When I asked Son if I could write for Razzball he said I could on one condition: More. Kings. Content.
Regretfully being the man for the job, I accepted his terms and spent much of the days around the holiday soaking up some of that quality Sacramento basketball product. I also caught a few non-Kings games and took notes, opened some gifts (alpaca socks for our first Wisconsin winter), finished watching The Young Pope (quite good), and then looked through my scribblings for a single shard of wisdom. And while I can’t promise that I found any, I do have some thoughts on this first week of NBA basketball.
Oh, Son is making the “enough with the preamble and give me that Kings report” hand gesture, so let’s get into it. Welcome to hangin’ with Mr. Hooper!
Fox, Fantastic Mr.
Everything that Sacramento wants to accomplish offensively is made easier when De’Aaron Fox can get both feet in the paint. For best results, have the team’s star player move the ball closer to the hoop as frequently as possible—how’s that for analysis, Son?
Through the first three games of the season, Fox has been able to wiggle his way past the first defender by changing speeds, turning the corner, or running right past them. If he’s within 15 feet of the basket with the ball in his left hand, much of the battle is already over. While the three-point stroke still needs some proving (though starting 4/11 is encouraging, as is the confidence that he’s shooting with), Fox has been effective at working his way into the key and then doing damage after he arrives. Soft touch on floaters and a bag full of ball fakes allow De’Aaron to score on his own, and the panic caused by his presence cracks defenses wide open for easy dunks for Marvin Bagley III and the other bigs. Peep my man’s extremely small sample heat chart:
Coach Luke Walton recommitting to pace is helping his point guard’s cause. After falling to the middle of the pack last season, the Kings appear encouraged to run in 2020-21. Prior to the second Phoenix game, Sacramento was playing at the 8th fastest pace (now 19th. Small samples and all.) When Fox gets the ball after makes, misses, and live-ball turnovers he is zooming downhill. Sac is pushing tempo after made free throws; track meets are preferred. As difficult as he’s been to slow down in the half-court, running up the backs of unset defenses provides another level of potency to Fox’s attack. He needed exactly six dribbles to go end to end and score in the Boxing Day win against Phoenix. Dude is fast.
Through the first two games, he averaged 22.5 points, 7 dimes, 4 boards, 1 steal, and 1.5 blocks on 44/44/86 shooting before running into foul trouble and throwing out a clunker against the Suns on the second game of a back-to-back against the same team. It’s no accident that the Kings won the two games where he played well and dropped the one featuring his struggles. His ability to break down a defender defines success in Sacramento.
More Kings news? De’Aaron hasn’t been the only one encouraged to push.
Marvin Bagley’s green light in Sacramento has got me reaching for a copy of Gatsby. Several times a game the oft-injured forward pulls down a defensive rebound and drives straight to the front of the rim at the other end without even considering giving it up. The results haven’t always been roses and his overall game, to borrow a term from Paul Hollywood, is “a bit rough and ready.” Missing so much time in his first two years has left his game threadbare in places, and the result is worse FG efficiency than you’d like out of a big man. Marv generally moves at one speed and in one direction, but he’s enough of an athlete that that’s enough a lot of the time.
Still, the one-man breaks and the freedom to launch from deep despite not showing much growth (currently 1/7) makes it clear that the leash on MB3 has plenty of slack in it. The bottom line hasn’t changed much after three games. His 12.3 points, 9.6 rebounds per game, and 1 total block certainly doesn’t look like progress on his career numbers, but the environment couldn’t be better suited for The Young King to flourish. He’s logged 27, 21, and 27 minutes in the first three contests, with the middle game being marred by fouls. Hassan Whiteside and Richaun Holmes eat some of the time at center, but there’s plenty to go around, and getting a long look at Bagley is vital for Sac, as they’ll have to make a contract decision on him soon.
I was bullish preseason on De’Aaron’s rising tide lifting the rest of the crew in California’s capital, and it looks like Bagley could be the one most buoyed by a healthy and aggressive Fox. Good luck prying De’Aaron away if you didn’t draft him, but I think Marvin could be had. His scoring and rebounding floor looks plenty stable. Better days are ahead.
