The national media have not exactly recognized the existence of the kings who are heading towards the restart of the NBA, apparently forgetting Sacramento altogether in the discussions on Western Conference no. 8 seeds.
Consequently, it is not surprising that ESPN has a low opinion of the kings compared to the other contenders for the playoff end point. Of the 22 teams that will be in Orlando, ESPN was 18th in Sacramento, ahead of only San Antonio and Phoenix in the West. It’s worth noting that the kings were already leading both the Spurs and the Suns in the conference standings, and that those teams lack LaMarcus Aldridge and Kelly Oubre Jr., respectively, for the rest of the season.
For ESPN’s Nick Friedell, the main question for the Kings is whether De’Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield can translate their individual performances into team success:
can he De’Aaron Fox is Buddy Loved take the challenge? Hield signed his extension in October, and Fox is queuing for a massive extension. Now is the time for both young players to bring the series back to the playoffs for the first time since 2006. The pair has an average of 40 points per game, but the two have yet to prove that they can raise those around them to a different level. to win. Now is the time.
The strange thing about that analysis is that it indicates that Fox and Hield are a couple, when in fact they only play 13 minutes per game together since the lineup change that made Hield a sixth man. Perhaps the fact that neither has achieved significant NBA success makes them a natural pairing, but Bogdan Bogdanovic doesn’t even have it, and that’s what actually starts alongside Fox.
This question also reduces the significant jumps that Fox and Hield made between 2017-18 and 2018-19. The Kings achieved a “different” level of winning in the couple’s second season together, winning 12 more games than the previous year. The improvement obviously was not linear, since Sacramento was not on track to win 49 games this year, but they made great strides as a backcourt and as a team, results that are diminished by the phrasing.
The Kings actually finished in 16th place in the last repeat of the ESPN rankings on March 9th, but have lost two places in the meantime. Sacramento hasn’t played since, but has been skipped from New Orleans and Portland. Blazers make some sense as they will have Zach Collins and Jusuf Nurkic healthy for seeding games, but they will also be without Trevor Ariza. Meanwhile, the pelicans are likely to be less whole than they were in March, as an unnamed player was replaced by Sindarius Thornwell for the restart.
This team is used to being overlooked, both in national coverage and in power rankings. Players expect to compete for the playoffs and will take the names of anyone who doubts it along the way.
