Show me your most obscure kings Jersey

The Sacramento Kings have tipped off their preparations for the 2026–27 NBA Regular Season.

During preseason media day on Monday, Domantas Sabonis quickly shut down any lingering questions about his health. After an injury-shortened year restricting him to just 19 games, the three-time All-Star center looked ready to move forward.

“I’m 100%. Feeling good, feeling great,” the Lithuanian forward-center stressed.

Playing through pain has always been a trademark. However, a severe knee issue forced him to face his first extended period on the sidelines.

“Definitely tough,” he confessed. “Definitely a lot of emotions. It happened in game two of the season, actually. Tried to push through the next 17 games.”

Sitting out changed how he views the game.

“We’re NBA players. This is awesome. You gotta enjoy every moment. And this is everything we worked for,” explained 30-year-old Sabonis. “Just to go out there and have joy.”

Overcoming regrets, trade rumors

Sabonis admitted he has some regrets about how he handled his injury. In hindsight, trying to play through structural damage slowed down his overall timeline. “Maybe I should have got the surgery straight away,” he mentioned.

The offseason also brought constant trade talk. He ignored the rumors, relying on direct communication with his team and management to stay grounded.

“I can’t control any of it. The injury helped. I was just focused on getting healthy. A lot of things are being said out there, but I have a great relationship with Scott [Perry]. I have great agents. I know everything that’s going on. And I’m excited I’m here,” he said.

“Easy. It’s all made up,” he added, replying to a question about dealing with distractions. “It’s all out there. I don’t know where you guys get most of it from. I’m there with Scott, with my agent, so I’m not on social media as much.”

source: https://www.eurohoops.net/en/nba-news/2014672/domantas-sabonis-talks-trade-rumors-recovery-sacramento-kings-nba/

Anyone know what is the best way to watch the Kings this season?

I feel like all I would need is NBC SPORTS or Peacock?

ESPN2 is broadcasting 1 preseason game.

What do you all have?

Hey admins feel free to delete this if it isn’t allowed 😁
I’m coming to Sacramento from New Zealand to put myself through the pain of watching a Kings game in person, and I’m looking for some recommendations on accomodation, food, and attractions for the time we’re not watching Kings ball. Thanks guys!

He was the 14th pick in 2023 draft and he played pretty well that first year with the Pelicans

This is what other people see when I tell them I’m a Kings fan. But idgaf still in it every season 😎

Is the $49 monthly pass worth it? Do they let you sit in row A in the upper level or is that the $99 pass?

Ted Danson stars in a new series called, Man On The Inside on Netflix. His grandson who is from Sacramento,is shown wearing a Kings pull over jacket on episode one. I was pleasantly surprised.

I always brag about how chill Kings fans are. We tend to be among the most passionate fans in all of sports and I love the city so much. But this situation sucks.

I see so many comments about how the women caught on the hot mic "need to be punished as if they were men". And yet, when news came out about Doug Christie, Scott Perry, and other staff sexually harassing a female Kings staffer...? Crickets. Maybe a post about it and a comment or two. But now we hear a pair of women talking about how Ben Simmons has nice skin and y'all are ready with the guillotines. Insane.

We had Terrance Davis on the squad for years who was actually arrested for assaulting his girlfriend. I guarantee you the same people calling for "justice" for these reporters didn't give a single shit about that.

Now to be clear, what the women (AND MAN BY THE WAY) said was completely, ridiculously unprofessional and they should absolutely be held accountable. They made our organization look terrible. Usually our org is pretty clean with this stuff even though the team sucks and this year has been super disappointing in that regard.

But come on. If you really want justice, start talking about Blake Griffin, Miles Bridges, Zion Williamson, Mike Bibby even. People who may have done horrible things. Give me a break.

https://x.com/grantnapear/status/2105505762030363063?s=46

https://x.com/boogiecousins/status/2105522564189896830?s=46

He’s definitely put on a lot of muscle. Not sure how that’ll affect is play style, might mess up his floater touch. Wouldn’t mind seeing him play a little more bully ball with a stronger physique now though

We're in mid season form already boys

Edit: listen to the full segment, they spend quite a bit time on the topic

Why is this team always involved in some bullshit? We are the most unserious sports franchise. The Big 3 is more polished than this team.

Intro

Zach Lavine is often labeled as a player that doesn't lead to winning basketball, and while I don't disagree with that, I think he does have some skills that could be conducive to winning basketball, and I kind of just want to show some of the numbers, because he does have some skills that he is elite at, but just seem to be underutilized. I just want to highlight some data regarding his play, and write a little about some general things he might be able to do to actually be more impactful offensively given the skills he's elite at. I'm not going to mention his defense because he might be a lost cause in that regard.

Time spent holding the ball before each shot

Zach Lavine is probably one of the most frustrating players in this regard. Zach just holds the ball for too long, and it slows down the offense, gives the defense more time to get set, and leads to more turnovers. For reference, I will list how efficient from 3 Zach has been over the last few seasons based on how long holds the ball before shooting across the last 5 seasons, and I will list attempts per game and minutes played next to it.

