With the infamous streak now old enough to drive, the 2022-2023 Sacramento Kings -at least on paper- seem to have the best chance to change our fortunes of any Kings roster since the Motorola RAZR was the hottest cellphone on the market.
Reminders and whatever else
This is your yearly reminder that soliciting or randomly posting links to illegal streams is strictly against the rules on Kingsfans.com. Please. We don't want to get sued. DO NOT POST LINKS TO ILLEGAL STUFF (this also applies to the internet in general).
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It's also a good time to refresh ourselves on the general forum rules before we get into what will surely be another season of heated, arduous discussion. The most important rule of course remains "Don't be a jerk." If someone's really ticking you off, I'd advise a liberal application of the forum's "ignore" feature.
YoU cAn ReAd MoRe HeRe
With all that out of the way, let's get on to some basketball.
Previously On...
Miscellaneous In-Arena Entertainment Bit of the Night:
We're Talking Basketball
The Mike Brown Kings start the season off with a matchup against one of their direct competitors for a bottom-tier postseason slot. (One of their other competitors, The Lakers, got thrashed by the Warriors last night despite massive nights by Lebron, AD, and Russ.) The Blazers, rather notoriously, spent most of the second half of last season tanking as hard as humanly possible only for us to leapfrog them on lotto night but are reportedly trying to win this season though their preseason performances seem to be at odds with that concept.
Portland brings in a starting lineup of Jusef Nurkic (still a load but also now unplayably immobile on defense), Jerami Grant (a really good pickup for them but not quite the defender he once was his last season in Denver), Josh Hart (very solid wing) or Justise Winslow (ready to make a token appearance before getting injured again), Anfernee Simons (A CJ McCollum replacement on offense but somehow a worse defender?), and Dame Lillard (Dame but after sitting out half a season after surgery. Also 32 years old now). They're currently missing their second big offseason acquisition due to injury in Gary Payton II, which sucks for them as he's both their best defender AND pretty much their entire bench. Nassir Little is a solid wing for them as well but aside from him, the Blazers Bench is comprised of two erratic at best young prospects (Keon Johnson and Shaedon Sharpe, both of whom are classically shooting guard-sized wings) and Drew Eubanks, who has randomly given the Kings fits in the past but that was all before the Domas trade.
They're coached by Chauncey Billups, who in his year plus of being the coach in Portland has had to deal with sexual misconduct allegations against himself, his GM getting fired due to misconduct allegations of his own, his weird ownership group deciding not to sell the team to the owner of NIKE despite being legally obligated to sell off the franchise, his star player getting injured, and the interim GM getting rewarded for trading most of the good players on the roster for pennies on the dollar with a nice contract extension. That is all just to say that so much of what has happened in Portland is weird and extraordinary that I still have no idea whether Chauncey is a good coach or not. What I do know is that the Trail Blazers will probably be more motivated to not get run out of the gym in the regular season than they were in that preseason game.
On the Kings side, the injury/illness bug is rearing its head in pure Kangz fashion with prized rookie Keegan Murray already being ruled out of his rookie debut as a result of a bout with COVID and other prized offseason acquisition Kevin Huerter dealing with ankle soreness after landing on a guy's foot during the Phoenix games. By all accounts, neither of these appear to be long term issues (although vague ankle soreness is probably never a good thing). Thankfully, this season the Kings finally have enough depth to not be immediately crippled by the loss of two starter-level players (though there's a good chance K'Von plays tonight) as we saw a Kings team in the exact same roster situation make the Lakers look like the Washington Generals to end the preseason. There's apparently a big difference between having Richaun Holmes be your backup bigman and having Hassan Whiteside.
It'll be interesting to see if Mike Brown unleashes more sets now that the games matter. The Kings spent the entire preseason essentially reading-and-reacting their way to a 4-0 record without ever really resorting to the Fox/Sabonis pick and roll game that we saw wreak havoc in their few short weeks together last season. Hopefully the defensive intensity remains intact. If the Kings stick to their principles, I think they can and should win their home opener, which is a must considering the next couple of games after this.
Injury Report
Kings-
Keegan Murray - OUT (Got COVID)
Kevin Huerter - QUESTIONABLE (Got Zaza'd by a Suns G-Leaguer)
Blazers-
Gary Payton II - OUT (Head fell off)
Oliver Sarr - OUT (Stared directly into the sun)
Trendon Watford - OUT (lactose intolerant but ate ice cream anyways)
Final Prediction
Domas gets a triple double to start the season. KZ Okpala and Davion make Dame's night difficult. De'Aaron Fox makes me bust out VF21's favorite GIF. The Mike Brown era starts with a celly.
Kings 118, Blazers 109
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