Flashback to the conclusion of the 2018-2019 NBA season, and the Sacramento Kings, along with their faithful, had a lot to look forward to.
The team definitely wasn’t good yet – a 39-43 record along with a -1.1 net rating had them slightly below average – but this was the best season the Kings put together since their last playoff appearance, which was then 13 years ago. There was promise, even some expectation, that they would ascend forward into the playoffs as soon as next year. Fast forward two years, and things aren’t looking too rosy.
The team has finished 31-41 in each of the past two seasons, a decline in winning percentage. They’ve slipped further down in the Western Conference totem pole, and it doesn’t look like help is immediately on the way (foreshadowing a blockbuster trade for Ben Simmons, perhaps?) given the youth and lack of significant NBA experience the roster currently holds. Their playoff drought is at a record-tying 15(!) seasons, and one aspect of their game that has remained consistent(ly bad) is their defense.
How bad were the Sacramento Kings defensively last season?
They were so bad that there was buzz about them being the worst defensive team in NBA history last season. Were the Sacramento Kings really the worst defensive team in NBA history last season?
It’s pretty popular to throw out the phrase, “The Sacramento Kings were the worst defensive team in NBA history last season,” but just how accurate is it? The main culprit for this claim is Sacramento’s defensive rating last season.
At 117.2 points allowed per 100 possessions according to Basketball Reference, that is the single highest team mark recorded for a season in NBA history. It’s only natural for the public to end up at that conclusion, but the missing key in that equation is how NBA offenses have progressed in the last ten years.
Throughout the NBA’s advanced statistical history (since the 1973-74 season where such data is available), the NBA has seen its peaks and troughs in regards to offensive rating. Consider that between the 1973-74 and 1981-82 seasons, the average NBA team raised their scoring efficiency by a whopping 9.2 points per 100 possessions. That’s a huge difference in the NBA, a number large enough to differentiate a championship contender from the worst team in the league.
Similarly, the nine seasons spanning the 2011-12 season to the present day have had the average team score an additional 7.7 points per 100 possessions, even still a huge uptick in efficiency. As NBA offenses continue to get more offensively proficient with each passing year, comparing offensive and defensive ratings outside of the context of the current season proves senseless because it really is a different game from how it was even ten years ago.
A better statistic to be used would be relative offensive/defensive rating, which compares a team’s offensive or defensive rating with the league average respective rating for that season. This adjusts for the rising offensive efficiency by using a reference point (the league average defensive rating in any particular season in this example) that is also adjusted for every season, and the result is a cleaner number that can be compared across years of NBA analytical data.
At a -4.9 relative defensive rating this year, according to Basketball-Reference, the Kings ranked dead last in the league. But when compared to their broader franchise ranks? It would rank ninth-worst after a handful of seasons in the ’60s (back when they were located in Cincinnati) and some in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
The worst ever season regarding relative defensive rating is actually a tie between the 2005-06 Seattle SuperSonics and the 1998-99 Denver Nuggets, both teams sporting -8.2 relative defensive ratings. Given those teams had winning percentages of .427 and .280, respectively, it’s not hard to envision why.
To conclude this point, I’d stop short of calling the 2020-21 iteration of the Kings the worst defense of all time, so yay, I guess? But this doesn’t answer the main question, just how poor were the Kings defensively last season? For that, I did some film and highlight clip analysis to try and get to the heart of the problem.
Just how bad were the Sacramento Kings defensively last season?
To try and get a glimpse of how the Kings struggled defensively last season, I went back to watch three highlight clips of the games in which they conceded the most points (154 against the Utah Jazz, 144 against the Toronto Raptors, 140 against the New York Knicks, all losses).
I looked for common themes within their defensive structure, routes that opponents exploited against them, and any players that are sore spots for them. While you could infer the latter from looking at one-number defensive statistics, watching games and highlight clips can give you more context into those numbers.
April 28th versus the Jazz (154-105 Jazz).
The very first highlight clip gave me a sense of what to expect, and not in a good way.
Rudy Gobert beautifully picks off an overhead Tyrese Haliburton pass to Richaun Holmes, and with 4 Kings relatively deep, it’s an ideal 2v1 advantage for Utah. Chimezie Metu is left trying to fight this off and bites on the possibility of a pass to Bogdan Bogdanovic, giving Royce O’Neale a relatively uncontested layup.
You can see Buddy Hield signaling to Metu to cover Bogdanovic, which was a mistake in my opinion; he should’ve taken the chance on covering Bogdanovic himself and let Metu contest the O’Neale layup.
