All season long, we've talked about how unforgiving the Western Conference is. You need to be on your game every single night, and even then, nothing is truly guaranteed.
However, a string of recent tragedies in Texas has made it so our Sacramento Kings can get as close to a safety net as one can get in the grueling Western Conference.
How injuries to Victor Wembanyama and Kyrie Irving impact the Sacramento Kings
To play games after the 82-game regular season concludes, you need to be at least a top 10 spot in your conference. As it stands, the Kings are in eighth place in the West. But they are only four games from the 11th seed, and given how difficult the rest of their schedule is, it is entirely possible that they fall out of the top 10 before the season's end.
Well, at least it was likely until season-ending injuries to Kyrie Irving (ACL) and Victor Wembanyama (blood clot) changed the entire landscape of the Western Conference.
Prior to these injuries, every team in the Western Conference had a chance at landing a top 10 seed. However, with key injuries to star players, the Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs are expected to fall out of the race.
So, now only 11 teams are fighting for those ten spots. One of those teams is the Phoenix Suns, who have been a complete dumpster fire since starting the season 9-2 (20-31 since then). And another team is the Portland Trail Blazers, who still have a lot of digging to climb out of the 13-28 hole they dug for themselves earlier in the season. You have to think that one of those teams will not make the cut line, thereby basically guaranteeing that the Kings make at least the play-in tournament.
More than that, thanks to their recent win streak (powered by the incredible play of Zach LaVine), the Kings are only one game out from the sixth seed (currently occupied by the Golden State Warriors). So, if they keep playing the way they are, they could avoid the play-in tournament altogether and receive an automatic bid to the playoffs.
For the record, you never, ever want injuries to happen, especially to two players as special as Irving and Wembanyama. But still, one can't help but notice how much these misfortunes have changed the Kings' playoff outlook.