Athletic’s team shooting rankings
20. Sacramento Kings | Average rank: 17.6
2022 rank: 11th
Greatest strength: Third in 3s per game
Greatest weakness: 29th in midrange field goals per game
Analysis: Sacramento’s entire perimeter rotation hunts 3s, which puts pressure on teams. But De’Aaron Fox is the only consistent threat in the midrange, while the Kings are relatively average when it comes to shooting accuracy. The Kings also are hurt by Fox (73.8 percent) and Domantas Sabonis (66.5 percent) being poor free-throw shooters.
From a statistical point of view, the midrange shot is the least efficient shot in the game. Any analysis that suggests that our shooting is "weak" because we avoid inefficient shots is...lacking.
Nonsense ....Love Fox, but keeping him instead of TH was a mistake for this franchise.
But...that wasn't an option with Indy anyways according to all reports I've seen (due to Fox's new contract, I believe). You are wishing for an impossibility.Love Fox, but keeping him instead of TH was a mistake for this franchise.
I didn't say the move had to be Indy. I'm saying TH is far better far earlier in his career then Fox who has had a longer development process to the all star player he is, but TH is arguably the best PG in the entire league and the franchise would have benefitted in the long run by keeping the player who is better and younger.But...that wasn't an option with Indy anyways according to all reports I've seen (due to Fox's new contract, I believe). You are wishing for an impossibility.
This whole Fox vs. Hali topic is just so abused and old. They didn't work together and trading one unlocked both of them and brought back one of the best big men in the game for the Kings, turning around our franchise. The guy we kept and the guy we got are both freaking all-stars, for crying out loud.
Can't we just be happy that a trade worked out to be a win-win for once?![]()
Watching guys like Luca and TH play I really don't get how you can just ignore it.love Tyreke, but drafting him instead of Steph was a mistake for the franchise
Watching guys like Luca and TH play I really don't get how you can just ignore it.
People will always bring up Sam Bowie forever and this is one of those things. I'm just tired of not being on the better end of things.
Harden-style hero ball like both guys play has yet to actually have won anything in the NBA. Just because a bunch of the Ringer surface-level analytics nerds (And i use that term extremely loosely because pretty much all of those guys have an extremely basic understanding of those at best) love it when one guy dominates the offense for 75% of every single possession doesn’t mean that’s actually the future of the league/it won’t be until at least one of the Luka/Harden/Tyrese guys learns how to not be a complete and total traffic cone on defense.Watching guys like Luca and TH play I really don't get how you can just ignore it.
People will always bring up Sam Bowie forever and this is one of those things. I'm just tired of not being on the better end of things.
Then please show me the other trade that was on the table for Fox (and his salary at the time) that would bring back a player better than Sabonis. Because, frankly, I think either Fox or Hali could play with Sabonis and be successful.I didn't say the move had to be Indy. I'm saying TH is far better far earlier in his career then Fox who has had a longer development process to the all star player he is, but TH is arguably the best PG in the entire league and the franchise would have benefitted in the long run by keeping the player who is better and younger.
Sure, we traded a guy who's developed into one of the best players in the NBA. We received one of the best players in the NBA in return. And we unlocked our guy to also become one of the best players in the NBA. Anyone still trying to say we lost this trade is just being delusional.
Tyrese is 2 years younger and I still say Fox is the better player.I didn't say the move had to be Indy. I'm saying TH is far better far earlier in his career then Fox who has had a longer development process to the all star player he is, but TH is arguably the best PG in the entire league and the franchise would have benefitted in the long run by keeping the player who is better and younger.
Showtime just ignoring we got Domas Sabonis in the deal. lol
Fox > TH when you factor in defense.
TH Stan’s always ignore TH’s defense
For me it's less about Fox vs. Haliburton than who we got back for either and I'm hard pressed to find any deal that's better that wasn't just getting draft capital and praying for the best.It's unfortunate that there are still Kings fans who want to make this about Fox vs. Haliburton. This was a last place team with very few tradeable assets making one of the few deals available to them and the turn-around for the franchise was both immediate and definitive. The Kings won their division last season, had two players make 3rd team All NBA, had the Coach of the Year and the Executive of the Year, and set (short-lived) records for their offensive efficiency. Is there any reasonable world where that should not be considered a successful outcome?
The goal of any deal is to improve the team and sometimes we end up losing players that we all love in pursuit of that goal. I refuse to pick apart Haliburton's game just because he's not the guy Monte chose to build around. The dude is a stud, will get a starting spot in the All Star game this year, and looks like he's headed for a Hall of Fame career. As a fan of Haliburton, I'm thrilled that he ended up in a situation where he's thriving. There's no reason why we can't continue to be fans of both Tyrese and the Kings and for anyone who wants to take potshots at Fox every time he has a bad game or pine for Haliburton, I would hope that y'all will find peace with it once we win a championship.![]()
For me it's less about Fox vs. Haliburton than who we got back for either and I'm hard pressed to find any deal that's better that wasn't just getting draft capital and praying for the best.
But what I can't get away from is the notion that the thing that is holding Fox back from all-star starter isn't his play, it's an anti-Sacramento media bias. Whichever player left Sacramento was going to be catapulted to instant star status and used as exhibit 746 as to why Sacramento is horrible.
