Sacramento Kings have a beautiful new arena and new jersey designs for this season. It’s a new era in Sacramento. But, can this team abandon their old-era results and start winning and making the playoffs like they did in the early 2000s? Or will it be a new era with old habits?
Sometimes it’s hard to justify some of the moves that Kings’ front office makes. A lot of these moves are just head-scratching, and their fans must feel frustrated more often than not. Kings’ haven’t been to the postseason since that Chris Webber and Peja Stojakovic era. We are far away from those times, but this team is still in a rebuilding mode.
DeMarcus Cousins is still the main piece for this franchise. But the other guys around are constantly changing. Rudy Gay is also on the team, but there were a lot of talks about them moving on from him, but hey, he is still on this squad. Draft choices for this team are highly questionable, and even Cousins was concerned with their drafting skills. Why spending a lottery pick on Stauskas when you have Ben McLemore? And now, Nik Stauskas is not even on the roster.
They lost Rajon Rondo to free agency, but he was good for this team. It looked like he and Cousins really had something going. Kings’ still have Collison who is more than capable of handling some starting point guard duties.
But this squad is just horrible when it comes to a defensive play. That needs to change. Their effort needs to change. They have way too much talent to keep falling short the way that they did in the past. Defense and energy invested will create that winning culture for any franchise. Kings just don’t have it right now.
We don’t think this team is playoff bound. We hope we are wrong since DeMarcus Cousins is way too gifted and we want to see him in postseason action. But it won’t happen this year. They will win 35 games, and it will only be good enough for a 10th or 11th place in the West. They might be in the new arena, but old results will come in Sacramento.
