A Royal Pain
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Sacramento Kings Set to Pack a Punch This Season

By Ti Windisch

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Most of the players on the Sacramento Kings have been working hard to prepare for the next NBA season. A few Kings that are soon going to be battling each other for the last couple roster spots in Sacramento are predictably working exceptionally hard, but not in the basketball gym.

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Instead, they went to a UFC gym to hone their fighting skills. According to the Kings.com article tags DeMarcus Cousins, Seth Curry, Duje Dukan and David Stockton were all present, and from some of the photos it appears Eric Moreland and Vince Hunter were also duking it out.

This is interesting for a multitude of reasons. The first and foremost being that it’s really dope that these young Kings are working together, despite being in competition with each other for roster spots. That kind of team chemistry is only going to be beneficial to this young core in Sacramento.

According to the always-reliable Sean Cunningham, the group was working with Urijah Faber and had quite a bit of fun in the gym, including a bit of a back and forth between Boogie and Moreland:

Watching these guys have fun together is pretty infectious, and makes me miss watching Kings basketball even more. Fortunately in just a few weeks we’ll have training camp to look forward to–I’m sure there will be some prime social media moments to check out when that comes around.

But thankfully we at least have a UFC practice trip to entertain us until then. The last notable Cunningham tweet from the session details which member of the Kings looked the most natural out there, and it’s a bit of a surprise.

I definitely would not have expected David Stockton to be the best fighter out of that group, but I am encouraged by reading that. Maybe his fighting spirit will give him the necessary edge to finally get some real NBA minutes in Sacramento.

But as awesome as it is that Stockton and the rest of these guys are working hard to make the team I’m even more encouraged that DeMarcus Cousins was out there with them. Boogie clearly isn’t on the edge of the roster bubble–he’s smack dab in the center of it.

But he’s still out here with guys he may not even end up on the same team with come late October, working his tail off and bonding with them. This is a sign of leadership from Cousins–he’s leading by example and showing these guys that hard work is the best way to get ahead.

His example might just pay off for Sacramento. Moreland, Curry, Stockton, Hunter and Dukan are all raw right now to be sure. But they’ve all shown flashes through their collegiate and D-League careers of having the potential to be really special.

One or more of them might be able to grow into solid NBA commodities, and learning how to grind and improve every day from a top ten NBA talent like Boogie Cousins has got to help their chances. So good on you, Boogie. Just don’t beat any of them up too badly.

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