The NBA has revealed its regular season schedule for the 2024-25 regular season. As a result, we now know 80 of the Sacramento Kings' 82 regular season games (the other two will be determined depending on how the Emirates NBA Cup goes).
As you may have noticed from the title, we are going to look at some of the most important games of the Kings' regular season. But before we do that, I want to make it known that I am a staunch proponent of the school of thought that all games/minutes/possessions are created equal. Talk to any coach at any level, and they will tell you that a random Tuesday game in November means as much as the final game of the season when it comes to the win-loss column.
But I will acknowledge that some games do mean more for momentum and morale than others (remember, this is a game played by humans, not robots). So, it is worth going through an exercise like this. However, given the extremely arbitrary nature of this analysis, I am not ranking these games from most least important to most important. They are just a handful of games I find to be extra meaningful.
Now, without further ado, here are the Kings' six most important regular season games.
Vs. Minnesota Timberwolves October 24 (7 PM PST/10 PM EST)
We've kind of already discussed the importance of this game in a different post. But in case you missed it (or you just don't feel like reading the post I hyperlinked in the sentence before), here is the elevator pitch.
This game is the Kings' season opener, their home opener, the first time they have DeMar DeRozan on their team, and it's a game against one of the teams that represented their side of the bracket in the Western Conference Finals. This is their chance to start the season strong, make their fans happy, prove the DeRozan trade was a good idea, and dethrone one of the projected top dogs out West.