The Sacramento Kings secured Buddy Hield to a contract extension before the season. Is anyone having buyers remorse just six months later?
There have been plenty of adjustments that have been made by the Sacramento Kings players and coaches this season, but maybe none more so than Buddy Hield.
He enjoyed a career year during the 2018-’19 season in which he made 278 three pointers, the third highest single-season total of anyone not named Stephen Curry. His ascension from role player to valuable asset was sudden, and the Kings ponied up the money to keep him in Sacramento long term. Hield signed a four-year, $94 million contract extension before the start of the season, a nice reward for a player who was thought to be a crucial piece to the Kings young core and current rebuild.
There weren’t a lot of souls out there in Kings Land that were upset about Hield’s contract extension. We knew his value, we had seen him turn the tides of games with his dead-eye shooting. He would age gracefully as a catch and shoot guy, valuable to the franchise even if he loses some of his athleticism over time. The $94 million certainly wasn’t a steal, but it wasn’t a bad price to pay for an asset that is so valuable in today’s league.
Some of the fan base still feels the same way, and they’re not wrong for it. While his shooting percentages are down, Hield is still one of the most feared three-point specialists in the league. He has made more threes than anyone except James Harden and is shooting at a better clip than Damian Lillard. He showed off his prowess during last month’s All-Star Weekend, winning the three-point contest against some of the game’s best shooters.
Hield still has the unique ability to turn games around by catching fire behind the line, as evidenced in a handful of games this season. For example, in last week’s loss to the 76ers, Hield entered the fourth quarter with just 8 points on 3 for 8 shooting. In that final period, he went 4 for 6 from beyond the arc, scoring 14 points to finish with 22 on the game, and bringing the Kings to within six points of the lead after being down by 19 at the end of the third.
There are only a handful of players in the NBA with the ability to catch fire as fast as Hield does, and his shooting is a great asset to have whether the team is down by 15 and needs scoring fast, or needs to pad a lead with some well-timed long bombs. Money well spent.
Unfortunately, there has been another side to Buddy Hield’s game that has reared its ugly head this season.
Decision Making & Basketball IQ
The glaring weakness for Hield has always been his defense, though he has shown slight improvements this season. The area that is often overlooked when evaluating Hield’s game, however, is his decision-making and basketball IQ.
Hield’s turnover numbers have taken a serious spike and are by far the highest of his career. The issue with his 2.3 turnovers per game is that they often come in the crunch time of games when the Kings need nothing more than ball protection. There have been at least a couple of outcomes this season that were directly affected by a poor decision that Hield made in the late going.
The mental lapses affect Hield on the defensive end as well. He gets lost on switches, loses his man, and seems to have constant communication issues. Some guys can make up for a lack of athleticism on defense by having a good basketball IQ, but Hield is certainly not one of them.
It can be argued that the coaching staff has not exactly put Hield in a position to be successful, or to build on his success from last season. He has inexplicably been used as a primary ball handler in certain situations, especially during the span of games that De’Aaron Fox missed back in December. This is anything but Hield’s strong point, and him being in a position to make crucial decisions has backfired on the Kings on multiple occasions.
Hield’s inability to keep the ball safe in the closing minutes of certain contests has caused Luke Walton to make drastic changes to his crunch time lineups. Back in December, a benching of Hield late in a game caused him to speak out in the media about trust issues between the players and the coaching staff. Nearly three months later, the issue apparently still persists; in a recent game against the Raptors, the Kings found themselves with possession of the ball and down by three in the closing seconds.
Buddy Hield was not even in the game. Nemanja Bjelica took the big shot for Sacramento and threw up an air ball.