A surprising Sacramento Kings lineup that could play important minutes

The 2024-25 regular season is almost here (the Sacramento Kings open up against the Minnesota Timberwolves on October 24), and with the year nearly underway, there has been a lot of talk going on about lineups.

At A Royal Pain, we have spent a lot of time discussing the starting lineup (if you ask me, the Kings should start Keon Ellis at shooting guard). But, at this point, the dialogue regarding starting lineups has been way overdone.

If you want to truly contribute to the discourse, you should spend your time thinking about unique/surprising lineups that could give the Kings the extra boost they need to have the season they have been dreaming of.

The Kings should do play more small ball center

The Kings have a clear and obvious answer at center in Domantas Sabonis. But the star big man can't play every minute. That has left a serious question mark at backup center. With Orlando Robinson expected to miss a month with injury (knee), the default answer to this issue seems to be Alex Len.

But what if neither of those players is the answer? As we've discussed before, the Kings share a lot in common with the Denver Nuggets. And just like the Kings, the Nuggets have an issue at filling center minutes when Nikola Jokic is not on the floor.

During their championship season, the Nuggets figured out that their best bet was to use Aaron Gordon (their starting power forward) as their backup small-ball center. Can the Kings manage something like that?

Enter, Trey Lyles. Lyles has been an integral part of the Kings' bench over the last couple of years. His rare blend of skill, shooting, and size (6'9, 234 pounds) makes him a strong option at forward. But can he hang at the five spot?

Last season, Lyles actually spent 17% of his minutes (about 197 minutes, per Basketball Reference) at center. Plus, the Kings have demonstrated success against high-level teams with lineups featuring Lyles at the five.

This brings us to the thesis of this post. The Kings should definitely experiment with Lyles at the small ball five. I'm just spitballing here, but a potential lineup configuration could be him, Keegan Murray, Kevin Huerter (who could spend more minutes at small forward this year), Keon Ellis, and De'Aaron Fox/Malik Monk.

Murray and Ellis are the Kings' best role players. They give you positional size, secondary rim protection, and spacing. Huerter isn't as good of a defender, but he still gives you size, shooting, and extra rim protection. Then, having one of Fox or Monk gives you someone to run the offense. This group isn't perfect, but that group offers a good balance of creation, spacing, and physicality (the things you need to succeed in basketball).  

This obviously shouldn't be their starting lineup. I'm not even saying the Kings should close games with this group. But running with it for short spurts could be a game-changer. The kind of game-changer that could push them all the way to the Western Conference Finals.