The Sacramento Kings have been flailing during arguably their most important stretch of the season. In the last ten games, they have dropped eight, and now they sit in a deadlock for the ninth seed with the Phoenix Suns. And if they aren't careful, they are just a half game from falling out of the play-in tournament altogether, as the Dallas Mavericks are right there at eleven.
In sports, you have a great deal of control over your own destiny. Generally, if you play well, you get rewarded with wins, and if you don't, you suffer the consequence of defeat. However, there are some elements that are out of your control.
The Kings haven't been doing themselves any favors with the way they've played of late, but they also haven't gotten any help from the basketball gods.
Teams are killing the Kings from three
The 3-point line has been giving the Kings fits all year. Early on, Sacramento could not buy a 3-point shot. For instance, Keegan Murray – one of the team's best shooters – hit only 26.1% of his threes in November (16 games). Meanwhile, teams were torching them from downtown. As a team, the Kings were 25th in 3-point percentage (33.2%) through the first 21 games of the season.
The thing about 3-point shooting, particularly opponent 3-point shooting, is that it is extremely prone to variance and, oftentimes, largely out of the defensive team's control.
Funny enough, when you look at the Kings' last ten games (the exact duration of their recent slump), opposing teams are shooting 46.6% from downtown against them. That is the highest opponent 3-point percentage for any team in the league.
Not only is it the highest, but at 46.6%, the Kings opponent 3-point percentage is 5.9% higher than that of the team surrendering the second-highest percent of threes (40.8%), the Philadelphia 76ers (who are also 2-8 during this stretch).
The Kings have been having by far and away the worst opponent shooting luck of any team in the association over the last ten games. That is hard for any team to overcome.
If you look at the team with the best opponent shooting luck (31.6%) in this stretch (the Chicago Bulls), they are 8-2 in their last 10 games. Are the Bulls a materially better team than the Kings? Probably not. But teams haven't been tearing them apart from the perimeter the way they have to the Kings lately.
The Kings deserve a lot of the blame for the way they've played, but their opponent shooting luck proves that it isn't all their fault.