Sacramento Kings: 3 takeaways from first two weeks of season. Can Sabonis get better?

Evaluating the Sacramento Kings’ start to the new season could come down to the eye of the beholder.

There’s thought the team is playing noticeably better this season under first-year coach Mike Brown. The roster has fewer glaring deficiencies, players’ roles make more sense, the effort is better on defense. Those would all be positives.

The negatives? The Kings are 3-5 after opening the season 0-4, with all four losses coming against teams vying for the playoffs in the competitive Western Conference. Portland, the L.A. Clippers, Golden State and Memphis all offered postseason-level measuring sticks for Sacramento early in the season. The Kings lost all four games.

It’s no secret winning those kinds of games will determine if Sacramento ends the 16-year playoff drought. And they’ll have an opportunity at evening the score with all those teams later in the schedule, presumably when the roster is more coalesced, rotations are tightened up, and players get more comfortable. They get another shot at the struggling champion Warriors on Monday night.

Let’s take a look at some of the key takeaways from the team’s first seven games of the young season.

The Kevin Huerter trade is looking good early

It was clear the Kings needed a floor-stretching shooting guard last season after general manager Monte McNair included Buddy Hield in the Tyrese Haliburton-for-Domantas Sabonis swap. The Kings also received Justin Holiday and Jeremy Lamb in that trade, but neither offered a long-term solution to play along side De’Aaron Fox. Lamb is currently out of the league.

Holiday was sent to the Atlanta Hawks in a package including a lottery-protected first-round pick, with Kevin Huerter going back to the Kings. So far, all Huerter has done has been one of the best 3-point shooters in the NBA with his new team.

Huerter through seven games ranks third in the NBA in 3-pointers made per game (4.1) trailing only Desmond Bane (4.3) and Stephen Curry (5.1). But Huerter has the best shooting percentage among that trio at 51.8%. He’s made at least four 3s in five of seven games, which would put him on pace for 59 such games over a full season. Last year with Atlanta, Huerter had 19.

Surely Huerter’s efficiency from distance will normalize. He’s a respectable 38% from 3 throughout his five NBA seasons.

But there are signs he could score more with the Kings than he ever did in Atlanta. Huerter never topped more than 6.0 attempts from long range in his four seasons with the Hawks. He’s at 8.0 with Sacramento while his overall field goals are hovering at 12.0 attempts per game. He never averaged more than 10.9 previously.

Playing in Brown’s offense, which requires more movement than the Hawks’ pick-and-roll heavy approach, appears to be paying dividends early on. Huerter is off to a strong start, and a lottery protected draft pick for a high-level 3-point shooter is a trade every general manager in the NBA would make.

Is Domas pressing?

Sabonis came into the season burdened with being a centerpiece of a roster asked to stop a historic playoff absence. There are signs he’s trying to do too much.

The former All-Star fouled out of three of the seven games to start the season. His role in Brown’s defense is to be the anchor, but he’s not a defense-first center that typically thrives in that role. He needs to clean up the fouling because it’s bleeding into his offensive production.

Sabonis is averaging 14.7 points per game in 30.3 minutes. The last time he averaged fewer than 15 points per game was in his third NBA season in 2018-19. He’s typically played around 36 minutes a night since he earned his first of two All-Star nominations in 2019 — but has games where he played fewer than 23 minutes against Golden State and Miami already.

Which is to say Sabonis being able to stay on the floor should help with his overall scoring numbers. The Kings need him to be in the 18-to-20-point range more consistently, to go along with his strong rebound and assist totals. He’s scored more than 20 points just once this season.

Murray is showing signs, but consistency is key

Keegan Murray has already shown plenty of promise in the way he fits the modern NBA. He’s efficient, a good decision-maker and could develop into a capable defender for a variety of match ups. That versatility becomes more important in the NBA by the season.

Shooting-wise, it’s fair to expect a roller-coaster campaign from the No. 4 pick. Once he returned to the lineup after being in the NBA’s health a safety protocols, Murray shot 13 of 31 (42%) from distance over his first four games.

But he hit a rough spot since. He’s made just three of his last 12 attempts and eight of 22 field goals overall. He sat during the final 9:26 of Wednesday’s loss in Miami after a sequence that included a turnover and being charged with a flagrant foul of Gabe Vincent while he was shooting a 3. That capped a season-worst 1-of-5 shooting performance from 3-point range for Murray.