[Game] Oklahoma City Thunder @ Sacramento Kings, 12/14/2023, 7:00pm PST/10:00pm EST

[iowamcnabb]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1735542380299006067

Malik getting DPOG instead of Keon is wild.

Jordi likes to hose his actual good defenders haha

 

[The_Jamal]

As others have mentioned, it may be that Barnes is being shopped for a trade, and it's hard to trade a guy if he's getting minimal minutes.

My question is, why the heck is Barnes playing so poorly? It's not like he's 40 years old. He's 31, which by NBA standards is still in his prime. To my knowledge, Barnes has never had some major injury, such as an achilles. And he's reputed to keep himself in fantastic shape. He should be playing the best ball of his career right now. Yet, the last time I checked he's averaging only 3.5 rebounds for 30 minutes of play, his defense is poor, and his shooting isn't anything to crow about.

He's 31, but he's also an "old" 31 if that makes sense. He's been in the league for 12 years and is currently 20th in the NBA in active minutes with 27096 career minutes. Plus another 2237 in the playoffs.

I think father time just came for him a bit early and he's hit an age wall. Because while he's never been super explosive as a King, I'd always consider to be roughly an average NBA athlete out there for us. And man he just looks so much slower than he has in the past, even last year when it started showing of him losing a step or 2.

 

[ick300]

Brown is pretty big on setting roles and he'll only adjust them when he is forced to.

Like last year he was not starting Keegan but Keegan forced the hand very early. We all like Sasha but so far he hasn't forced his way in so they are bringing him up to speed. I really think we will see more out of him later on.

I can see this about Brown , but the guy was like ''how good this guy is , traveled to Greece even for a Euroleague game , and he is showing somehwere around 0 faith in him ...
Can't imagine Keegan being 2nd roster to be honest seems like he in untouchable ... (and he is prooving well though)

 

[pdxKingsFan]

well I suppose the Thunder are one team the Kings do want to see in the Playoffs. been reading about 3 or 4 pages deep worth of ref attacks, haven't we learned yet? refs are getting the Kings ready for the physicality in late April and May

I would happily take the Thunder in a fairly officiated series. And maybe we'd get it at the end of the year. I still expect SGA to get more love than Fox right now and Thunder are trying to stick OKC for a publicly financed arena so both those have me weary we wouldn't get more of tonight. Still much rather see this than New Orleans.

 

[ick300]

Vezenkov was not shooting well tonight. And the team played better with Lyles on the floor.

Neither of the 3 was shooting good , all of them are 1/4

 

[kingsboi]

I would happily take the Thunder in a fairly officiated series. And maybe we'd get it at the end of the year. I still expect SGA to get more love than Fox right now and Thunder are trying to stick OKC for a publicly financed arena so both those have me weary we wouldn't get more of tonight. Still much rather see this than New Orleans.

their two best players aren't physical bullies so the Kings can match up with them well, even if it's 5 v 8

 

[ick300]

I think Lyles and Sasha have been roughly the same. Barnes is getting the start for a couple different reasons. A) blind faith he gets back to his usual level B) to keep his trade value higher, if we bench him that looks bad when trying to trade him.

Well if the reason is that we wait to trade him , ok , but why did they extend his contract , a bit one in the summer , if they will trade it after 25 games ...

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I can see this about Brown , but the guy was like ''how good this guy is , traveled to Greece even for a Euroleague game , and he is showing somehwere around 0 faith in him ...
Can't imagine Keegan being 2nd roster to be honest seems like he in untouchable ... (and he is prooving well though)

I think Sasha has even said he's still adjusting to the NBA I'll have to hunt the article down about the contract Brown has players sign. He asks a lot but he gives a lot. I admire that in a person, so I'm willing to put up with the way he makes adjustments long term. After seeing guys that were utterly incapable of making adjustments at all, or that just threw darts, I've got some faith that when Sasha is read we'll see a bigger role.

 

[ick300]

I think Sasha has even said he's still adjusting to the NBA I'll have to hunt the article down about the contract Brown has players sign. He asks a lot but he gives a lot. I admire that in a person, so I'm willing to put up with the way he makes adjustments long term. After seeing guys that were utterly incapable of making adjustments at all, or that just threw darts, I've got some faith that when Sasha is read we'll see a bigger role.

Aaaamin

 

[Bosnian Diehard]

Well if the reason is that we wait to trade him , ok , but why did they extend his contract , a bit one in the summer , if they will trade it after 25 games ...

Couple different reasons for that, as well. For one, we didn’t have many other options to be honest. It was Barnes or overpaying for Kuzma, who wouldn’t be much of a difference maker. Also, Monte wanted to keep the chemistry going by bringing the same team back from last year.

