2. The New Orleans Pelicans
The NBA is filled with some of the best athletes in the world, and long, athletic wings cause the Kings trouble. New Orleans has plenty of players fitting that description. With Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, Trey Murphy, CJ McCollum, and Jonas Valanciunas, the Pelicans can produce a lot offensively—given that they are all healthy.
Over four regular season games, this team has proven to be a matchup nightmare for the undersized, offensive-minded Kings. Sacramento lost all four games, two of them by 30 points.
They cannot slow down Ingram and Williamson at the forward spots and struggle with their size on the other end of the floor. Having to face the Pelicans in the first round of the playoffs would truly be disastrous.
The Kings are playing much better defensively, but the personnel has not changed. New Orleans still has a huge size advantage, and the team has been playing good basketball lately as well, losing only one game all month.
Fortunately, right now it doesn’t seem likely that the Kings will have to deal with the Pelicans in the first round. The two paths to the matchup would be if the Pelicans climbed into fourth place in the West and the Kings rose up to fifth or if the Kings moved all the way up to fourth themselves. This would require either the Timberwolves or the Clippers to drop off notably.