It’s no secret the Kings did not have a good offense last season, so what needs to change?
Last season, Sacramento as a team ranked 30th in the NBA in true shooting percentage sitting at 52.9%. That number, is about 7% lower than that of the league leading Golden State Warriors. If Sacramento wants to have a top-15 offense, they need to become more efficient.
Only 3 Kings players shot north of 50% last season from the field: Willie Cauley-Stein, Kosta Koufus and Jakarr Sampson. If you expand that to over 45%, only two other players, Jack Cooley and Zach Randolph, join the club. Adding big-man Marvin Bagley III should help their overall field goal percentage a bit, but things won’t truly change unless the trio of Buddy Hield, Bogdan Bogdanovic and De’Aaron Fox are able to up their percentages.
Those three, shot 44.6%, 44.6% and 41.2%, respectively. Obviously, not much improvement is needed for Hield and Bogi, but Fox’s development as a scorer is of immense importance for Sacramento to take the next step as a team, at least offensively. Should the Kings field a starting-5 with everyone shooting over 45%, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for them to become a top-20 offense with the right coaching schemes.
Building off of scoring-efficiency, the Kings also must improve in the passing game. The Kings were bottom-10 last season in assist ratio, assist to turnover ratio, assists per games and assist percentage. They were also bottom-10 in 2pt FG% when coming off an assist, as well as 3pt FG% off of assists. A lot of this, to be fair, could very well be attributed to the Kings being a bad team last year. Of course, it’s hard to be good when you can’t pass or score efficiently.
This, is where Head Coach Dave Joerger’s money will be made. If he can develop, not only his players, but also his schemes to help fit the Kings roster better. Sacramento could see big improvement on the offensive side with the right coaching adjustments.
They may have been bottom-10 in most important categories on offense, but they weren’t too far away fro, being top-20 in some of those. One of those, being FG% where they ranked 22nd in the league last season at 45% just 0.2% away from being top-20. That FG% is buoyed by a top-3 (!!!) 3pt FG% for Sacramento last season, sitting at 37.5%.
These, are all things to build on heading into next season. In this league, 3-pointers can and have led teams to championships. Now will that be the case for Sacramento? If you’re talking the next five years,? Absolutely not. However, if the Kings can build an offense predicated around efficienct, high-volume scoring from deep, they could become a playoff team sooner than later.