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No. 12: Sacramento Kings
Last Season: 29-53
13th place in West; missed playoffs
Internally, the Sacramento Kings' edict for this season seems clear: Don't only compete for a playoff berth, but secure one. It would mark the Kings' first trip to the postseason since the Rick Adelman era, when Metta World Peace was known as Ron Artest. It would snap the league's second-longest active playoff drought.
Their franchise player is 25 years old, arguably the best big man in the game and coming off his first All-Star and All-NBA appearances last season. They've invested money into bringing in more talent, and their head coach is one of the winningest in NBA history. So why does optimism about the Kings stop at Sacramento's city limits? Amid all of those pieces are also many combustible parts, and there are ample questions about whether they'll work together.
The Kings started last season as one of the feel-good stories of the year. Then-head coach Michael Malone had begun the third year of his tenure and had finally coaxed tangible progress out of a team that had long languished at the bottom with a 9-6 start, a positive net rating and, most impressively, a defensive rating that was in the top half of the league.
Above all, DeMarcus Cousins seemed to finally be buying in and maturing -- no small feat. On Nov. 27, Cousins began what would eventually be a 10-game absence due to illness. By the ninth game of that stretch, the Kings had gone 2-7, and Malone was out of a job, the victim of majority owner Vivek Ranadive's fickle fancy.
Then things got worse.
Malone's replacement, Ty Corbin, got Cousins back in body, but not in spirit, as the Kings spiraled to a 7-21 record, during which Sacramento was bottom-10 in offense and bottom-three in defense. Despite early assurances he would hold the interim job until season's end, Corbin also was replaced, this time with George Karl, a Hall of Fame-caliber coach with more than 1,000 victories on his resume (one of just nine coaches in NBA history to do so). Under Karl, the Kings closed out the season 11-19, with the offense rising to its highest rating (103.9 per 100 possessions, good for 13th in the league), but the team still languished defensively and generally was not equipped to play his up-tempo style.
The carousel didn't stop with the coaches, as Ranadive hired former Kings legend Vlade Divac as VP of Basketball Operations, effectively superseding then-GM Pete D'Alessandro. As Divac began to be more of a presence, he staffed the front office with cronies with little to no front office experience, such as ex-teammate Peja Stojakovic.
With another top-10 pick secured and a strong desire to clear the cap flexibility necessary to add veteran talent in the summer, the Kings consummated one of the most one-sided deals in recent NBA history, sending 2014 lottery pick Nik Stauskas, Jason Thompson, Carl Landry and multiple first-round draft considerations to Philly in exchange for the draft rights to two Euro-stashed prospects. It was the exact sort of shortsighted thinking the franchise could ill afford.
The predraft trade gave the Kings the flexibility to go out and acquire free agents Rajon Rondo, Marco Belinelli and Kosta Koufos, who join 2015 first-round selection Willie Cauley-Stein as the major newcomers to the roster. While it's undeniable all these players constitute a talent upgrade on paper, that view fails to acknowledge the volatile mix of personalities, particularly Rondo, who had been all but chased out of Dallas. A notoriously moody and aloof player, it's hard to imagine his addition will calm a locker room that already struggled to get on the same page.
Even if he's a model citizen, it's arguable whether Rondo's play on the court will be much of a boost. His lack of shooting makes him a liability in the modern game on a team that already lacks for shooting, and his defense (once a hallmark of his scouting report) has declined steadily over the past few seasons.
Belinelli and Koufos are solid role players, but hardly impact players on their own, particularly if the team's execution of plays and schemes is lacking. Cauley-Stein has great potential as a defensive stopper, but he has had health concerns and is extremely raw offensively, hardly making him an ideal fit with Cousins.
Say this for the Kings, they won't lack for intrigue. The summer started with Cousins tweeting emojis of a snakes in grass -- seemingly a reference to George Karl and reports that the coach didn't want the All-Star center in Sacramento -- but, by mid-August, Cousins was utilizing social media to downplay the noise. In between, the Kings brought in some reinforcements in Rondo, Koufos, Belinelli and Caron Butler. They drafted backline help in Cauley-Stein with the No. 6 pick. Vlade Divac, hired in March but formally anointed chief roster constructor in late August by adding the general manager tag, believes the Kings have added the sort of playoff-proven talent that can push this team forward in the ultra-competitive West.
"We have one of the best coaches in the league and one of the best players," Divac said of Karl and Cousins. "We had to try to help them out [by adding proven talent] in putting our team together."
What's more, Karl added Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman to his bench as the league's second female assistant coach, while Divac recruited old friend Peja Stojakovic in the role of director of player personnel and development. How will it all play out? Nobody knows. But the Kings are going to be NBA League Pass darlings while we wait to find out. -- Chris Forsberg
Projected Real Plus-Minus for starters
Rajon Rondo, PG: -4.7
Ben McLemore, SG: +0.1
Rudy Gay, SF: +0.9
DeMarcus Cousins, PF: +4.1
Kosta Koufos, C: +1.2
Scouting reports on every player on the Kings
Using shot data from 2014-15 and projected starters, Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry ranks each team's offensive efficiency based on square footage.
While Cousins leads the league in paint points per game, he remains inefficient there, and especially so at the rim, where he shoots a below average 52 percent.
Just two teams shot fewer 3s than Sacramento last season, and we know Rondo isn't going to change that. So the Kings will rely on McLemore and Gay, who combined to shoot 41 percent from the right wing.
All About The Space: 19th (410 square feet of above-average offense)
To identify players who stretch offenses the most, ESPN Stats & Information created the Kyle Korver Effect -- a metric on a 1-100 scale, factoring in 3PT%, 3-point attempt rate (percentage of total shots that come from 3-point range) and influence on teammate FG%.
Korver Effect: McLemore (89.1), who improved in nearly every statistical category in his sophomore campaign, projects to hit 36.6 percent of his 3s for the Kings, who SCHOENE predicts will rank 10th in 3-point percentage this season.
The Kings might look decent on paper, but it's hardly reality. The questions abound: Can Rondo be effective again? Will Cousins buy in? Can McLemore, Gay and Belinelli space the floor consistently on a nightly basis? Will Darren Collison be a steady hand at backup point guard?
Certainly if everyone pulls together defensively, this team could be in the mix for a No. 8 seed. But that's a lot of ifs for an organization that has exhausted any benefit of the doubt when it comes to stability, patience and sacrifice. RPM projects Sacramento to win 36 games, which would be a seven-game improvement over last season, but hardly enough to help this team achieve its postseason goal.
West No. 11 | West No. 13 | Full List
