Doug Christie came into training camp with a renewed focus on defense. Unfortunately for the Kings, Keegan Murray is out for the next several weeks with a thumb injury. This leaves the team without one of their top defenders and a huge hole in Christie's strategy.
It's no surprise that Christie is bringing a defensive focus to the team. When he was an NBA player, that was certainly how his game was structured. Christie was a defense-first kind of guy, making him a player any team needs because defense is always key.
That has been a huge issue for the Kings over the past few seasons. Their roster is weighted towards shoot-first players who don't have strong defensive games. With few major changes to the roster in the offseason, that meant implementing the defense-first focus would be problematic.
Kings' ongoing defensive nightmare
Fans have already seen that over the first two games of the preseason. The Kings have already allowed a total of 254 points to be scored across those games, with the average number of points per game scored by an NBA team being 115.5. The Kings are allowing an average of 127.
To be fair, Sacramento is also scoring well over the league average with 122 points against the Raptors and 123 points against the Blazers. But if you're going all offense, you then have to beat your opponent on offense every time and the Kings are not making that happen.
Christie's defense-first focus makes sense because the Kings desperately need a consistent defensive presence. Excluding rookies, the best defenders on the team are probably Keon Ellis, Keegan Murray, and possibly Dennis Schroder. With Murray out, that creates a massive problem.
Bring in Devin Carter
Right now, the Kings need someone to step up, which will have to be Devin Carter. He and Ellis work well together on defense, meaning that Carter would be an obvious choice to fill the void left by Murray at that end of the court.
This would work out especially well since it's looking more and more likely that Ellis will be the one to take Murray's starting lineup spot. After reshuffling the rest of the line as needed, of course. But Murray's absence presents a unique opportunity to give the Ellis/Carter combo more court time.
It's also worth noting that Dylan Cardwell, Nique Clifford, and Maxime Raynaud also have strong defensive potential. While they have all had good starts to their careers in the preseason, more seasoned players like Ellis and Carter might fill the Murray gap on defense better at the moment.