Harden-style hero ball like both guys play has yet to actually have won anything in the NBA. Just because a bunch of the Ringer surface-level analytics nerds (And i use that term extremely loosely because pretty much all of those guys have an extremely basic understanding of those at best) love it when one guy dominates the offense for 75% of every single possession doesn’t mean that’s actually the future of the league/it won’t be until at least one of the Luka/Harden/Tyrese guys learns how to not be a complete and total traffic cone on defense.
As a new NBA fan, the most frustrating part to watch is how certain players are reffed differently. That impacts performance and awards.Yeah, that's been painfully apparent this season .. though the All Star game is in Indy this year so I don't know how much his (Hali's) All Star votes have been boosted by that. But in terms of on-court performance, Fox has been just as much of a breakout star this year as Tyrese yet he's getting maybe 1/10th of the national media attention for it and he continues to get no respect from the officials.
Fox has been the third best guard in the league so far and is hovering around 5th overall in PPG yet he's 8th in his own conference for All Star votes. Domas is tied with Luka for second most triple doubles and one behind Jokic last I checked for most double doubles and leads the league in RPG yet he didn't even crack the top 10 in voting for frontcourt players. I guess we'll see what happens with end of the year awards voting. The fan voting has always been a popularity contest and we just don't garner much attention at the national level.
And on a related note, why the hell hasn't Sacramento gotten an All Star game yet? We even got jumped by Las Vegas which isn't an NBA city.
For me it's less about Fox vs. Haliburton than who we got back for either and I'm hard pressed to find any deal that's better that wasn't just getting draft capital and praying for the best.
But what I can't get away from is the notion that the thing that is holding Fox back from all-star starter isn't his play, it's an anti-Sacramento media bias. Whichever player left Sacramento was going to be catapulted to instant star status and used as exhibit 746 as to why Sacramento is horrible.
Then please show me the other trade that was on the table for Fox (and his salary at the time) that would bring back a player better than Sabonis. Because, frankly, I think either Fox or Hali could play with Sabonis and be successful.
I'll be waiting.
As a new NBA fan, the most frustrating part to watch is how certain players are reffed differently. That impacts performance and awards.
I’ve said this before, but if Fox got the same whistle as SGA, Fox might average 50pts per game. Same with Luka. Those guys just throw their head back and yell and get a whistle even if there is little or no illegal contact.
Meanwhile, guys like Fox and Sabonis get clobbered consistently and can’t get a call.
It also applies on the defensive end. They will allow players with a reputation of being elite defenders to be extremely physical and grab and swipe without problem but other players get called for every ticky tack thing it seems.
Overall, I don’t have a problem with the officiating most nights but I hate playing against certain teams where I know the whistle will be extremely inconsistent.
This is a pretty good observation. If you look at both teams stat tables Sabonis + Fox average 12.8 assists per game while Hali is 12.7.Hali wouldn't be "transcendent" Hali if he were on the Kings and playing with Sabonis for the simple reason Hali wouldn't be averaging 12+ assist per game with Sabonis on the floor. You take away Hali's "superpower" when he has to share the rock, much like when he had to share the ball with Fox.
Fox on the other hand has flourished sharing the rock with Sabonis. Hali would still be very good, but he wouldn't be "superstar" Hali if he were still on the Kings with Sabonis.
This post makes me feel even better shedding light on other aspects of this argument I had missedTyrese Haliburton is an excellent player, but he's the shiny new offensive toy in an era where gaudy offensive stats/efficiency are no longer scarce. Every week some player or another ends up on some sort of "historical" list for having done something that would have been impossibly impressive in any other era, but is just another day at the office within the context of modern supercharged NBA offenses. The difference is that Hali plays pretty, while Domas barrels his way to the rim on offense and absolutely gobbles up rebounds on defense, which is perhaps the least sexy measure of efficiency for both ends of the court (and is, for my money, made even more impressive given the volume of "long rebounds" that result from the typical shot profile of a modern NBA team).
I mean, if we wanna get gaudy, Sabonis is 12th on the all-time triple-doubles list and he's only 27 years old. The guy leads the league in rebounds this season and he's 8th in assists per game as a center not named Nikola Jokic while still tossing up a shade under 20 points per game. And last year, in his first full season with the Kings, they became a playoff contender in the tougher conference after over a decade-and-a-half of postseason futility. Whatever the Kings might have become if they had not traded Tyrese Haliburton, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that they would have evolved into an overnight success the way the Kings did after acquiring Domas. His impact has been incalculably large, particularly in the ways he's helped unlock Fox's next several gears, which include All-Star, All-NBA, and fringe MVP considerations.
That said, this "traded the wrong guard" argument is terribly misguided in its willful ignorance of context. And the media are fickle in an online age that's constantly desperate for novelty. NBA journos are always chasing fresh narratives. Last season, the Kings' rise up the standings and Fox's leveling up were the surprise narrative that took the league by storm. This season, the Pacers' rise up the standings and Haliburton's leveling up are the surprise narrative that's taking the league by storm. They can have their moment. They've earned it. The Kings are trying to figure out how to be more than just a flash in the pan, and we'll see if the Pacers have what it takes to pose any kind of threat come playoff time (if their putrid defense doesn't drop them back into the play-in bracket again before season's end).