Nor-Cal Showdown…Part II
By Editorial Staff
What: Warriors (1-0) @ Kings (1-2)
Where: Soon to be unnamed ARCO Arena
When: 7 PM
Like every good battle, (or just battle in general) there needs to be a part two. Tonight, the Kings and Warriors meet again, this time in Sacramento. The Kings were snake-bitten first Sunday in Oakland, 95-86. The Kings played without three (potentially four depending on how crazy these Marcus Landry rumors are) while the Warriors gave four of their five starters over thirty minutes of burn. Obviously, Nelly didn’t teach new Warriors coach Keith Smart that preseason wins don’t go towards your overall record. But that’s a different story.
Things to watch in tonight’s game:
- Cousins progression-the rookie phenom has had two double-doubles this preseason, and, as Bryan pointed out yesterday, he wants to snap EVERYONE’S neck.
- The SF battle-this is the Kings most wide open battle this preseason. The race is wide open with five potential candidates: Omri Casspi, Donte Green, Francisco Garcia, Antoine Wright, and the aforementioned Marcus Landry.
- JT’s consistency-Jason Jones had a nice piece on Jason Thompson and how he’s striving for consistency this season. After a good first game against Phoenix, which he filled up the boxscore with 17/10/4/3/1 on 8-13 shooting, Thompson hasn’t played particularly awe-inspiring. Instead, he’s shooting abysmally (4-19 from the field). He needs to get back on track if he wants to make a last minute bid to start over Carl Landry.
- The Backup PG-As it is right now, Beno Udrih and Tyreke Evans will be the starting backcourt. Udrih compliments Reke’s game better than anyone else on the Kings roster. But after that, the Kings are thin in the backcourt. Backup point guard has been a big issue for the past three seasons, but rookie journeyman Pooh Jeter is impressing at camp. Jeter was a member of the Kings summer league team in 2007, and played for the Cavs this past summer in Las Vegas.
Oh, wait. You can’t look for these things in tonight’s game. The Bee’s Ailene Voison reported Sunday that the Kings disappearence of pre-season telecasts is “due to economic reasons.” Which is a shame, considering that there’s some high quality video from each of the past three games on the Kings own website. I’m no genius, but there’s got to be some way where the Kings can show the game on CSNCA and just use Gary Gerould’s radio broadcast over it. Instead, we’re subjected to boxscore updates and live game threads on various message boards.
Or, if you’re not down with that, you can watch ESPN’s “30 for 30” series. Tonight’s episode? “Once Brothers”, Vlade Divac’s documentary about the decline of Yugoslavian basketball and Vlade Divac/Drazen Petrovic’s relationship. Honestly, I’m more excited to watch this than Luther Head jacking up ill-advised 28 footers and I have a feeling a lot of Kings fans feel the same way.
Catch “Once Brothers” tonight at 5:30 PM Pacific (fuck the East coast!…RIP Pac) on ESPN.