On Wednesday, the Sacramento Kings beat the Utah Jazz 118-101, which marked their second win in as many games. Given the Jazz's downtrodden status (they are the worst team in the Western Conference and one of the worst teams in the NBA overall), this result was not unexpected.
What was noteworthy about this game (other than Keegan Murray dropping 26 points), was the absence of one player from the Kings' rotation.
Is Trey Lyles falling out of the Kings' main rotation?
Outside of the three players with G-League obligations, no players were injured for the Kings coming into yesterday's game (Keon Ellis was listed as "questionable" on the injury report, but he ended up being good to go).
Despite their clean bill of health, veteran forward Trey Lyles did not log a single second off the bench for the Kings. And it's not like the Kings weren't using their bench. In fact, they played four players at least for minutes off the bench (Ellis, Jonas Valanciunas, Jake LaRavia, and Markelle Fultz).
This marks the first time that Lyles did not play in a game for a non-injury reason. However, there were hints that a shift like this was coming. Of Lyles' seven lowest-minute total games, five have happened in the month of February (and this isn't including his recent DNP-CD). On top of that, Lyles has surpassed the 14-minute played mark in a game in over three weeks.
Lyles has been slowly but surely falling out of favor in the rotation. Some of this could be due to the presence of Jonas Valanciunas eating up the backup five minutes that were originally his. But Lyles hasn't been doing himself any favors, either.
After averaging nearly 60% true shooting from 2022-24, Lyles is down to 53.9% this year. As an offensively-slanted player, if Lyles isn't hitting his shots, he loses a great deal of his value, which makes it hard to play him when you may have other options you can turn to.
It makes sense why the Kings may be looking to go in this direction, but it is still kind of surprising, especially considering how integral he has been to the rotation over the last few years. In 2022-23, Lyles was eighth on the team in total minutes played. Last year, he was seventh. And even this season, despite his struggles, Lyles is eighth in minutes.
Was this just a one-off occurrence? Or is Lyles completely out of the Kings' main rotation?