There's a lot of talk about what the Sacramento Kings' offense will be like this season. Naturally, people keep looking back to the Beam Team era. The problem is that current head coach Doug Christie is dialed in on defense, so it's impossible to guess what the offense is going to look like.
Calling the Beam Team era an 'era' is a bit of an overstatement. It was basically one season when the Kings actually made the playoffs for the first time since Rick Adelman was the bench boss nearly 20 years earlier. Sure, it was a big deal, but it was a very brief big deal and one that fell apart quickly.
That success, as limited as it was, relied heavily on Mike Brown as the head coach and De'Aaron Fox as the point guard. There are a few key players left from that era, such as Domantas Sabonis, Keegan Murray, and Malik Monk, but at least two of the main Beam Team components are missing.
The Kings have hopefully solved their point guard issue by drafting Darius Acuff Jr. That is assuming Sacramento's plan to drop him in the deep end of the NBA pool and see if he learns how to swim doesn't break the kid first. The bigger offensive problem is actually the head coach.
Can Christie give the Kings an offensive identity?
What made Christie a compelling choice for head coach by the Kings was his laser focus on defense. It has been a long time since Sacramento has had any meaningful defensive presence to speak of. If they want to be relevant in the league, they need to be able to shut down the opposition.
At the same time, scoring more points than the other team is also an important part of winning basketball games. While Christie should be able to give this roster a defensive identity of some kind, it's honestly hard to say if he can do the same for the Kings' offense, which is an issue.
Brown's era as head coach was defined by offense, not that the defense was a major problem during the Beam Team era. If this group of Kings wants to be successful, that means Christie has to find a consistent balance between offense and defense, regardless of what his personal focus is.
Sacramento has begun building a roster with the potential to be respectable on both ends of the court at the very least. But the drive to get there has to come from the top down. That means Christie needs to be as focused on offense as he is on defense, or this rebuild isn't going anywhere.
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