With the NBA Summer League fully in the rearview mirror, the Sacramento Kings walked away with a respectable overall record of five wins and three losses. They also picked up some concerns about their new point guard, Darius Acuff Jr. Specifically, he needs to work on defense and consistency.
Sacramento collected three wins in the California Classic but finished the Vegas portion of the Summer League with two wins and three losses. Combined, their overall efforts were good. Naturally, their rebuild journey isn't even close to over, but it was a solid first step forward for the franchise.
The player under the most scrutiny was Acuff. The Kings used their number seven overall draft pick to get him and were locked in on the young point guard for months. There are huge expectations from everyone in the league for him, especially the Sacramento franchise as they need him to work out.
Point guard has been a tough spot for the Kings. They traded away both Tyrese Haliburton and De'Aaron Fox, then tried to fill the gap with Dennis Schroder and came up short. In Acuff, they have a talented rookie to develop as part of the rebuild. Well, that's the plan, at the very least.
Acuff's struggles require considerable attention from the Kings
While Acuff did well in the California Classic, Vegas was more of a mixed bag. His shooting was mediocre at best, and his defense was borderline non-existent, something Scott Perry isn't concerned about. Even worse, he was picking up a relatively high number of turnovers.
The Kings ended up benching him for the last couple of games to manage his workload. That seems odd considering he won't play again until the preseason starts in October. It's more likely that Acuff wasn't playing well, so they pulled him from the lineup to prevent more early negative exposure.
Some of these issues can be chalked up to the fact that Acuff is a 19-year-old rookie. As he gets more experience in the league and settles in, his shooting efficiency will go up while his turnovers decrease. The real concern has to be his defense, as it's always been his game's biggest weakness.
Again, that will hopefully improve with age and experience. At the same time, the Kings have to be prepared for a situation where this doesn't get better. If Acuff's defense stays weak and his offense isn't good enough to offset that, he could end up being another draft bust for Sacramento.
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