Sacramento Kings Should Not Worry Too Much About Recent Turnover Struggles
By Rafe Wong
For the past couple of seasons one of the major weaknesses that the Sacramento Kings have had is turning the ball over on offense. For the past two seasons, the Kings have found their way in the bottom third of the NBA in this category, by averaging 15.6 turnovers a game last season, and 14.7 the year before.
This offseason, the Kings looked to fix that. By signing players with high NBA IQs and with plenty of experience on the court (Rajon Rondo, Marco Belinelli, Caron Butler) management hoped this would squash their notorious reputation of being a turnover prone team.
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Unfortunately, it has not looked good so far. In the first three preseason games, the Kings turnover rate has gotten even higher, as the team’s average has skyrocketed all the up to a whopping 21 turnovers a contest. With that being said, I wouldn’t overreact to the Kings ball security problems just yet.
Oct 8, 2015; Sacramento, CA, USA; Sacramento Kings forward Marco Belinelli (3) dribbles the ball as San Antonio Spurs guard Danny Green (14) defends during the second quarter at Sleep Train Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
As Kings fans know, this offseason the team almost completely revamped their entire roster. As a result, there are a lot of new faces on this team that have not played with each other yet. I think this factors in a lot to why the Kings are turning the ball over so much right now.
So far, the Kings have only had training camp and three preseason games to really get to know one another on the court. It takes time and patience for players to develop chemistry and know each other’s games, and I think as this team starts to play more minutes and games with each other fans will start to see the turnover rate gradually decline.
Overall, although turnovers have been the bane of the Kings existence in recent history, I don’t foresee it being as much of a problem this season. Turnovers still may be a concern in the beginning of the regular season as players adjust to each other, but I don’t expect it to be a problem throughout the entire year.
With more time and patience that the players on the roster have with each other, the more likely the turnovers will be limited, and the higher the chances will be for the Kings to return back to postseason contention.
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