It’s also evident that the focus of the Jazz in this matchup was to prioritize offensive movement and hammer the three-ball. The Kings looked genuinely disinterested in switching matchups, fighting over screens, and sometimes didn’t even bother with close-outs; at the 1:20 mark, Royce O’Neale gets a wide-open three just by setting a fake screen, and slowly shuffling beyond the arc.
The Jazz recorded 24 triples on the night for a remarkable 58.5% conversion rate. Having Bogdanovic attack Buddy Hield on drives proved to be fruitful for Utah in this game as he had 12 points early in the game and finished with a game-high 24, and I have a feeling that could be a trend for the Kings throughout these games.
In the early going, the defensive intensity doesn’t seem to be present. The lack of effort was pertinent on the glass, too; the Jazz grabbed an impressive 27.8% of available offensive rebounds compared to Sacramento’s 7.1%.
The Kings clearly lacked a rim deterrent in this one as the Jazz attacked them mercilessly in the paint and were rewarded for it nearly every time. At points 2:44, 3:05, 5:34, and 5:42, these are some of the easiest buckets Gobert is gonna get in his career. This wasn’t a highlight performance for young Tyrese Haliburton either. He often got backed down in the paint and was taken advantage of for easy buckets, indicating his need to add core strength to fight off those post-up attempts.
He also took a strange route to the ball at 4:02, seeming to follow the ball instead of closing out to Georges Niang, allowing another easy triple. Utah also utilized 4-out sets (four players spread out on the perimeter) with Gobert being used as a hazard to give the ball-handler some room to operate, and they turned those into relatively open triples like in 6:20. Just another example of the difficulty Sacramento had closing out on dangerous shooters.
The rest of the highlight clip was more of the same. However, it wasn’t solely the Kings doing that led them to bleed 154 points; Utah shot at a blistering 77.9 effective field-goal percentage as they had contributions from all over the lineup.
They seemed to hit all shots, contested or not, and thoroughly wrestled the game away from the Kings in the second quarter. Did you notice how neither Donovan Mitchell or Mike Conley were brought up? That’s because they didn’t play. Conceding 154 points to the Jazz without their two best offensive players is a tough way to start off this one.
January 8th versus the Toronto Raptors (144-123 Raptors)
De’Aaron Fox is in the lineup for this one, and his defensive deficiencies started off early at 0:14 as he got caught ball-watching and wasn’t aware of how much space he left top-notch shooter Norman Powell.
At 2:23 he basically let his matchup Malachi Flynn go to the corner while he feebly swiped at the ball to no effect. While the resulting bucket didn’t go to his matchup, it’s important to know that he really wasn’t guarding anyone; he’s at the elbow stuck between OG Anunoby and Yuta Watanabe and was lucky neither got the ball.
He did an exceptionally poor job navigating over Pascal Siakam’s screen and gave Malachi Flynn way too much space and a lane to the basket at 2:52, but Flynn settled for a floater. Fox has the potential to be a non-negative defensively, but in order to do that, his defensive positioning primarily needs work, along with his help defense. His motor often running short is a concern as well.
The clip at 4:12 is another example of the Kings’ inability to rotate and cover. Fred VanVleet was driving to the basket, and though he’s a poor finisher at the rim, he wasn’t getting deterred enough by Hield such that he couldn’t get the shot off.
Fox should have rotated to block VanVleet’s path to the rim, and the rest of the Kings should have scrambled to cover the left-open Raptors players. Having a small guard in VanVleet stuck in the paint would have wasted the Raptors’ offensive drive and killed time off the possession clock.
The game became more basket-for-basket at the 4:43 mark, with Fox late to come around Chris Boucher’s screen and Hield not stepping up to VanVleet on time. Holmes got into foul trouble early in the third quarter and, as a result, wasn’t as aggressive as he could have been in the paint. The Raptors started to take over at the 5:39 mark as Powell took advantage of some awkward positioning and footwork by Marvin Bagley to drain a triple.
Bagley was also susceptible to a drive-fake by VanVleet and conceded another triple at 6:08; he looked uncomfortable defending outside the paint. In the next clip, VanVleet switches onto Bagley and dances him out of his shoes to pass him on the way to a leaning layup. The mobility and footwork of Bagley is still an issue, and he hasn’t been consistently healthy enough to develop that side of the game.
