Point Guard
Darren Collison is the nominal starter at the one position, but he’s out for the first eight games of the year due to a suspension. Ty Lawson and Garrett Temple will jockey for minutes, with Lawson probably getting the lion’s share. There are questions here even after Collison gets back. They brought in Rajon Rondo to run the point last year, for some reason, but he jetted for the Bulls in the offseason.
Don’t let that league-leading 11.7 assists per game fool you, he wasn’t nearly the player he was earlier in his career last season. Rondo seemed disinterested overall; he didn’t play defense and didn’t have much interest in scoring or moving the ball around beyond the one or two passes to get a shot off, though he did jell with Cauley-Stein.
I don’t think the Kings would miss him too much if they weren’t looking at Lawson and Collison as the main options, but here we are.
Lawson cratered on and off the court last season, and hopefully he can reignite the spark in Sacramento. He’s still only twenty-eight years old and still has the burst that made him an effective point guard in Denver. Hopefully Collison is good enough to limit Lawson to small chunks of playing time, during which he can play the pick and roll with Cauley-Stein or up the tempo of the offense (something this team will need).
Basically, absolute best case seems like Bobby Jackson.
Collison is who he is: a serviceable vet who can provide 10 points and five assists a game along with shaky defense. I don’t see that changing much this year.