Can Keon Ellis be the Sacramento Kings starting shooting guard moving forward?

There has been some talk about the Sacramento Kings potentially parting ways with Kevin Huerter in the hopes of landing a player who could make them serious title contenders.

If you have been following along here at A Royal Pain, you know that I think that upgrade should be a bigger forward who can shoot, drive, and protect the rim. And if that vision comes to fruition, the Kings would have a new starting power forward but would also be down a starting two-guard (if Huerter is involved in the deal, of course).

Even if they retain Malik Monk, he'll likely continue to be their superstar combo guard off the bench. That leaves the onus on Keon Ellis – one of Sacramento's biggest bright spots from last season – to pick up the slack.

That begs the question: Will Ellis be ready to do this?

What The Fans Think

To answer this question, I decided to extend the conversation to the fanbase, many of whom have watched every game of Ellis' career. So, I put out a poll on my personal Twitter account (I refuse to call it "X") to get a temperature check on where Kings' fans view Ellis at this point.

The poll received 245 total votes. Not the entire fanbase (not even close), but still, a pretty solid sample size nonetheless. Of those votes, 179 people (73.1%) voted "yes," meaning that nearly three-fourths of voters view Ellis as ready to fill in as the team's starting shooting guard.

What I Think

Overall, I tend to agree with the fanbase on this one (so long as Monk is still with the team).

Switching Huerter for Ellis certainly hurts the offense, but hopefully, the player who they switch Harrison Barnes for makes up for this difference. And even though Ellis isn't Huerter on offense, he does enough on that end of the court to allow the Kings to reap the benefits of his defense.

Last year, Ellis was in the 93rd percentile in 3-point efficiency (41.7%) and the 69th percentile in 3-point volume (6.4 threes per 75 possessions, per Dunks & Threes). These are strong indicators of his utility as a floor spacer. He also finished last year in the 88th percentile in true shooting on drives (per the Thinking Basketball database), so he can punish hard closeouts when they come to him.

Speaking of his defense, Ellis was one of the better guard defenders in the league last year (93rd percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus). More importantly, he provides the positional rim protection we've discussed the Kings desperately needing to surround Domantas Sabonis with. According to Cleaning the Glass, Ellis was in the 98th percentile in block rate among combo guards.

The offseason still has a lot of life left in it (technically, it hasn't even fully started yet). So, we have no idea whether Ellis will actually need to be the team's starting shooting guard. But if you ask me (and Kings Twitter), Ellis is certainly ready for the job.