‘Joy from coaching’: Even Buddy Hield praises Luke Walton’s work with surging Kings
The losses were mounting. The points against his team, and perhaps his brief tenure with the Kings, were starting to pile up. Sports scribes and radio hosts started checking the thermometer to see if there was a hot-seat situation in Sacramento, but Kings coach Luke Walton kept his cool.
He kept coaching. He kept communicating. He kept challenging his players, asking for more from De’Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield, Marvin Bagley III, Richaun Holmes and the rest. The players responded, the team started winning and now the Kings (12-11) have won seven of eight as they prepare to play the Philadelphia 76ers (17-7) on Tuesday at Golden 1 Center.
Walton’s work will always be subject to scrutiny, but even Hield, who has clashed with his coach in the past, says Walton is “doing a great job.”
“Him taking the next step in leading us in the right direction, even in timeouts and how he’s managing the game, and he’s letting us play and letting us be ourselves,” Hield said. “It’s been fun out there and I think everybody loves the way he’s handled us rightly.
“He’s done a good job and he just needs to keep doing a good job for us, and we’re headed in the right direction. I think him and the whole coaching staff, collectively, with him leading us, has helped us to get over the top.”
The Kings lost nine of 11 to fall to 5-10 on Jan. 20. They sank deep into the mucky bottom of the NBA in defense while giving up 120 points or more in eight consecutive games. The Kings are still last in the NBA with a defensive rating of 116.8, but they were 10th over the past eight games at 110.8.
“What brings me the most joy is seeing where our team has grown, to see how they’re interacting with each other, to see how they’re starting to take on that accountability and that ownership and that communication on the court,” Walton said. “When you become a coach, you try to put your beliefs on what’s the best way of playing and building something, and then to see the guys starting to get that, it’s exciting. It’s fun. It’s the joy you get from coaching.”
Challenging Buddy and Bagley
Hield and Bagley are the two players Walton had to challenge most publicly — with some very public displays of dissent — but both are showing significant growth in their game. Hield is 10th on the team with a defensive rating of 115.4 and Bagley is 12th at 118.5. During the current eight-game stretch, Hield is sixth at 109.4 and Bagley is fourth at 104.9.
That’s just one area of improvement. Hield is taking better care of the ball, rebounding at a higher rate and creating easy baskets for teammates. He had 11 rebounds in a win over the Boston Celtics and seven assists in a win over the Denver Nuggets.
Bagley is taking charges on defense, becoming a more willing passer on offense and shooting well from outside, something that is critical to the team’s spacing. He made 40.5% from 3-point range in January and has knocked down 3 of 8 (.375) in February.
The players deserve a lot of credit for their development, but so does Walton.
“Last year, he coached us different,” Hield said. “I just feel like he’s way more alert, and I feel like from when we were messing up those couple games, we’d be at practice and he’s showing a lot of mistakes and we corrected them, and that’s what coaches do. They correct mistakes that we’re getting burned on.
“He always says we can’t turn over the ball. He’s preaching all those little things, you know, every time we turn the ball over a team scores on us, so we as players know we have to protect the ball and value every possession. He’s been a leader for us and he’s doing a great job.”
What does Fox say?
Then there’s Walton’s work with Fox, the 23-year-old point guard who recently signed a maximum five-year, $163 million contract extension with clauses to reach the $195.6 million super max.
Fox, the No. 5 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft out of Kentucky, is making another leap this season, averaging a career-high 23.0 points, 6.5 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 1.2 steals while shooting 36.1% from 3-point range.
Fox was named Western Conference Player of the Week on Monday after leading the Kings to a 4-0 record from Feb. 1-7 with a series of clutch fourth-quarter performances. He averaged 31.0 points and 8.8 assists in those contests, making 47 of 86 (.546) from the field and 11 of 29 (.379) from 3-point range.
Even when the Kings were losing, Fox was quick to point out it was the players’ responsibility to execute the game plans the coaches were giving them. Walton never lost his cool. He just kept preaching patience, poise and defense.
“We’ve had game plans,” Fox said. “All we’re doing is going out there and we’re executing the game plan. That and with the way Luke is, obviously coaches give you freedom. Instead of it being a dictatorship, ‘If I say this, do this,’ they’ll ask ‘What do we want to do?’ It’s been great. It’s been great for us.
“We’ve been changing up our defenses. We switch things. The way that they — not only Luke, but Alvin (Gentry) and Rex (Kalamian) and all of those guys — the scouting reports have been great and we’re just going out there and executing the game plan. Obviously, sometimes you do have to adjust and switch things up, which they’ve been able to do, and being able to adjust on the fly if something’s not working, but it’s been a team effort from the players all the way up to the coaches.”