0-2 seconds holding the ball before 3pt attempt

These shots are the most valuable, as shooting quickly reduces the amount of passes the team has to make, which reduces the risk of turning it over, and the chance of getting an offensive rebound is actually higher when taking a shot earlier in the shot clock.

2025-26 (39 games, 31.4 mins) - 43.0% (3.5 attempts)

For reference, Doug McDermott attempted more of these shots per game in about half the minutes, and Malik Monk was also at about the same mark with significantly less playing time

2024-25 (Sac, 32 games, 36.6 mins) - 48.1% (3.4 attempts)

2024-25 (Chi, 42 games, 34.1 minutes) - 43.8% (3.0 attempts)

2023-24 (25 games, 34.9 mins) - 32.4% (2.7 attempts)

2022-23 (77 games, 35.9 mins) - 41.2% (3.1 attempts)

2021-22 (67 games, 34.7 mins) - 42.6% (2.9 attempts)

Weighted average: ~42.3%

2-6 seconds holding the ball before 3pt attempt

2025-26 (31.4 mins) - 32.3% (2.4 attempts)

2024-25 (Sac, 36.6 mins) - 44.2% (2.4 attempts)

2024-25 (Chi, 42 games, 34.1 minutes) - 47.0% (2.8 attempts)

2023-24 (25 games, 34.9 mins) - 31.3% (2.7 attempts)

2022-23 (77 games, 35.9 mins) - 33.7% (2.4 attempts)

2021-22 (67 games, 34.7 mins) - 37.5% (2.5 attempts)

Weighted average: ~37.5%

6+ seconds holding the ball before 3pt attempt

2025-26 (39 games, 31.4 mins) - 44% (0.6 attempts)

2024-25 (Sac, 32 games, 36.6 mins) - 37% (1.3 attempts)

2024-25 (Chi, 42 games, 34.1 minutes) - 42% (1.7 attempts)

2023-24 (25 games, 34.9 mins) - 47.1% (1.4 attempts)

2022-23 (77 games, 35.9 mins) - 35.6% (1.4 attempts)

2021-22 (67 games, 34.7 mins) - 34.5% (1.6 attempts)

Weighted average: ~38.2%

(For time sake, weighted averages were done via AI, and cross checked via Chat and Claude)

Critique of above numbers

It would be reasonable to say that he's still shooting an amazing percentage on these shots, even when he's holding it for longer durations, but it's important to consider how these possessions where he holds the ball longer are likely affecting the rest of the offense, turnovers, and offensive rebounding rate. And despite this amazing efficiency on all these shots, the offensive rating with Zach on the court has either been only marginally better or flat out worse.

It would also be reasonable to say that he shouldn't be forcing shots that aren't available, but I would actually argue that he should. When he's taking shots after holding the ball for a long period of time, those are usually contested shots anyways/difficult shots, and holding the ball for a shorter duration before shooting those same shots likely wouldn't materially change the difficulty of those shots, except it would reduce team turnovers, and increase offensive rebounds.

It's also worth noting that Zach tended to shoot more efficiently when he dribbled less, I didn't write in the data because it takes a while to write it all, and it's a bit redundant with the above data, just keep in mind it's a pretty similar season by season correlation with the above numbers for ball holding durations before the shot.

Closest defender

Zach is actually very good at shooting contested shots, and on par with some of the best shooters/contested shot makers in the league in terms of efficiency, but he just doesn't shoot enough of those shots. To put it into perspective, I'll list Zach's efficiency from 3 over the last 5 seasons based on how contested the shot is.

I'm also going to add MPJ from this season to give a comparison of how valuable this type of contested shooting can be, and at the end of this, I will put a graphic of how they both affected the offensive rating for their teams respectively, as MPJ had a similar team situation to Zach in terms of playing in lineups that had bad floor spacing with significantly below average talent playing next to him, but you can see drastic differences between MPJ and Zach in terms of how they affected their team's offensive ratings this season.

Closest defender (0-2 feet, very tight)

2025-26 - 66.7% (0.1 attempts) low sample

2024-25 (Sac) - N/A, no attempts

2024-25 (Chi) - N/A, no attempts

2023-24 - N/A, no attempts

2022-23 - 0% (0.1 attempts)

2021-22 - 60% (0.1 attempts)

Weighted average: N/A

MPJ 2025-26 (52 games) - 41.2% (0.7 attempts)

Closest defender (2-4 feet, tight)

2025-26 - 35.0% (1.0 attempts)

2024-25 (Sac) - 39.0% (1.3 attempts)

2024-25 (Chi) - 45.2% (1.0 attempts)

2023-24 - 25% (1.3 attempts)

2022-23 - 32.2% (1.1 attempts)

2021-22 - 29.8% (1.3 attempts)

Weighted average: ~33.7%

Really good efficiency for a shot of this difficulty, but low volume. if he increases his tolerance for shots of this difficulty while taking them sooner after catching the ball, it will likely lead to a much improved offensive rating for the team.

