Who Should Start For The Sacramento Kings, Cory Joseph or Yogi Ferrell?

The Sacramento Kings have been shorthanded in their backcourt lately, but their depth is showing up and making the most of the opportunity.

It was a little over a week ago the Sacramento Kings found out that their star point guard had gone down with an apparent ankle injury, which has forced them to rely on their depth to fill the void.

Since then, the Kings have won three out of their last four games and have received solid contributions from their backup point guards Cory Joseph and Yogi Ferrell. Both players bring their own strengths to the table, and it has been on coach Luke Walton to manage their minutes.

Joesph and Ferrell both have their strengths and weaknesses that they bring to the table and can each benefit Sacramento in their own way. Deciding who gets a majority of the run usually comes on a game-to-game basis based on opponents and matchups.

STRENGTHS 

Yogi Ferrell

Ferrell’s strengths are his shooting and scoring ability, and he is averaging almost 38% from three. He has a career average of 8.5 points per game which is better than Joseph’s 6.9. Ferrell is also great at utilizing his speed and driving into the paint creating acrobatic plays, layups, and drawing fouls. It is when the Kings go up against the best defensive opponents in the league that Sacramento could use Ferrell to create more opportunities to score on offense. He can also help the Kings increase their pace at a better clip than Joseph can.

Cory Joseph

Joseph has shown the skill set to be an all-around player. In the game against the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday, he tallied a career-high 14 assists. Throughout the season, namely during the stretch without Fox, Joseph’s greatest strength has been seen playing defense on star players on such as Damian Lillard, Devin Booker, and Kemba Walker.

Walton is confident in starting Joseph for the time being because of his attention to detail on the defensive end, which is where much of the Kings’ attention has been early in the season. Walton needs to teach this group how to help each other on defense and valuing defense as the next step to becoming a deep playoff team. Starting Joseph is the first step in the process.

Weaknesses

Yogi Ferrell

Ferrell is just 6 feet tall, compared to Joseph who has 6’3″, which makes Ferrell somewhat of a liability on the defensive end. Walton could also be reluctant to add Ferrell to the starting lineup because they have enough offensive power as it is with Buddy Hield, Harrison Barnes, and Nemanja Bjelica. Ferrell could be better coming in with guys like Bogdan Bogdanovic and Dewayne Dedmon, as the second unit could need a spark off of the bench.

Cory Joseph

Joseph’s primary weakness this season is his shooting. He is converting just 20% of his three-pointers, which is an astonishing 12% below the league average. Another weakness of Joseph is his tendency to over-dribble and force up a contested shot. To resolve this problem, he needs to find a way to get into his offense sooner and look to set up others as he did in the Suns game.

Overall Thoughts

Walton has plenty of reasons to start Joseph over Ferrell, but there is no deciding factor in who is the better player, as both have their own strengths and weaknesses. If fans had their choice, Jospeh should be the choice based on his winning pedigree: He has played for franchises such as the Spurs where he was taught by Greg Popovich, and helped them win a championship.

As the season goes on, do not be surprised if Ferrell does get a starting opportunity for some game as this could be due to the matchup, lineups, pace, or gameplan.