Lack of clear identity is killing the Sacramento Kings in NBA bubble restart
The Sacramento Kings were eliminated from playoff contention Sunday evening when the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Kings were 1-4 in the bubble at the time and finished off the night with a fifth loss, this time to the Houston Rockets. After the game, Cory Joseph and De’Aaron Fox commented on a lack of team identity.
“We lost a lot of games on make shot, miss shot,” Joseph said. “To be a good team, it can’t all be predicated on that. You have to come out and have a strong identity every game on both ends of the court.”
“Like tonight with the Rockets, when they’re playing like that, we have to know what we’re going to do and I don’t think we did that tonight,” Fox said. “I think that was the course of a lot of games this year.”
A team can’t succeed when players don’t know who they are or what they’re going to do. The Kings have yet to figure out what makes them unique. They don’t know what they can do better than their opponents on a nightly basis.
LOSING TO TEAMS WITH STRONG IDENTITIES
Identity issue was present all season, but the games in the bubble made it more obvious. Losses against the San Antonio Spurs, Orlando Magic, Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets can all be traced back to a disadvantage in self-knowledge.
The Spurs are built on perimeter defense and mid-range shooting. The team seeks out gifted defenders and works on their other skills later. On offense, they go against the grain with shot type. They lead the NBA with 16.9 field goal attempts from 8 feet to 16 feet from the basket. They are last in attempts at the rim and third from last in 3-point attempts.
The Magic are all about size in the front court. Aaron Gordon, Jonathan Isaac and Nikola Vucevic have wingspans of at least 7-feet. Mo Bamba, the team’s most recent lottery pick, measured 7-foot-10. The long-armed frontcourt defenders make scoring near the basket a difficult task.
The Mavericks are an elite pick-and-roll team. Luka Doncic is the ball handler and Kristaps Porzingis is the roll man. Two All-Stars put in a situation to do what they do best. Dallas is the second-most-efficient team in plays finished by the ball handler and the third-most-efficient team in plays finished by the roll man.
The Rockets are opposite of the Spurs on offense. They took only 5.6 attempts per game from 8 feet to 16 feet from the basket. They lead the league in 3-point attempts per game and could break the all-time record, which belongs to last year’s Rockets team. On defense, Houston plays small ball. The tallest player in the rotation is 6-foot-8.
WHAT THE IDENTITY USED TO BE
It was not long ago that the Kings had a clearly defined identity. Last season’s team knew what it did best. Every night on nearly every possession, the Kings pushed the ball down court with pace while coach Dave Joerger yelled from the sideline for them to go even faster.
That style was a perfect fit for Fox, who is one of the fastest players in the NBA. Buddy Hield also thrived when outrunning the competition. According to Second Spectrum tracking, Fox and Hield were both top-10 in distance traveled on the court.
The Kings finished third in pace in 2018-19. But that identity was abandoned. The Kings ranked 20th in pace this season.
Reasons for the change are obvious. Sacramento fired its head coach and hired a new one. The Kings increased the age of the rotation significantly by signing four veterans and not drafting a player in the first round.
A shift in identity was inevitable. Head coach Luke Walton was never going to run the team like Joerger did. If the Kings wanted the identity to remain the same, they wouldn’t have made a change. Walton is expected to tear down the old philosophies of the team and establish new ones. The problem is that he has done the former, but not the latter.
WHO SHOULD THE KINGS BE?
The problem with establishing an identity for the Kings is that the roster is all over the place. The team has some talented pieces, but they don’t make much sense together. Any clearly defined strategy will make some players less necessary than others.
One route would be to emphasize ball movement. That would mean giving Bogdan Bogdanovic a new contract in the offseason and hoping Harry Giles sticks around. The downside is Hield and Marvin Bagley are play finishers. Both would be awkward fits.
Another option would be to maximize the shooting around Fox, who struggles from 3-point range. That would mean starting Hield. Unfortunately, it would put pressure on Bagley and Richaun Holmes. It could also mean a reduced role for Joseph.
The strategy that seems to include the most current Kings players is small ball. Hield and Bogdanovic could both start. Bagley could embrace the center position and grow into it. The Kings could draft a wing or another guard. It might cause defensive problems, but that’s no different than Sacramento’s current situation.
Walton will be making the stylistic choices for the team. It is important that he makes them by the start of next season and communicates them clearly to his players. Sacramento’s poor performance in the bubble has been a reminder that no team can expect to win if they don’t know how they are supposed to play or who they are supposed to be.