… you get the idea. Fox made a living on midrange pick-and-roll shots at Kentucky and Hield has shown a penchant for scoring with long twos as well. The team needs to place a greater emphasis on side-to-side movement in order to warp the defense and find better looks.

Too many possessions last night ended with only one or two passes, usually moving the ball ahead, instead of swinging and searching for a good shot. Furthermore, a lot of the Kings best offensive stretches came from transition buckets. Getting quality looks in the half court will be critical for this team to grow down the stretch.  

Who is the real Willie Cauley-Stein?

Cauley-Stein has always been a fountain of potential. He is a quality rim-runner, has solid shot-blocking instincts, and can sucker defenses in with his roll gravity. But he has largely left a bad taste in the mouths of Kings fans. Last night he showed flashes of what he could be, going at Rudy Gobert and making hard cuts to the rim to the tune of 23 points on 18 shooting possessions. Can he continue to play with this tremendous energy? And if he does, what will happen with his impending restricted free agency?

How Do Yogi Ferrell and Nemanja Bjelica Fit In?

Both Yogi Ferrell and Nemanja Bjelica got the start last night and both had impressive plays throughout the game. Ferrell hit a monster three in transition for the Kings to cap off their third-quarter comeback (for a minute at least) and the drew an offensive foul on Donovan Mitchell a few minutes later. Bjelica might have been the Kings best player on opening night, posting an 18-point , seven rebound performance, scoring to keep the team in the game quite a few times in the second half and providing a beautiful highlight on a dribble handoff with Cauley-Stein in the third quarter.

But how do both of these players fit in with the Kings future plans? Bjelica is 30 and the Kings have a host of young forwards who will be in the purple and black for years to come, all of whom need as much court time as they can get. Whether Marvin Bagley sitting for the entire third quarter was in the playbook or Joerger called an audible because of the quality play of his starting four, Bagley needs to get a feel for close games and tough Western Conference opponents.

Ferrell is younger, only 25, so he might be more in line with the Kings’ timeline, but his role will be interesting with Fox and Hield drawing a large portion of the starting minutes (especially once Bogdanovic returns in November). The Kings might use him as trade bait late in the season or they might let him develop into an integral cog of the machine. Either way, he is found money on a two-year, $6.2 million deal.

Sorting out where these two fit into the rotation as the year progresses (and the projected starters get healthy) will certainly make for an interesting subplot. The Kings need to start prioritizing their future, not their now.

 

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