The Sacramento Kings took a 19-point lead over the Detroit Pistons on Thursday. They led by 13 early in the fourth quarter. That lead remained in double digits with less than four minutes remaining. It takes a special collapse to make a game like this fail. We are unfortunately talking about the Kings.
Sacramento led by three in what should have been the final possession of the game. The Kings could have fouled the Pistons on the catch, securing two free throws and preventing the Pistons from taking a tying 3-pointer. The debate between “foul” and “allowing the 3-point shot” is nuanced and situational. The right answer is never “both.” That’s what the Kings delivered. They allowed Jaden Ivey to score 3 points. He succeeded and was fouled in the process. He sank the free throw. The Kings used their final timeout to contest the foul and thus were unable to get a reasonable look to try to win the game after Detroit took a 114-113 lead. They lost a heartbreaker.
For most teams, this would be the worst loss of the season. For kings? It’s Thursday. Sacramento has a positive net rating on the season at plus-1.6, meaning they are outperforming their opponents this season. Yet, through 31 games, they are only 13-18. For what? Because they have now lost a decisive 13 games at the top of the league, defined by the NBA such as games in which the score was within five points with five minutes or less to play. In games decided by five points or less, they are 3-10.
Now, under normal circumstances, this would simply be bad luck. Brood records and statistics tend to be inherently random due to small sample sizes. All it takes is a few good missed shots or bad shots and a team’s clutch record can vary wildly. A very small group of stars, notably Chris Paul, allow their teams to win fairly consistently in the clutch, but for the most part, it’s among the more hit-and-miss elements of NBA performance. The problem here is that the Kings didn’t design for clutch performance to be hit or miss. No, this team’s entire theory was based on winning games in the clutch.
After all, the Kings didn’t necessarily need another capable guard. With De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and Kevin Huerter in the backcourt as well as Domantas Sabonis in the center, Sacramento’s strength was already offensive. Yet their big move this offseason was the acquisition of DeMar DeRozan, a poor defender and 3-point shooter whose primary virtue is creating shots inside the arc. This trait is the most valuable in the late game.
DeRozan was a finalist for Clutch Player of the Year last season and he finished third in 2023. The winner of the award in 2023 was Fox, as he led the Kings back to the playoffs for the first time since 2006 thanks to largely to an impressive 25-19 record in clutch games. Any team built around Fox, DeRozan and Sabonis was always going to be deficient defensively. He was always going to have trouble taking enough 3-point shots, as neither of them are used to shooting from deep particularly well. But if they could just keep the games close, Fox and DeRozan would be such a crushing duo late in games that they could pull off enough wins late to make the playoffs.
That’s not happening so far this season. With a 13-18 record, the Kings now sit 12th in the Western Conference. They’re close to signing 35-year-old DeRozan to a three-year deal, although so far it appears he’s not a good fit. Fox was the subject of trade rumors this season after turning down a summer contract extension. We can’t necessarily call this bottom for the Kings. After all, they’ve made the playoffs once in the last 18 seasons. But that’s about as bad as this season could have gotten for a team that was desperate to build on a 2023 playoff berth that now seems unsustainable.