The Raptors continued to pour in on the three-ball – 20 threes at a 51% rate – to cruise to a victory. Buddy Hield’s effort seemed to tank once the game got out of hand as he’s essentially a pylon in Flynn’s way at 7:42 and leaves too much space in transition for future King Terence Davis to drain another triple at 7:51. It’s another tough look for the Kings to concede 144 points to the then 1-6 Raptors, who were struggling offensively in nearly all major categories.
February 25th versus the New York Knicks (140-121 Knicks).
The very first possession of the game sees new Knick Derrick Rose and RJ Barrett play hand-offs until Rose exploits the lane left open by a confused De’Aaron Fox on a double P&R.
A P&R is a tough play to defend against because the offensive team has so many options; they could choose to have the roll man cut to the hoop for a bucket, the P&R ball-handler could shoot if the defender goes under the screen, and it can be used as a bait-and-switch to either pass to an open shooter or find a cutting player to the basket.
Rose continued to cook early on in the game, starting out six for six. There isn’t much the Kings could have done better to deter him. But when it wasn’t Rose hitting numerous tough shots, it was Randle bullying multiple Kings defenders in the paint. At 1:56, he spins around the post-up on Bagley, and Haliburton abandons his man to help, but poor positioning and footwork by Bagley allows Randle to easily drop it in.
On the next play, Randle flashed his newfound shooting abilities by dropping a tough middie over Holmes. Immanuel Quickley seemed to be inspired by Rose’s hot start as he started out four for four as well, including an impressive triple-and-one with just a second left in the first.
This game commonly had me thinking that the Kings need to scrap their current interior defensive gameplan and start anew. The clip at 3:58 has DaQuan Jeffries defending a post-up attempt from Obi Toppin and doing a bang-up job of it; he’s not letting Toppin cut to the middle of the floor or back him down in the paint. But when Toppin spins to put up a shot attempt, Bagley moves in to, I guess, help contest an already-contested shot?
No one slides down to box out Taj Gibson, and this allows him to clean up the rebound and finish with ease. In the next clip, Gibson and RJ Barrett play a little P&R, but Hield doesn’t switch away from Barrett, leaving Gibson wide open in the lane for an easy layup. The Knicks rode these easy baskets to cruise to a 19-point win, spiraling the Kings to a nine-game losing streak and a record of 12-20.
Who’s to blame, and what can be done to correct this?
First and foremost, I believe that a large portion of responsibility lies on Kings head coach Luke Walton and his coaching staff. A lot of these errors on film can be attributed to a lack of effort, no communication, and not paying attention to detail. It’s his responsibility to motivate his ballclub to embrace a defensive identity and to enjoy getting stops as much as they do getting buckets.
Using the Los Angeles Lakers as an example, coach Frank Vogel has managed to build top defensive teams with rosters that most people predicted would suffer on that end and largely consist of role players (along with two superstars, of course).
Having Anthony Davis on your squad is a huge boon defensively for sure, but the point is that Walton has thus far failed to exhibit the teaching and tactics necessary to form a cohesive defensive unit. It could also be a flaw in Walton’s coaching identity; in his five seasons as an NBA head coach with the Kings and Lakers, his teams have ranged from slightly below average to abysmal defensively.
There are severe defensive flaws within the Kings’ core of players as well. Bagley is not a good defender at all as he looks uncomfortable on the perimeter, is constantly out-muscled in the paint, and presents poor footwork and mobility that offers his matchups sizable advantages.
Fox is still incredibly raw in his positioning, and his motor tends to get stuck, falling asleep on backdoor cuts. Hield doesn’t seem much more than a running turnstile at this point in his career and is a frequent target for opposing guards and wings. Having two of their top defensive players in Delon Wright and Hassan Whiteside depart in trades and free agency doesn’t help either, but there is some optimism within a pair of youngsters that could help change this course.
Haliburton largely struggled on the perimeter, getting around screens, and was a non-factor in the paint, but just about all NBA rookies struggle defensively in their freshman season. He presents an intriguing combination of smarts, size, and defensive versatility, so I wouldn’t be worried about him in that front.
And, of course, adding Davion Mitchell with the ninth pick gives the Kings a shot of tenacity and vocal leadership that they may have sensed from him heading to the draft. If Haliburton can take notable strides and Mitchell continues to be a role model defensively for other Kings players, Sacramento could stand to improve considerably.
But putting this sort of responsibility on a pair of players entering their second and first seasons respectively is a lot to ask for and is frankly an organizational failing from top to bottom. If Walton can’t coach his team up defensively and the players on the roster are largely indifferent in response, it’s unfair to expect Haliburton or Mitchell to thrive in that environment. Expect, instead, another trying season for the Sacramento Kings.