What Will Kosta Koufos’ Role Be?

There has been a lot of talk over how the Sacramento Kings frontcourt is going to operate this season. Obviously DeMarcus Cousins will start, that much is obvious. Who will start beside him is very much not obvious.

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We here at A Royal Pain have wondered about this for a while, as evidenced by our multiple articles about this very question. Should Rudy Gay start at power forward? How about Willie Cauley-Stein? Or maybe even Kosta Koufos?

I’m not sure who Geroge Karl plans on starting, but I am sure of one thing–even if it is Koufos, he will most likely be a starter in title alone. I don’t see any scenario where Koufos gets starter minutes (30 per game, or more) from Karl, even if he begins the season as the starting power forward.

I don’t really expect him to start at all, to be honest. Karl loves fast-paced offense, and Koufos is…not fast. Boogie isn’t exceptionally slow for a center, but pairing him and Koufos would be a big, powerful, lumbering frontcourt that would not be adept at running the floor.

Koufos is a very good center, but he’s never been listed as a power forward for an entire season and only played nine percent of his NBA minutes as a power forward. Boogie has literally never spent time as a power forward, according to the same basketballreference metric.

Having both on the floor for significant stretches would seriously negatively impact floor spacing. They’re both listed as centers for a reason–68 percent of Boogie’s shots come from within ten feet, while a staggering 89 percent of Koufos’ shots come from that same range.

Cousins is capable of stretching the floor a bit more than Koufos, but his offensive strength is still undoubtedly inside scoring. It’s easy to tell based on his field goal percentage by shot type: Boogie shot 94 percent on dunks, 59 percent on hook shots, 58 percent on layups, 53 percent on tips but just 31 percent on jump shots last season.

So he can make enough jumpers to force defenses to cover him, but Boogie isn’t seen as a top NBA center because he can knock down shots from the elbow. He’s a monster in the paint. As is Koufos, to a lesser degree. I just don’t think they could play together too much in a George Karl offense, which leaves Koufos out of a true starting role.

We can also look to history to figure out how Karl will use Koufos, seeing as he’s coached him before. Koufos played parts of three seasons in Denver under Karl, and actually started 81 games in 2013. Even though he started every game he played in, Koufos averaged just 22.4 minutes per game.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Koufos grab some starts this season, because I’m not sold on Rudy Gay at the four and Karl historically doesn’t start rookies often, but I don’t see him playing much more than those 22 minutes per game if Cousins is healthy.

Cauley-Stein is definitely going to crack this rotation early, if not the starting lineup, and as our Zack Zolmer wrote he does seem like an ideal frontcourt mate for Cousins. Boogie probably realized this as well, which is why he wanted the Kings to draft Willie.

I think despite his propensity to not play rookies big minutes, Karl will pick up on this as well, if he hasn’t already. Don’t be surprised to see a lot of Cauley-Stein and Cousins playing next to each other this upcoming season, and for the rest of the foreseeable future.

This leaves Koufos where he’s used to playing and where his real strength is–a backup role. He shines in limited minutes, and really embraces solidifying a second unit. There’s a difference between a good player coming off of the bench and a good bench player–the good player coming off of the bench may not be good in a limited role, making them ultimately ineffective as a relief player.

Koufos is definitely a great bench player, and will anchor Sacramento’s deep second unit for as long as he stays on the Kings.

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