Give us more on the Kings, you say? Here are two lines about rookie Tyrese Haliburton: He does a lot of things well, has an excellent basketball brain, and quickly earned the trust of his coaches. He’s shooting 42% from deep on large handfuls of uncontested looks (and he shot 42% on 3s in college.)
Do you still need more? Nemanja Bjelica looks skinnier. There. Now get out of here, sicko!
Wiseman says, “Rush in, fool!”
Oh man, the Warriors could be bad again, huh? After starting the season with two nationally televised thumpings at the hands of the Nets and Bucks and then needing a huge effort to best the Bulls, the Bay’s basketball gold rush looks to be squarely in the rearview, though maybe not yet light years away. Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre Jr. got into the Christmas spirit by embodying Kevin McCallister in Home Alone 2 and hucked a truckload of bricks in the early season (a combined 4/30 on 3s.) Stephen Curry’s own struggles from deep (9/35) remind us that Super Splash Bros is better as a two-player game. Draymond Green’s season debut embodies the only potential cavalry coming from behind the hill. The situation is, ah,
) that Wiseman’s rawness could be a boon to his value too, as Coach Steve Kerr has let him get after it in garbage time. If things really go south this season, letting Wiseman get fat on minutes and chances could be the most prudent strategy should the Ws find themselves non-competitive and in the bottom half of the West.
There’s lots of basketball to be played, and Wiseman’s lack of experience will inevitably leave him exposed on occasion. That said, it’s an enviable spot he’s found himself in. I’m a very big believer.
Brooklyn’s Secondary Scorers
Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, provided they can maintain their health, are studs who will beat their ADP, perhaps dramatically. And while it’s thrilling to see them both flirting with the peak of their powers, I was able to take my eyes off their offensive glory to monitor how Spencer Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert are fitting in with their talented teammates. It’s a less than encouraging situation.
The early going suggested that Caris had the better gig than Spencer. Coach Steve Nash was blending minutes for both LeVert and Dinwiddie alongside Durant and Irving, but Caris had the advantage of also playing without any of the previously mentioned three. He was often the boss of the second unit, and aggressively pursuing buckets was the primary responsibility of the role. His game drips with enthusiasm. LeVert seems to relish being The Man, even if it’s the man among reserves. When I drafted Caris in the RazzJam, I was under the influence of the tear-down in Houston (and maybe something to stimulate my Third Eye. I really shoulda drafted Ky.) The “James Harden to Brooklyn” heat has cooled a bit, though the idea that LeVert would be best served as a starter logging 30+ minutes might still be correct. The good news is that his value alongside 7-11 isn’t as diminished as Dinwiddie’s appeared to be. Twenty to twenty-five or so MPG isn’t optimal for LeVert, but at least they mostly seem to be the correct 25 minutes.
Or at least that’s what I assumed until Spencer Dinwiddie partially tore his ACL in Sunday night’s contest with the Hornets. Prior to the injury, Dinwiddie’s fantasy value was inversely tied to the fact that he’s actually just a good basketball player IRL. He was overqualified for the role given to him by Nash, and playing mostly with the starters really muted his value. Now facing the prospect of a significant time off, managers can put him on the shelf or wire and kick this headache down the road.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for what Nash decides to do with his 5th starter spot in the coming week(s). LeVert is an obvious candidate, but they seemed to like him in the Manu role. Assuming Caris remains the super sub [*begins repeating this as a mantra*], Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot and Landry Shamet are candidates for the “stand in the corner and watch KD and Ky work” job. For what it’s worth, Luwawu-Cabarrot closed the game with the starters in Charlotte, but I don’t think there’s a vital grab to be made here. Maybe Shamet? He was already toting 17 MPG, so maybe he gets a bit of a bump. Really though, if a player as competent as Dinwiddie couldn’t carve out meaningful stats playing with the two superstars, I’m not particularly interested in any of his replacements.
Thanks for hangin’.