 

[ick300]

Couple different reasons for that, as well. For one, we didn’t have many other options to be honest. It was Barnes or overpaying for Kuzma, who wouldn’t be much of a difference maker. Also, Monte wanted to keep the chemistry going by bringing the same team back from last year.

Keeping the chemistry is something i respect and think is the most important thing for a sport teams
so i hope it will pay off ...
It was from another conversation , but i can not see Kuzma bringing anything to this team atm ...

 

[206Fan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1735542380299006067

Malik getting DPOG instead of Keon is wild.

I know Davion has played himself out of the rotation this year, but it was crazy all the times he didn't win it last year when he was clearly our best defensive player in most of our games. He kept losing out on the DPOG chain to random players who played nowhere near as good nor effective as him on that end.

It's my theory that they try to reward defensive effort rather than defensive results to try and encourage the entire group into playing harder

 

[Tetsujin]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1735564511082615039

 

[NewArena]

What an EPIC matchup between Fox and SGA. Fox, once again, had to do it without the benefit of the superstar whistle some of these other guys get and still ended up with 41 LOL. LIGHT THE BEAM!! So much i wanna say, but i'll wait until i've gotten some actual sleep. I'm pumped!

 

[NewArena]

Giddey playing like they told him he could go to Chuckie Cheese after the game if the Thunder win.

LMAO

 

[KingsFanSince85]

I would happily take the Thunder in a fairly officiated series. And maybe we'd get it at the end of the year. I still expect SGA to get more love than Fox right now and Thunder are trying to stick OKC for a publicly financed arena so both those have me weary we wouldn't get more of tonight. Still much rather see this than New Orleans.

The NBA is so weird. The KINGS are 7-0 against the West’s top 5 teams aside from themselves yet are 5-9 against the rest of the conference, including a woeful 0-7 against the Clippers, Rockets and Pels — who are all “mid” teams.

Putting in another way, the KINGS are 7-0 against teams with a combined record of 80-41 but are 0-7 against teams with a lesser combined record of 40-30.

What’s also crazy is the KINGS were 9-2 against the Clips, Rockets, and Pels last season.

 

[NewArena]

Sounds like a mental lapse this season. Not a loss of physicality

Yea, similar to Andrew Wiggins and many other players ... there could be more going on with Barnes than we know. Mentally, personally and all. Who knows? Something ain't right.

 

[sono]

As others have mentioned, it may be that Barnes is being shopped for a trade, and it's hard to trade a guy if he's getting minimal minutes.

My question is, why the heck is Barnes playing so poorly? It's not like he's 40 years old. He's 31, which by NBA standards is still in his prime. To my knowledge, Barnes has never had some major injury, such as an achilles. And he's reputed to keep himself in fantastic shape. He should be playing the best ball of his career right now. Yet, the last time I checked he's averaging only 3.5 rebounds for 30 minutes of play, his defense is poor, and his shooting isn't anything to crow about.

Perhaps, he's been playing intentionally subpar, knowing he's being shopped around. We'll see resurrected Barnes after the trade deadline.

 

[sono]

I do not like this OKC team

Nah..

 

[Sac.Kings]

The team played well and way to not cave against overwhelming pressure from the refs. We still have a couple of holes on this roster to fill, but when we match up well, we typically do well. Fox is very clearly stepping into his “I’m the top dog” role and carrying us when we need it. Would be nice if the refs gave him the SGA and Luka treatment, probably the 2 biggest ref fanboys in the league right now. He’s just plowing through anyway and giving the refs the finger while doing it and I’m most definitely here for it. Hopefully we can round out the roster sooner rather than later, we definitely need some changes moving forward.

 

[joemama]

Every time I look at Chet I think he looks like the guy from The Burbs.

 

[sactowndog]

I would happily take the Thunder in a fairly officiated series. And maybe we'd get it at the end of the year. I still expect SGA to get more love than Fox right now and Thunder are trying to stick OKC for a publicly financed arena so both those have me weary we wouldn't get more of tonight. Still much rather see this than New Orleans.

I mean we can complain about the officials but we have to put some blame on Mike loosing challenges. Don’t know if they keep a stat on challenges successful but Mike has to be at the bottom.

 

[joemama]

I agree reffing was bad, but I think we should have lost just on the sheer amount of open looks they had. Some of that was due to trapping SGA, new lineup, etc. but a lot was due to poor rotations and players not knowing assignments.

