Can the Sacramento Kings make a run at the playoffs?

With roughly 20 games remaining, do the Sacramento Kings have enough to make a serious push for the postseason in the Western Conference?

The Sacramento Kings’ season has been teetering off the rails from pretty much the get-go. They opened the season losing five consecutive games, which was largely attributed to fatigue from the India trip.

Buddy Hield, arguably the team’s best player last season, publicly criticized the new coaching staff. Their biggest free-agent signing from the offseason demanded a trade. Young star De’Aaron Fox missed over a month with a severe ankle sprain, and Marvin Bagley III has appeared in just 13 games. But despite all of this, Sacramento currently sits as the nine-seed in the Western Conference, just 3.5 games behind the injury-riddled Memphis Grizzlies.

On January 24, after a dispiriting loss to the Detroit Pistons, coach Luke Walton decided to move Bogdan Bogdanovic into the starting lineup in place of Hield. The Kings have gone 12-5 since, climbing up five spots in the standings. How much of this run is sustainable, and can they make a push for the playoffs?

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The offensive improvements seem mostly real. In these last 17 games, the Kings have a 112.8 offensive rating (they had a 107.6 offensive rating in their first 44 contests). For all the ballyhooed talk of the dwindling Sacramento transition attack, their halfcourt motion offense can look beautiful at times when it is truly humming.

Bogdanovic fades into the background as more of a cog in the machine compared to Hield. This allows the four-out system of moving and cutting around a screen-setting big (mostly Harry Giles right now) to sing.

It is smart that Walton has finally settled on this identity. Bogdanovic has been unable to carry bench units by himself. In the 795 possessions that he has played this season without Fox/Hield, the Kings are being outscored by 10.6 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass. The injury to Richaun Holmes has forced Walton to play smaller, which plays a part in their hot shooting from deep (39.1 percent on non-corner 3s since January 24).

Hield can now finally get all-he-can-eat off the bench. He’s been on a tear, scoring at by far the highest rate of his career (26.2 points per 36 minutes) on an outstanding 63.9 true shooting percentage. He dropped a career-high against Minnesota to lead a miracle 22-point comeback win back in January. He had his fingerprints all over the bench’s 25-7 run versus San Antonio last month.

A deeper look at the numbers backs up this sentiment. In addition to shooting more efficiently from the floor, they are also turning the ball over far less (from 15 percent to 12.6 percent), and drawing more fouls (16.4 to 19.9 FTR) during this stretch. And you can’t just chalk up the uptick in effective field goal percentage to hot shooting. The Kings are getting their shots from much more favorable areas on the floor. They are taking many more attempts at the rim (from 27th most in the league to 11th most), far fewer from the midrange (11th most to 23rd most), and more from three (12th most to 8th most).

Marvin Bagley III was one of the biggest culprits for this undesirable shot distribution during the first 44 games of the season. He would often stop to hold the ball from the mid-post and get into his face-up game. While Bagley is a promising young prospect whose story is far from written, it is not a coincidence that Sacramento is 2-11 when he’s suited up this year. It will be interesting to see what his role is for next season and how he evolves his game with another year under Walton’s system.

There are reasons to downplay this hot streak as well. Sacramento hasn’t exactly faced a murderer’s row during this 12-5 run. Their two best victories, both at the Staples Center against the Clippers, had LA missing Kawhi Leonard for one game and Paul George for the other. The second victory was an early Saturday afternoon start-time, and we already know about the Clippers’ issues with those.

They also beat a Jimmy Butler-less Heat team at home, but other than that you’d be hard-pressed to find any impressive wins in there. Most of the time the Kings play down to their opponents, like narrow victories over the Grizzlies and Pistons this past weekend. They’ve gotten pasted by most of the real teams that they’ve played during this time (Thunder by 20, Lakers by 16, Bucks by 12 without Giannis, Mavericks by 19, Thunder again by 4 where they blew a 19-point lead).

Sacramento’s new fond offensive identity is still currently in its embryonic stages. They have not really been battle-tested through the wringer yet, and it shows. In their most recent game against the Wizards, for example, the Kings raced out to a 27-point halftime lead amidst whirling ball-movement and shooting.

When Washington came out in the second half with increased ball pressure and much more switching, they did not have a response. Things got tight. The offense was ground down to De’Aaron Fox contested mid-rangers. Sacramento eventually still held on for the win, but they managed to give back the entire lead in just the third quarter alone, even getting booed off the floor in the process. This is normal for young teams who have not faced adversity. However, situations like those are what makes me skeptical that this Kings’ run will last.

FiveThirtyEight shares this same doubt. Its RAPTOR model projects Sacramento to go 10-11 the rest of the way and gives them just 15 percent odds at the playoffs. Two teams that they are currently ahead of, New Orleans and Portland are given better chances. This appears about right to me.

The Kings’ schedule gets very tough for the next eight games or so. Although New Orleans just had an alarming home loss to Minnesota, I still believe that it’s their spot to lose. They are at another level compared to these other teams vying for the 8-seed. Sacramento has seemingly righted the ship, but their net rating is still just +1.5 during this stretch. I would be shocked if they string together another streak of wins like this. In other words, things could get pretty messy for Harrison Barnes.