Grading Sacramento Kings: How did Willie Cauley-Stein perform?

While Willie Cauley-Stein is set to hit free agency, he played a big role for the Sacramento Kings this season, but whether he performed well in that role another story.

Willie Cauley-Stein started in all 81 games he appeared in this season for the Sacramento Kings, but — in most games — he left something to be desired.

After starting season playing like a top-15 center, Cauley-Stein fell back into a pattern of inconsistency and showed a lack of effort at times. For the Sacramento Kings, that could lead to them looking at other options at center in free agency, but that remains to be seen. So, with the inconsistency, perceived lack of effort and hot start at the beginning of the season — how does he grade for the entirety of the season?

On the year, Cauley-Stein averaged 11.9 points, 8.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.2 steals per game in 27.3 minutes. Compared to last season, he averaged 0.9 fewer points, 1.4 more rebounds and 0.1 more steals in 0.7 fewer minutes. He posted a box plus-minus (BPM) of plus-2.0, 6.7 win shares and a real plus-minus (RPM) of 1.79 — good enough for 14th among centers. His defensive RPM of plus-2.55 put him 18th among centers, however, and his offensive RPM of minus-0.76 had him 24th overall.

Those numbers — while decent — don’t tell the whole story, as Cauley-Stein often disappeared in games and his rebounding often left a lot to be desired. On the opposite side of that though, when he was on — he was on. During his fourth season with the Sacramento Kings he had several games where he absolutely dominated, which made it all the more frustrating when he didn’t play at that same level in subsequent games.

Arguably his best game, came against the Dallas Mavericks when he scored 10 points, grabbed 18 rebounds, three assists and two steals. The following game? Three points, zero rebounds, one steal, one assist and one block in 17 minutes. Those two games, more than anything else, sum up Cauley-Stein’s season better than anything anyone could write.

Offensively, Cauley-Stein was adequate, his 11.9 points per game were solid for a Sacramento Kings that used WCS as a third or fourth option at best and his passing, as it’s always been, was great for big. Defensively, things seemed to fall apart. Far too often he was too slow to rotate, didn’t help when his teammates were beat and failed to protect the rim at an alarmingly high frequency.

Among the 73 centers who played in at least 40 games, Cauley-Stein ranked 57th in opponent points in the paint, allowing a staggering 29.1 points in the paint per game. His block percentage was 64th, his defensive rating was 52nd and his 7.9 opponent second chance points per game was 60th.

As a result, his overall grade on the season is capped — especially since he closed out the season much worse than he started it, averaging 6.8 points, 6.5 rebounds and one assist in April compared to 17.4 points, nine rebounds and 2.6 assists in October.

When you consider Cauley-Stein’s decline in play as the season went on (including a solid month of March), it’s hard to grade him any higher than a ‘C’, but in my eyes the lack of effort on defense and rebounding lowers his grade even further.

As a result, my final grade for Cauley-Stein this season is a ‘C-minus’. I really wanted to give him a higher grade, but he fell way short of expectations this season and seemingly regressed as the season went on. It’ll be curious to see if the Kings bring him back next season and at what price, but for now the Sacramento Kings are looking at a summer where they need to improve at center, regardless of what happens with Cauley-Stein.

Final Grade: C-minus overall: B-plus in 2018, D in 2019