Just two years ago, the future looked bright for the Sacramento Kings. They were fresh off a season where they won 48 games, finished third in the Western Conference, and pushed the then-defending champion Golden State Warriors to seven games (when you think about it, they sound a lot like this year's Houston Rockets).
Unfortunately, since then, the Kings have failed to return to the postseason, fired head coach Mike Brown, traded away their franchise star, and completely remodeled their front office.
What went wrong for the Kings? And what can they do to avoid repeating history this time around?
The Sacramento Kings need to understand the importance of size
Despite how doom and gloom things are right now, the Kings do have a phenomenal basketball player in Domantas Sabonis. In his last three seasons with Sacramento, Sabonis has put up some historic counting stats. This season, Sabonis notched 61 double-doubles, making it the third straight year he's had over 60 of these types of games. According to Elias Sports Bureau, Sabonis is only the sixth player since the ABA-NBA merger to pull this off.
At the very least, Sabonis has earned a chance to show what he can do with a roster that is perfectly tailored to his specific strengths and weaknesses (much like Alperen Sengun has in Houston).
Thanks to Sabonis' ability to pass and score in the post, you don't need as much scoring and passing from your other frontcourt players. Instead, what you need them to be able to do is provide secondary rim protection and spacing to account for Sabonis' shortcomings in those areas.
Last offseason, the Kings decided to ignore this, adding DeMar DeRozan in a sign-and-trade. DeRozan is an excellent player with a well-decorated career. But his strengths (scoring and playmaking) are things that Sabonis already gives you, and he doesn't do much to cover up his weaknesses.
If the Kings choose to keep Sabonis and build around him, they need to understand the importance of putting size, defense, and shooting around him.
Look at the 2022-23 Denver Nuggets team that won it all with Nikola Jokic. Along with The Joker, their starting lineup consisted of one additional creator in Jamal Murray and three excellent role players in Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr., and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. That trio was oozing with size, defense, and shooting.
Of course, everyone is looking for those attributes in some capacity. So, acquiring these types of players is easier said than done. But doing so will be an absolute necessity for the Kings, unless they want to remain in basketball purgatory.