With most of the 2018-19 roster likely to return for the Sacramento Kings next season, which players were part of the Kings’ best five-man lineups?
The Sacramento Kings had a great year in 2018-19 and figure to return most of the roster that finished the 2018-19 campaign for the 2019-20 season, but how many of those players were part of the Kings’ best five-man lineups?
In this exercise we’ll be looking at lineups that played at least 30 minutes together during the regular season. This will leave us vulnerable to small sample size flukes, but the Kings only had nine lineups that played more than 48 minutes — so we’re sort of stuck. Also, lineups that feature players shipped off at the deadline won’t be counted. We’ll also only focus on lineups that finished the year with a positive net-rating, for obvious reasons.
Unfortunately, this means the Iman Shumpert-Willie Cauley-Stein-De’Aaron Fox-Buddy Hield-Marvin Bagley III lineup that posted a net rating of plus-26.9 in 97 minutes won’t be included. In fact, of the 10 lineups to play 30-plus minutes and finish with a positive net-rating for the Sacramento Kings this season, seven won’t be counted because they feature one of Iman Shumpert or Justin Jackson.
Still, of the three that will be counted, all feature four players that are under contract for next season — giving the Sacramento Kings and Head Coach Luke Walton something to build on next season.