In today's highly competitive NBA landscape, you can't continue bringing back the same core and hoping for similar/better results. This isn't a dig at continuity. Having that matters a great deal, as it helps coaches spend less time focusing on installing core principles and more time adding wrinkles to the scheme.
However, even that strategic example is minor in today's NBA arms race. Every offseason, teams are working diligently to make sure the team that they bring into the next season is better than the one they had the year before.
There are two ways to go about this. First, you could acquire more/better-fitting talent (see what the Oklahoma City Thunder and New York Knicks did this offseason). And second, you can have major internal development from your young players (see the Houston Rockets).
Sacramento Kings current core is losing their fastball
Since the start of the 2022-23 season, the Sacramento Kings have been running with the same core of De'Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, Keegan Murray, Malik Monk, and Kevin Huerter. In their first year together, that core was good enough to win 48 games and come within one win of the Western Conference Semifinals.
However, if you take a look at the Kings' record this time over the last two years, you will see that the rest of the league has caught up to this once-dangerous group.
On December 16, 2022, the Kings held a 16-12 record (57.1% win percentage). On December 16, 2023, the Kings were 15-9 (62.5%). Now, as of writing this (December 16, 2024), the Kings are 13-13 (50%).
As it stands, the Kings are currently on pace for a 41-41 record. That is five wins less than they had last year and seven wins less than they produced in 2022-23. The reason for this gradual fall off is exactly what we discussed in the introduction: the Kings have been losing their place in the arms race.
The Kings have tried to add talent to their core by executing a sign-and-trade for DeMar DeRozan. But remember, talent alone doesn't make your team better. You need the talent to fit the roster, and DeRozan provides more of a redundancy than a balancing force on this team.
On top of that, the team doesn't have any young players who have truly emerged outside of Keegan Murray. And while Murray has improved a great deal since the Kings drafted him in 2022, his outside shooting woes have stunted that development to a degree.
So, the Kings haven't added any talent that amplifies their current core, and they tout very little in the way of young talent. They better hope one of those variables changes (whether via trade or Devin Carter's emergence) before the Kings get lapped by their competition.