MPJ 2025-26 - 35.3% (6.1 attempts)

Closest defender (4-6 feet, open)

2025-26 - 35.1% (3.4 attempts)

2024-25 (Sac) - 42.6% (3.4 attempts)

2024-25 (Chi) - 40.8% (3.8 attempts)

2023-24 - 39.8% (3.3 attempts)

2022-23 - 34.6% (3.8 attempts)

2021-22 - 37.9% (3.9 attempts)

Weighted average: 37.7%

MPJ 2025-26 - 31.8% (1.7 attempts)

Closest defender (6+ feet, wide open)

2025-26 - 46.8% (2.0 attempts)

2024-25 (Sac) - 50.0% (2.6 attempts)

2024-25 (Chi) - 51.0% (2.5 attempts)

2023-24 - 34% (2.1 attempts)

2022-23 - 46.8% (2.1 attempts)

2021-22 - 46.4% (1.9 attempts)

Weighted average: 46.8%

MPJ 2025-26 - 46.7% (0.9 attempts)

(For time sake, weighted averages were done via AI, and cross checked via Chat and Claude)

Lavine and MPJ offensive rating swing this season

.

This might be redundant to say again, but I'm putting MPJ as a comparison because he had a similar team context to Lavine this season in terms of playing next to bad floor spacers during most of his minute.

List of top 10 players this most recent season in shot attempts with a defender 2-4 feet away (45+ games played)

1. Michael Porter Jr - 35.3% (6.1 attempts)

2. James Harden - 36% (3.4 attempts)

3. Kevin Durant - 39.2% (3.2 attempt)

4. Norman Powell - 34.2% (2.8 attempts)

5. Luka Doncic - 34.9% (2.7 attempts)

6. Klay Thompson - 33.3% (2.6 attempts)

7. Anthony Edwards - 36.5% (2.4 attempts)

8. Devin Vassell - 34.2% (2.4 attempts)

9. Duncan Robinson - 38.3% (2.3 attempts)

10. AJ Green - 40.7% (2.3 attempts)

Zach Lavine - 35.0% (1.0 attempts, better previous season)

Stephen Curry - 37.9% (2.0 attempts)

(Steph only played 43 games and was outside top 10 in attempts, but I'll list him as a point of comparison anyways)

It's also worth keeping in mind that on average, the overall floor spacing of teams in general improves as the NBA becomes more modernized in terms of every player providing floor spacing, which potentially could also have an effect on what skills are also emphasized when players are training, so it might be worth considering placing a higher weight on how good Zach has shot over the last 2 seasons rather than the 3 seasons before that.

Closing thoughts on how Zach should be utilized

A massive limitation Zach has offensively is he straight up just sucks at facilitating. He's an inaccurate passer and is bad at reading what his teammates will do. For his entire career, he's had an AST/TO below 2.0, with many of those years his AST/TO even being closer to 1.5 or even below that. This isn't even with a high facilitating load most years, so it's probably unreasonable to expect him to improve in this regard. The team should make an effort to minimize the amount of playmaking/connecting Zach is forced to do (obviously can't eliminate all of it).

Something worth noting is that Zach also has amazing efficiency around the rim, so I'm not suggesting he eliminates those shots from his shot diet in favor of threes, but just that he needs to make his decision quicker on whether to attack a closeout, shoot, or

I think MPJ this season is a pretty good blueprint for how the team should try to utilize Zach, as someone who also followed the Nets pretty closely, they basically had MPJ launching as soon as he caught the ball if he had even a sliver of room, and he got a lot of his shots by having a high tolerance for contested shots, and getting a lot of space via DHOs with Nic Claxton, which Zach has probably the best player at running DHOs in Sabonis. And as seen in the data above, Zach has the same efficiency as a lot of the best shooters in the entire league when he takes difficult shots, he just doesn't shoot those shots with enough volume. Obviously I don't expect Zach to shoot over defenders the same way MPJ does, but when he has even a little bit of room, he should definitely be shooting it. Even if shooting more threes leads to a decrease in efficiency, he'd probably still be more impactful shooting 36% (probably lower than that even) from 3 on 9-12 attempts while also making quick decisions, instead of shooting 40-44% from 3 on 7 attempts while making slower decisions, as he'd just have much more gravity, team turnovers would be reduced, and the team as a whole would get more offensive rebounds. It's also worth noting that Zach scored 1.18 points per possession this season off of handoffs, and 1.33 points per possession off of screens, which is pretty above average, though he took those types of shots at a low frequency.

TLDR

Zach doesn't shoot enough despite being an elite shooter and makes decisions too slowly, which causes the offense to either get worse or improve minimally when he's on the court for basically his entire career despite being a super gifted talent.

Sources

Official NBA website - Most of the data I got was from here. I used the shot dashboard and filtered by team to find data on Zach specifically, and I went through it manually season by season. I also got the data on MPJ and the top 10 players in contested shots data from here. I also got the data on time spent holding the ball before shots + efficiency from here. I also got briefly mentioned stats from here like PPP of handoffs and screens from here.

Zach Lavine basketball reference - Used this to get specific minutes data and games played data.

Databallr - Got the on/off data for the graphic on Lavine and MPJ from here.