Sacramento Kings: There’s reason for cautious optimism heading into 2019-20

Exploring why the Sacramento Kings should enter the 2019-20 season with cautious optimism. The question is, can they deliver?

The Sacramento Kings are one of the more…unique; I guess you could say, franchises in the league today. When we think of California sports towns, you’re imagining Los Angeles most likely, but secondarily and still prominent is Oakland or the bay area.

These are dominated by the notorious Lakers, new Warriors team, and of course the Raiders and 49ers. It’s not as if Sacramento is a forgotten town or a small market, it’s just that it’s…not LA, and it’s not the bay. It just doesn’t quite have that nostalgia or mystique that the other cities give to their sports teams.

In fact, if there were any team I’d be in favor of moving to Seattle I don’t see why it shouldn’t be the Kings. This isn’t a knock on the city of their fan base, but we all know Seattle is a great sports town that would love to have an NBA team of their own, OH and California has four of them so…maybe share?

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Regardless of dreams, this doesn’t seem to be in the plans of the league any time soon, so we’ll work with what we got. The good news is the people of Sacramento finally have a real reason for optimism that isn’t a false sense of hope, maybe.

This team really hasn’t enjoyed much success since the early to mid-2000s, looking back to Kevin Martin, Mike Bibby, Harrison Barnes, Chris Webber, Gerald Wallace, and other’s groups. I’m not old enough to have any recollection of that era whatsoever, so forgive my lack of insightful depth on the memories. Aside from that, they had some fun with White Chocolate in the ’90s, but other than that they haven’t become anything that prominent in the league.

Most recently, we can look at the DeMarcus Cousins era, or DeMarcus and Rudy Gay era if you want to include him. Depending on how you view it you could blame the lack of success around him on Cousins himself or the incompetent team and asset management that was taking place. It has to be a combination of both to an extent because it’s pretty obvious that DMC had his own self-control issues at the time.

This can’t be blamed entirely though for the lack of success. I mean, look at what they put around him. Their best attempt at making a go for anything was a big three of Rondo, Gay, and DeMarcus. Rondo and Cousins? On the same team? Starting together? Come on, you should’ve known how that would go.

Ultimately, they end up finally finding a decent swap to a Pelicans team that was making an attempt to surround their own star with talent, and though it didn’t work out for New Orleans it’s been great for Sac town. Since this point, they’ve turned Buddy Hield into an elite shooter consistently, drafted a guy who appears to have the potential to be the next John Wall, picked Marvin Bagley who showed tremendous flashes last season and let’s not overlook Bogdan Bogdanovic.

They’ve signed quality veterans in Dewayne Dedmon, Trevor Ariza, Cory Joseph, and Richaun Holmes, as well as acquiring other undervalued young assets such as Harry Giles. The trade for Harrison Barnes was…well it looks good on paper, I’m only questioning it due to his inconsistent offensive output near the end of last season. In theory, though, he should be a perfect fit for this roster as a do it all guy who is supposedly a competent defender.

The Kings also aren’t up the creek for any bad money at the moment. Barnes is the only guy on the team making over $14 million, the next closest being Dedmon sitting at just over $13 million. They spent quality mid-level money on guys like Ariza, Ded, and Joseph, while their most prominent young stars are still on rookie contracts. Within the next couple seasons obviously, both Fox and Hield be up, but by that time the other players will be off the books.

Now you have young talent who seems to have legitimate star potential that can carry this team for years to come, especially in De’Aaron Fox. Looking at a guy who was very conservative and a bit weary in his freshman season, he went from a questionable shooter to hitting 37 percent of his 3’s this past season. His offensive rating improved quite a bit and it’s obvious they opened up the game plan during this past season. His defensive rating has been…okay? He has the physical attributes to be a great optimistic defender, so as long as he continues this offensive trend I wouldn’t obsess over it.

The shift in decision making from very questionable to shrewd has been a breath of fresh air for this franchise that’s endured a lot of waiting over the last decade or more. Whether the team ever moves or not, and I have no indication to believe that they will be any time in the near future, there’s plenty of promise and optimism built into this current roster. Not only the roster but also the decision-makers’ ability to manage it and make competent decisions in the long run.