Keegan Murray‘s thumb injury creates a difficult lineup decision for the Kings, who don’t have much reliable depth behind the former No. 4 overall pick at power forward, writes James Ham of The Kings Beat.
“It’s tough because Keegan has size, strength, athleticism and he shoots 40 percent [from 3-point range], I think everyone is looking for that,” head coach Doug Christie said on Sunday. “We have a couple of different guys that can equal Keegan, but we don’t have Keegan, so replacing him is definitely going to be difficult.”
The Kings have a pair of preseason games still to come on Wednesday and Friday, and Christie said he intends to “try a couple of different things” during those contests as he weighs his options for a fifth starter alongside Dennis Schröder, Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Domantas Sabonis.
As Ham writes, veterans Dario Saric and Drew Eubanks and rookies Nique Clifford and Maxime Raynaud are among the potential candidates for the role, but the Kings have more depth in the backcourt, where Malik Monk and Keon Ellis currently project to come off the bench. The team’s thin depth chart at the four is one reason why Sacramento was so interested in Warriors restricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga this offseason, Ham notes.
We have more from around the Pacific:
- Warriors forward Jimmy Butler won’t play on Tuesday vs. Portland after spraining his ankle in a Friday practice, tweets Anthony Slater of ESPN. However, the injury isn’t considered serious and head coach Steve Kerr is hopeful that Butler will return for Friday’s preseason finale vs. the Clippers.
- After ESPN’s Kevin Pelton projected the Warriors to win 56 games, the second-most in the NBA, his ESPN colleague Zach Kram breaks down why Golden State could be more dangerous than the general consensus suggests. Kram cites Al Horford‘s potential impact, a well-balanced roster, and the fact that the Warriors have fewer obvious question marks than several of their Western Conference rivals.
- Within a report detailing how the NBA approved the Clippers‘ initial sponsorship agreement with the green-bank company Aspiration in 2021, Bobby Marks and Baxter Holmes of ESPN note that people familiar with the investigation into the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard believe the probe will take months, perhaps not wrapping up until after the 2026 playoffs. The league hired the law firm Wachtell Lipton, Rosen & Katz to look into whether the Clippers circumvented the salary cap by paying Leonard via a separate “no-show” endorsement deal with Aspiration.
- Clippers forward Kobe Brown, a first-round pick in 2023, believes he’s a “way better” player now than he was when he entered the NBA two years ago, but he also recognizes that his role may still be limited due to the team’s impressive veteran depth, writes Janis Carr of The Orange County Register. He’s OK with that if head coach Tyronn Lue determines it’s what’s best for the club. “If the team’s winning, I’m winning,” Brown said. “I don’t look at it as a negative thing. I just do my job basically.”
If the Kings were so interested in making a deal for Kuminga, they would have done it, but instead tried to Low Ball the Warriors, who didn’t bite !! When your whole offseason rest on getting just one player, then your GM needs to go. Instead Now we have a super unbalanced roster that will not even make the Play In little more than any Play Offs !! Sorry, but Perry is a complete and utter Joke !!
Kings are a team full of pieces that the fans are praying the pieces will fit together. I think the Kings overplayed their hand on Kuminga thinking they could get him for nothing. I do see a rebuild in their future.
It really wasn’t their fault – they didn’t have cap space to make a FA offer, and with the base year compensation issue limiting the value of the players the Kings offered in a S&T from the Warriors’ perspective, it was a non-starter.
Kings never really offered anything of value for Kuminga. That is beating an old horse. Even telling the warriors No on Ellis who is a back up shows they didn’t go very hard after Kuminga.
Easiest answer for the Kings is move DeRo to the four, LaVine to the three and take advantage of the backcourt depth to fill the two. DeRo has played the four in his career, and his size is about the same as Murray.
Thinking the warriors will win 56 games is delusional. 50 if they’re lucky. 47 is the most realistic number
Even I see 56 as being too high. Only way that happens is nobody gets hurt. 56 wins would be a top 3 in the west. 47 looks more like the number if they don’t have a long injury to Curry.
So, you think they got worse over the the summer?
Its the injury factor. Being an older team is tougher stay healthy and look at their schedule with a lot of back to backs. Going to be tough keeping the healthy. Add in how tough the west is this year. Other than Utah every game is going to be a battle.
Last season, they were relying on the younger guys to step up and fill the void left by Klay. They didn’t have a lot of outside shooting, little spacing. And ball movement was atrocious at times. This season, the younger guys are more poised to fill the void. Horford and Butler should rub off on them. Post and Kuminga are taking advantage of it. So, the older might not play as many minutes.
@Giants74
They added Horford, who will help the outside shooting/spacing but will likely miss at least 20 games due to load management, Seth, except the hard cap means he won’t be available right away, Melton, who is as injury prone as can be and btw can’t shoot, GP2 (dunker, not a shooter) and Kuminga, who would rather be elsewhere and also isn’t likely to shoot threes well.
The young guys better stay healthy and be ready to level up…
They’ll have a full season of Post. Moody should be healthy, and shoot more like he started to do in the 2nd half. Podz looks like he is ready to shake off his sophomore blues. Kuminga is learning to pass the ball more. The depth should be more reliable this season. They’ll have less of those unforced errors that cost a bunch of games.
@arc89 (good to see your account working)
I agree as well, the West is too competitive and most of the good teams improved. If healthy all season, 50-52 could happen, but after 3 preseason games there’s already 3 guys banged up (Steph, Jimmy, and Moody).
I hope they can avoid the play-in, but it’s hard to be optimistic.
People are not factoring in Pelicans, Spurs, and Trailblazers will be better this year. OKC will not run away with the west this year because after you win a title every team is going to want to knock you off.
All 3 of those teams should be way better, especially the Pelicans if they can avoid injuries.
The Nuggets could be the most improved – Braun seems to have taken his shot to the next level, he’s shooting an insane 14-15 overall (93.3%) and 8-9 from three pt range (88.9%) in their 3 preseason games, and Valanciunas should make the non-Jokic minutes at least even.
looking at the west over 60 wins would put you in the 2 top spots.
They solved the huge holes that they had that they had coming to last season. They went 23-7 when they added Butler. Who didn’t know any of the plays. So, explain how they are going backwards?
If Draymond is healthy all season…
they won’t win 56 games.