Without question, the Sacramento Kings have been having a tough season as a team. From an individual player perspective, Dennis Schroder may be having the worst run of everyone. But he played off the bench for the first time against the Wolves instead of starting, and it worked out well.
The recent Kings home stand went abysmally, finishing it with one win and four losses. Even worse, three of the four losses were absolute blowouts. This was just the cherry on the top of the "something needs to change" cake that the Kings have been waiting to eat for years.
Going into the first game of their road trip, Sacramento had to make a statement. Unfortunately, that statement was losing to the Minnesota Timberwolves, one of the teams that had recently demolished them at home by quite a hefty margin. It was one of a string of embarrassments in front of their fans.
At least the road loss wasn't as drastic as their previous meeting had been. For the Kings, that could be considered a borderline win. If nothing else, it was progress towards something better, made possible in part by a small but important change to the starting five, one fans had been waiting for.
Dennis Schroder hits the bench hard
Across the five-game home stand, Schroder started as point guard each time. His performances were, for the most part, horrifying. In one of those games, he scored exactly zero points, with an average over that run of 6.4 points per game. That's not where you want your point guard at.
Against the Wolves, the Kings started Russell Westbrook instead of Schroder. Not surprisingly, Russell delivered a typical Westbook-ian performance in the form of another triple-double as well as becoming the 8th player in NBA history to reach 10,000 career assists. He was impressive.
The other huge positive was Schroder's gameplay. Off the bench, he collected 14 points, six rebounds, six assists, and one steal. More importantly, he looked comfortable on the court and worked his butt off when playing defense. Those 28+ minutes were some of his best this season.
This doesn't mean the Kings don't still need a complete rebuild to become legitimate contenders. But making this move allowed both Schroder and Westbrook to play their best. If the Kings continue to make smart changes like that, they might be able to even partially salvage this season.