 

[hrdboild]

Guys have a question , don't kill me
I now i am not objective (at all haha ) but PLEASE explain me why Barnes and Lyles are getting double the minutes of Vezenkov , when none of
them is playing that much better , not to say that they are not better at all im my eyes ...
All 3 were not good from the 3 line today , yes , and all 3 did pretty much same in deffence and rebounding ....
And i am not even talking about missing dunks

I've been using the word 'trust' but that's probably not the best word for it. Harrison Barnes and Trey Lyles were both here last season and proved themselves by hitting game winners, making key baskets in overtime, coming up with big stops to finish off wins, etc. It might be hard to see that having joined in this season, but both are good players who have had iconic moments for this franchise. On top of that, for Barnes specifically, this is his 6th year with the team which makes him the second longest tenured King after Fox. Both of these guys have built up a lot of 'equity' with the Coach and with their teammates because of that history and that gives them more leeway to make mistakes and still keep their roles and their minutes consistent.

We have a lot of Kings fans who join the community as fans of specific players and of course all are welcome! I think perhaps because you're focusing more on Vezenkov, it's harder to see the context of why Coach is making the moves he's making. The Kings were a brilliant success last season jumping up from the ranks of the perennial lottery teams into a #3 seed is almost unheard of. But now they're back in year 2 which is the "prove you're for real" year and Coach is being particularly hard on the young players and rookies because he's been in the league long enough to know that, more than anything else, complacency is the enemy of success. He doesn't want anyone feeling good about themselves -- he wants them pushing even harder. It's a tough line to walk as a coach but I think it's the right one for this team and these players judging how Fox, Murray, and Sabonis have all responded to it.

I'll just add that -- having lived through every excruciating year of the Kings non-playoff streak -- all I can tell you is that patience goes a long way as a fan of this team. Nothing comes easy for us. I do personally enjoy the enthusiasm you're bringing to the board though so feel free to keep the same energy. In time all these players will have earned their equity with you too as a fan of the Kings.

 

[hrdboild]

I agree reffing was bad, but I think we should have lost just on the sheer amount of open looks they had. Some of that was due to trapping SGA, new lineup, etc. but a lot was due to poor rotations and players not knowing assignments.

This is fair. The big takeaway from this game for me -- and it's not really anything new for the Kings -- is that this team will allow a perceived bias in the officiating to break their concentration and when that happens they lose their defensive intensity and they get sloppy on offense which is a killer combination, in a bad way. The same thing happened against the Clippers only that's a better team so it resulted in a blowout loss instead of a narrow win. "Just play through it" is easier said than done though. I can empathize with their frustration but at the same time, that's where this team really needs to take a step forward mentally. Not letting the frustration affect their game.

 

[ESP47]

Sounds like it was his version of taking a T for the team rather than giving up money and a FT. Not sure that's the best strategy as we definitely could have wiped 6 points off the board (two and-1s on clear charges) if we had retained it, and I'm not sure it fires up a team the same way a T does. But hey, we were all getting emotional in the game thread so I get it.

Normally I would fully agree here but after last night, I have no doubt that they would have watched those clear charge calls for 15 minutes and still came up with a reason to uphold the and 1s.

 

[Folsomkingsfan]

I know Davion has played himself out of the rotation this year, but it was crazy all the times he didn't win it last year when he was clearly our best defensive player in most of our games. He kept losing out on the DPOG chain to random players who played nowhere near as good nor effective as him on that end.

It's my theory that they try to reward defensive effort rather than defensive results to try and encourage the entire group into playing harder

I do the same thing in my daughters soccer league I coach with our 'hustle award' lol. It actually works

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I mean we can complain about the officials but we have to put some blame on Mike loosing challenges. Don’t know if they keep a stat on challenges successful but Mike has to be at the bottom.

A number of his challenges are correct and still not overturned. Last night's maybe not so much (I still don't understand how it's not a foul, but if they could only review possession it was a dumb challenge, the refs seemed to say because he got ball it was ok, but after the ball he got arm and body so I don't see how that's ok.) And then OKC got their challenges overturned and those seemed shaky. They did not officiate both sides the same and in fact appeared to make a genuine effort in the final stanza of the 4th to make it a close game when it was quickly becoming a blowout.

 

[QWERTYLICIOUS]

A KINGS win means just ONE thing, Kings Fam Bam...

#BeamTheMuthaEffingLight

JUST.
MUTHA.
EFFING.
BEAM.
THAT.
ISH.

 

[sactowndog]

A number of his challenges are correct and still not overturned. Last night's maybe not so much (I still don't understand how it's not a foul, but if they could only review possession it was a dumb challenge, the refs seemed to say because he got ball it was ok, but after the ball he got arm and body so I don't see how that's ok.) And then OKC got their challenges overturned and those seemed shaky. They did not officiate both sides the same and in fact appeared to make a genuine effort in the final stanza of the 4th to make it a close game when it was quickly becoming a blowout.

if you are claiming the NBA purposefully tanked the challenges that is a bridge too far for me.