The scouting report on the Kings is similar regardless of the opponent.

The Kings have several players with the ability to post big offensive numbers on any given night.

If that's the case, what's wrong with the offense?

The Kings have played 22 games, or a little more than 25 percent of the 2012-13 season. Their 7-15 record has them near the bottom of the Western Conference again. They had hoped at the very least they could make a run at a top-eight spot in the West.

The Kings rank in the bottom third of the NBA in every major offensive category except free-throw percentage.

All the talent has yet to learn how to play together. Barring roster moves, this group has to learn how to do that or the improvements the team has shown on defense will be for naught.

"I think as a group we're all disappointed with the record we have at this point," Kings basketball president Geoff Petrie said. "We certainly had aspirations we'd have a better start than this, especially with the homestand we had in November."

The Kings can't get out of their own way to maintain consistency. The problems from recent seasons remain.

They are a poor shooting team, tied for 23rd at 43.4 percent entering Saturday. Their three-point shooting (34.2 percent) ranks 20th. In scoring, the Kings are 23rd at 94.5 points per game.

"Setting aside the losses in games and self-inflicted wounds that every team has over the course of the season, offensively we're still kind of struggling to score the ball consistently in the halfcourt," Petrie said. "We have games where we have stretches where we have the inability to score the ball."

It's tough to score in the halfcourt when too many players believe the solution is to hold or dribble the ball while four teammates watch them take a contested shot.

The lack of ball movement is evident in the Kings' league-worst assist average (18.6).

"The instinct (of the Kings' point guards) is going to pull them back to the scoring part," Kings coach Keith Smart said. "Then you have small forwards who have been primary scorers their whole careers. Can they back off sometimes? When we've done that and moved the ball, it's been an easy game. We've had six guys in double figures, and it's been an easy concept for us."

Smart concedes it's not as simple as making the players become something they've never been. After all, they all reached the NBA and made a lot of money being scorers.

"I don't think you're going to break it," Smart said. "It's going to be where they have to give up something because their nature is still going to be to go do this."

Simply put, the Kings need more players to accept being role players.

"It's just something you've got to want to do," Isaiah Thomas said of playing team ball. "It's not the hardest thing in the world. You've just got to play together because no one can win a basketball game by themselves. We've got to know and we've got to trust each other through the good and the bad times."

That trust hasn't come about. The ball moves well when the Kings have a big lead and they're shooting well. But when the pressure is on, they revert to their bad habits.

"I feel like we've let a lot of games get away," Chuck Hayes said. "It's like when times get tough, we find a way not to finish it out."

The Kings also need the three players touted as their big-time scorers to do that consistently. DeMarcus Cousins, Tyreke Evans and Marcus Thornton have shown they can be really hot or ice cold on offense.

Of the trio, only Evans (46.1 percent) is shooting above his career average. But he also has missed five games with a knee injury. Evans also is averaging a career-low 15.9 points, but he might be scoring more if he weren't averaging a career-low 32.1 minutes.

Thornton's shooting, scoring and minutes are down as the new sixth man. Cousins' scoring is below where it was last season, and his shooting has dipped to a paltry 42.7 percent.

Defensively, the Kings are allowing 100 points per game. That's hardly lockdown defense, but it's more than four points fewer than last season's average. They also are 19th in opponents' field-goal percentage (44.7), which is also a marked improvement.

The Kings have held opponents to 34.6 percent shooting on three-pointers, ninth-best in the league. They are 25th in blocked shots (4.6) but 13th in steals (8.2).

But as long as the Kings are stuck in their old, bad habits on offense, they'll take poor shots that lead to rebounds and easy shots for their opponents. Or they'll commit turnovers that lead to easy baskets.

"We've still got a long way to go," Smart said. "Things can still get turned around. We've just got to hurry up and do it and stop talking about it."

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