The 2023-24 season is finally coming to a close and it’s been a fairly frustrating one for Kings fans. Two weeks ago the Kings seemed to be in the lead position to avoid the play-in and guarantee a playoff spot. Now on this last day they’ll be fighting to avoid 10th. This is the first year in almost two decades that the Kings have come in with actual expectations and it’s fair to say after the success of last season that this has been a step backwards. But the season isn’t completely over yet and the Kings still have a chance to make some noise, but it will have to start with taking care of business against a Trail Blazers team playing for nothing but pride.
Let’s talk Kings basketball!
When: Sunday, April 14th, 12:30 PM PT
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: NBC Sports California
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140
Play-In Scenarios
Here’s what seed the Kings will land based off today’s games. The pivotal games are Trail Blazers at Kings, Lakers at Pelicans and Jazz at Warriors. As a reminder of how the Play-In works, the 7th and 8th seeds play each other with the winner getting the 7th seed. The loser of that games plays the winner of the 9th and 10th seeds game, with that winner getting the 8th seed. The best the Kings can do now is 8th, and they’ll need the Lakers to lose to New Orleans for that to happen. Thankfully, the Pelicans still have something to play for themselves, as if they lose and Phoenix wins, they’ll be 7th rather than 6th.
8th: Kings win and Lakers lose – Kings would play the Suns on the road in this scenario in the 7-8 game.
9th: Kings win and Lakers win or Kings lose and Warriors lose – Kings would host the Warriors in the 9-10 game.
10th: Kings lose and Warriors & Lakers win – Warriors would host the Kings in the 9-10 game.
10th: Kings & Lakers lose and Warriors win – Lakers would host the Kings in the 9-10 game.
Preview
Today’s preview is going to be a little bit different since it’s the last of the season. First off, I want to thank you all. I had big shoes to fill as Will has done such an excellent, in-depth job with these game previews over the last several years and I hope I was able to fill those expectations in a small part. I haven’t consistently written game previews since the Sactown Royalty days, so it was fun to brush off the keyboard and get back to writing on a consistent basis. Creating this website with the friends I’ve created over the years and the community we’ve all built has been one of the most rewarding endeavors I’ve ever done and I look forward to seeing how it evolves and grows in the years to come.
Last season was the most fun I’ve had as a Kings fan in my entire life. All those years of waiting and hoping, the failing and then failing again, finally coincided in a brilliant season as the Kings broke a 16 year playoff drought and took the defending champs the distance in their first ever series. I got to go to my first playoff games ever and it was such a release of pent-up emotion after years of being in the cellar and it’s a feeling I’m not sure can be replicated again aside from perhaps ultimate victory.
This season has been far more up and down. Despite their record being worse, I truly do feel that this Kings team is better than they were last season. The issue is that the rest of the Western Conference got a lot better. Last season, the Kings made the 3rd seed with 48 wins. This year 48 wins might only mean a Play-in spot. The Kings also got bit much harder by the injury bug. Both Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk got knocked out for the season. Trey Lyles and Sasha Vezenkov also missed extensive periods of time. Then there were the numerous inexplicable losses to bad teams. The Kings managed to lose games to each of the Hornets, Wizards, Pistons and Trail Blazers, and nearly lost two games to the Spurs if not for last minute miracles. They’ve blown 20+ point 4th quarter leads and missed free throws that would have sealed games. They’ve dropped multiple games to opponents missing their best players. This was truly a season of missed opportunities and if the Kings don’t make the playoffs, they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves.
But regardless of how today goes and the play-ins/post-season go, this was also still a season full of some supreme highs. Domantas Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox just put together two of the most impressive seasons in Sacramento Kings history. Malik Monk is probably going to win 6th man of the year. Keon Ellis has been a revelation in his second year as a 3-and-D roleplayer that looks to be a major part of this team’s rotation going forward. Keegan Murray has gone from three-point specialist to a real two-way player, upping his defense by leaps and bounds while still being capable of being an inferno at times (remember his 47 point game against Utah?). The Kings have also taken major steps up defensively as a team, especially in the last couple months.
This is still a team with a bright future, but this season also showed the limitations of simply running it back in a fiercely competitive Western Conference. It’s not going to get any easier going forward. The only team in the entire West that doesn’t seem primed to be a potential Playoff team next season is tonight’s opponent, Portland, as they just started their rebuild. But every other team in the West is going to come into next season with realistic expectations of playing in the post-season, and hopefully the Kings can find a way to stay above water in the rising tide. This is going to be a pivotal summer for Monte McNair and company.
Prediction
The Kings light one last beam for the regular season but will have to earn their playoff spot the hard way as the Lakers will also beat the Pelicans and secure the 8th spot, setting up a Kings vs. Warriors elimination game in Sacramento for the second year in a row.
Kings 125, Blazers 109
(No fan predictions today because of the early start, but we’ll keep doing them for any Play-In and Playoff games that are to come)
