The Sacramento Kings are tired of being a doormat in the West, and the organization’s strongest figures have been laying down strong rhetoric to that effect all offseason.
«This year, let’s be clear, it’s about wins and losses,» proprietor Vivek Ranadive told Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee.
General Manager Pete D’Alessandro told Jones:»We’re not trying to be patient , we are not. We want to win more, we want to be exciting.»
Kudos to the Kings for aiming high, for trying to reward a loyal fanbase by altering the culture. But prioritizing wins with a roster which simply isn’t cut out to collect a lot of them might be a mistake. It’s harmful to change into short-term achievement mode too premature; it may cut the legs out from a rebuilding process in a way that’s sometimes unfixable.
Sacramento will begin Darren Collison, Ben McLemore, Rudy Gay, Jason Thompson and DeMarcus Cousins, which seems fascinating on paper.
But when you understand that the Kings’ most frequently used five-man unit annually showcased these very same players with the departed Isaiah Thomas at point guard instead of Collison and that said unit managed a net evaluation of minus-5.0 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com, it is hard to see where the impression that this group can win stems from.
Maybe it’s the additions of Ramon Sessions, Omri Casspi and newcomer Nik Stauskas. Perhaps it’s faith in Cousins’ continuing advancement.
Who knows?
This is all a long method of saying that even if the powers that be in Sacramento believe this group has a chance to do anything, the cold reality of name chances at 250-1 is a far more accurate assessment.
Not this year, Kings.
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