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Highlights of the Sacramento Kings NBA Schedule

By Ti Windisch

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The long-awaited NBA regular season schedules have been released, and the Sacramento Kings ended up with a pretty good slate of games. The biggest highlight, as pointed out by Sactown Royalty‘s Akis Yerocostas, is that the Kings’ longest road trip is just five games:

That’s a short longest road trip, meaning that the team won’t be spending much consecutive time away from Sleep Train Arena in its last season as home of the Kings. That friendly road trip schedule is kind of balanced out by the rough start Sacramento has, however.

In October and November, the Kings are scheduled for 19 games. 13 of those first 19 games come against playoff teams from last season, including a brutal eight game stretch to start the season that includes games against the Clippers (twice), the Grizzlies, the Rockets and Warriors (on back to back nights) and finally the Spurs.

On the bright side, all of those games except the second Clippers matchup come at home, so at least DeMarcus Cousins and company will be in Sacramento against those tough opponents.

As far as the very beginning of the season, the Kings will only play Los Angeles teams in October–first the Clippers and Lakers at home, then the Clippers in L.A. The season opener and home opener are the same game this year, as the Kings’ first contest is against the Clippers in Sacramento. That game won’t be easy, but thankfully the Lakers make their way into town two nights later.

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The end of Sacramento’s season is going to be challenging for the team as well. In April the Kings match up with the Heat, the Nuggets, the Trail Blazers, the Timberwolves, the Thunder, the Suns and finally the Rockets to wrap up the regular season. As literally every game matters in the cutthroat Western Conference, you can expect those seven games to mean a lot to Sacramento’s playoff aspirations should they be alive and well at that point.

Aside from the Portland game, none of those games should end up being cakewalks for Sacramento. If the Kings are going to bust into the playoff race this season, they’re definitely going to have to earn their spot late in the year.

The Sacramento Kings will finally find themselves being watched by folks outside of California’s capitol this year, as the Kings are slated for 13 nationally-televised games according to Sean Cunningham (keep in mind NBA TV games do count towards that total):

Even counting the NBA TV games, that’s still quite a bit of Sacramento basketball on the world stage. It seems as though people are genuinely interested in finding out what direction this Kings team ends up heading at various points of the season. The good news for Kings fans is that at least two of those national games should be very winnable, according to Alex Kramers:

Okay, so those Spurs and Rockets games won’t be easy. The good news is they both take place in Sacramento. In fact, all four of the games listed in Kramers’ tweet are home games for the Kings, which is a bit surprising. But it’s a pleasant surprise to be sure.

All in all, it seems like this schedule shouldn’t make a huge difference to the 2015-16 Sacramento Kings’ fortunes. The lack of long road trips is convenient and the beginning of the season is tough, but good teams find ways to win despite the circumstances.

Still though, it’s fun to get to look at the schedule that will dictate a lot of diehard Kings’ fans lives over the next several months. Expect to see more coverage on the newly-revealed schedule here at A Royal Pain soon, including some highly-anticipated matchups to look forward to.

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Next: Trying To Predict The Kings' Starting Five

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