The Kings have gone from bad to ugly, so who’s to blame? You have to look at the top
I like Kings GM Vlade Divac a lot and I’ve come to appreciate Kings owner Vivek Ranadive as someone who truly wants the team to be successful. But the Kings aren’t successful in the most important way they need to be successful: On the court.
And if the team isn’t successful on the court, and this lost season of dashed expectations continues on a downward trajectory, then Divac and Ranadive – great guys that they are – will and should be held responsible by a community that has supported a bad product for long enough.
Kings fans want accountability for the disaster this season has become, and they are not wrong for feeling this way.
After Wednesday’s dismal 127-106 loss to a Detroit Pistons team missing key players – a new low for a group constantly redefining a lack of commitment – the Kings are 15-29 with 38 games left in the NBA season.
Do the math: To finish with 42 wins, a winning season, the Kings would have to go 27-11 down the stretch. That would be a .710 winning percentage for a team whose current winning percentage is .341.
So barring a miracle, the Kings are bound for their 14th consecutive losing season, the longest futility streak in the NBA. And do you know what else it means? This would be the seventh consecutive losing season under Ranadive. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms until the Pistons debacle, where the Kings were manhandled by a Detroit team that really only had characteristic the Kings lacked: Guts.
The Pistons were more aggressive. They attacked the basket, got to the free-throw line. They wanted it more than the Kings. That has been happening repeatedly this season as the Kings have been out-hustled, out-worked, and out-thought by teams good and bad.
Last season the Kings won 39 games. At this juncture, they were .500, 24-24. They were projected to do better in 2019-20 so, in that context, the string of futility under Ranadive takes on a different meaning than it did a few years ago.
You can’t blame the Maloofs
The Maloof brothers – the long-departed former Kings owners – can no longer be blamed for this endless losing. And because Divac is Ranadive’s guy and coach Luke Walton is Divac’s guy and these players were handpicked by this group, where else are fans to turn for answers?
These leaders of the Kings own this. They own every stinking, gut-wrenching, spirit-crushing moment of this season. Please don’t talk to us about injuries and how losing De’Aaron Fox, Marvin Bagley III and Bogdan Bogdanovic for significant time is to blame for what we’re seeing.
Good teams will lose games when good players are sitting on the bench in street clothes. We get it. But that’s not the prevailing narrative here – don’t try to tell us that it is. If a depleted Kings team were playing tough and yet ultimately losing games to more talented units, that would be one thing.
But that’s not what were seeing. In the last six games, all losses, the Kings have given up this many points per night: 127, 114, 127, 123, 118, 127. This from a team that was supposed to be about defense.
How many nights lately have we seen Kings defenders completely flummoxed by a simple pick and roll? On Wednesday, Pistons guards Reggie Jackson and Derrick Rose did whatever they wanted, when they wanted. The Pistons outworked the Kings in the trenches for defensive rebounds, creating more opportunities for to score. The Kings committed silly, goofy fouls, sending Pistons players to the free throw line repeatedly.
Meanwhile, Kings players seem averse to contact. And if you watch the games, it’s obvious that the word is out: You want to beat the Kings, you bully them.
Instead of matching opponents’ aggression with aggression, Kings players settle for low-percentage shots far from the basket, where games are won with muscle and desire.
This has created two horrific stat lines: Except for the Indiana Pacers, the Kings take the fewest free throws in the NBA. They rank dead last in the number of free throws made per game. Meanwhile, they are ranked 16th in a 30-team league in the percentage of 3-point shots they make per game. Last season, they ranked fourth.
They have declined from being one of the better shooting teams in the NBA to so-so. And they have declined from being a bad free-throw shooting team to the worst. Throw in an eroding lack of commitment to defense since the holidays and you have what we’ve seen: A disaster.
If the Kings were attacking the basket to make up for a frustrating slip in 3-point shooting, they wouldn’t have this mess on their hands. This fan base wouldn’t be happy with losing, but they would respond favorably to tenacity.
It’s not there. And all you have to do is listen to Walton talk after games lately to know that he is feeling the heat. After Wednesday’s loss, I was listening to the radio on my drive home. The audio of Walton’s voice was stark. He paused between questions, seemingly lurching for answers that aren’t there.
You can’t blame Joerger
Some fans are angry Divac hired Walton after firing Dave Joerger last year, despite the Kings winning more games last season than they had in years. But if you watched the games last season, you saw the Kings fade down the stretch as they tuned out Joerger and blew big leads in winnable games.
Wondering if the Kings would be better with Joerger now is the wrong question. Here is a better one: Are these same players tuning out Walton now? Is youth and immaturity the problem here, or is the something deeper, darker?
Despite all the talk of learning lessons and being on a journey to playing the right way, this team is going backward. If the Kings are smart, they will make a gesture to fans on ticket prices or merchandise – something to acknowledge people who have kept coming out amid rising disappointment.
And if this thing ends this way in April, with no signs of progress to take out the sting of a lost season, then we know who must answer for it: Divac and Ranadive. They either fix it this summer, if not sooner, or fans start to rightfully wonder if it’s time to bring in someone who can.
Don’t tell the fans that they are wrong for feeling the way they do. This Kings leadership group has had plenty of time to make it work. People are tired of excuses, even from those we like or appreciate.
We’ll never like losing.
This story was originally published January 23, 2020 at 12:00 AM.
