For a short while, it seemed like Northern California would have two good professional basketball teams for the first time in decades.
With the Golden State Warriors’ hot start and the Sacramento Kings beginning the season with a 5-1 record, the region was on a high, with positive talk surrounding both teams instead of the usual grunts from disappointed fans.
The good times have rolled on, but only for the Warriors, who own the league’s best record and show no signs of slowing down. Meanwhile, the Kings have fallen back into their customary futile manners, their once gaudy record now 16-26. They are on pace for their ninth consecutive losing season and show no signs of turning things around, anytime soon.
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Case in point: firing head coach Michael Malone mid-season and replacing him with assistant Tyrone Corbin. This move made little sense when it happened a month ago, and it makes little sense now, as the Kings have lost five straight and it seems as if any life from the hot start has been sucked right out of them.
Blame Vivek Ranadive, former Warriors’ minority owner who bought the Kings two years ago and is trying and failing miserably to emulate Golden State. It started when he hired Malone, the top assistant under Mark Jackson who helped mold the Warriors into an elite defensive team. The Kings drafted Nik Stauskas in the lottery this past season with the hopes that he would develop into the next Klay Thompson.
But Ranadive couldn’t get Malone to buy into playing a fast, up-tempo style like the Warriors or a free-flowing offense like the Spurs, Stauskas has sputtered thus far in his rookie season, and Malone opposed Ranadive’s desire to acquire Josh Smith. For these reasons and more, as detailed by Adrian Wojnarowski, Malone was given the axe 24 games in.
So while the Warriors relish in their new Era of Good Feelings, the Kings are back to square one, with a disgruntled star in DeMarcus Cousins, an unstable coaching situation, and a meddling owner who wants his team to play 4-on-5 and thinks his experience coaching 12-year-olds allows him to make asinine basketball decisions for an NBA team.
It took nearly two decades for the Warriors to finally figure out how to win again; their Northern California counterparts are almost 10 years into this struggle, and hopefully, it won’t take another decade.
Key Matchups
Andrew Bogut vs. DeMarcus Cousins: Bogut and Cousins are two of the premier big men in the league, and this should make for a fun matchup. Their specialties are on different sides of the ball — Bogut on defense and Cousins on offense — which adds to the intrigue. Cousins is averaging 24.0 points this season, and Bogut stymying him will go a long way towards securing a win for the Warriors
Rudy Gay vs. Harrison Barnes: Everyone knows that Stephen Curry and Thompson are among the best three-point shooters in the league, but Barnes has quietly had a breakthrough season shooting the ball; at 44.2 percent, he is sixth in the league in three-point percentage. Gay is not too shabby himself at 38.2 percent, and can do a lot more than shoot from long-range. This matchup of athletic wingers will be interesting.
Klay Thompson vs. Nik Stauskas: No, Stauskas isn’t starting — in fact, he’s gotten no playing time the last three games and might be headed down to the D-League — but it would be a dandy to see him get some minutes against the player the Kings hope he becomes. Stauskas’ intangibles are similar to that of Thompson — long-range shooting, quick release, moving away from the ball off screens — but he has yet to show that in the NBA.
Keys to the Game
1. Ball movement
The Warriors lead the league in assists at 27.1 per game, while the Kings come in last at 19.7. It’s safe to say the Warriors need to stick to the status quo on offense and play their usual stifling defense to make sure that stat rings true for Sacramento.
2. Turnovers
Turnovers have been one of the few problems for the Warriors this season, but they have made up for it in other respects. For the Kings, however, turnovers are a much bigger issue simply because they can’t atone for it. Their 15.7 giveaways a game pits them at 27th in the league, one spot worse than the Warriors. They only force 11.9 turnovers a game for a turnover differential of +3.8, worst in the league by a long shot. The Warriors need to take advantage of this, win the turnover battle, and get out and run on the fastbreak.
3. Don’t underestimate the Kings
The Warriors may have blown out the Kings twice this season already and swept them last season, but the battle of NorCal typically has more intensity than a typical NBA game. The Kings are a frustrated team riding a losing streak, and nothing would boost their esteem more than a win over their regional rivals and the best team in the league.
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