Kings vs Hawks Preview: Learning to Fly

Hey, if you made it past the article summary, I want you to know that I’m sorry and that the hawk-tuah stuff was never that funny and that I did it for your own good. Sincerely, I hope you cringed hard enough to know that you really don’t need to go into the comments and make those jokes now. For those of you who don’t know what the hell I’m talking about: Don’t google it, don’t worry. Internet culture is rarely worth investigating, and it’s certainly not worth the trouble for your wife (or mother) to see it in your search history. Hey, speaking of being worth it, the Sacramento Kings are in Atlanta today for an early game against Trae Young and whoever else isn’t on the War and Peace injury report released yesterday! Out is Bogi Bogdanovic, out is De’Andre Hunter, out is Dyson Daniels, out is Kobe Bufkin and Cody Zeller and Vit Krejci… In? Well, bandages and KT tape I assume. And lots of Trae Young hero ball.

Let’s talk Kings basketball.

When: Friday 1 November at 4:30 PM PST
Where: State Farm Arena, Atlanta, GA
TV: NBCSCA – Kyle Draper (play-by-play)
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM

For your consideration

Risacher away: So how worried are we now about the Sacramento Kings and their start to the season? Losing to two good teams is never fun, especially in games that were as winnable as they were. Beating bad teams, never quite so satisfying. But now, four games into the season, is it easier on your heart to know the Kings are six measly points off a 4-0 start? This is not rhetorical, I’m really curious how the average Kings Herald reader feels about it all.

Going into tonight’s game: The Hawks are a deeply strange team. Led by Landry Fields and what sometimes feels like a cadre of frat brothers, the Hawks front office has been all over the place in recent years, throwing a ton of draft picks at Dejounte Murray only to ship him after two seasons of his best basketball , floating rumors of trading Trae, drafting players who don’t fit what they say they want to do, trading coaches in and out… there’s a smaller amount of chaos in Atlanta. Getting former Jazz coach Quin Snyder, and mid-season too, is a great get, but there’s a good amount of the time they feel like they’re being run by a selection of twitter users and ESPN panelists.

That said: they’re still a potent team that can surprise a team that isn’t prepared for the game…while also being a team that lost to the (improving) Wizards two games just tonight. Through five games, the Hawks have leaned heavily on their offense to get them: 7th in points per possession. game with 117.6 ppg, is riding the 5th fastest pace in the league and currently has the 11th best offensive rating in the league. The Hawks shoot the second most free throws in the NBA, are 19th in both two-point and three-point attempts, and shoot in the bottom ten with three-point percentage and top ten with two-point percentage. The engine of this team continues to be Trae Young, who, fresh off his best teammate and mortal enemy, Dejounte Murray, is averaging 28.2 points, 11.6 assists and just under 6 turnovers a game. The Kings Herald writer’s chat had this conversation the other day, and it seems to have merit: Trae is basically bizzare about the way the media is treating Haliburton’s Superman. Tyrese is averaging 20 and 5 to start this season, with fewer turnovers and much, much more help, but because he loves to podcast and Trae is in desperate need of follicular intervention and plays for Atlanta, Haliburton is the darling of the league while Trae remains this 1.0 failed homunculus oozing points and sour disposition down in the basement. The media usually loves a good shitbird – they’ve been slurring Draymond’s every word for a decade now. So what does Trae, a guy I’m not even a fan of, do differently? Evil Haliburton Can’t Get Any Airtime?

Okay back to the game here: the defensive end of the Hawks still hasn’t shown what Quinn Snyder had to bring to the table when he made the jump, and it’s certainly not all for Quinn. Their actual counting numbers are decent: they’re 4th in steals, 9th in blocks. But they are also 28th in points allowed, 28th in defensive rating and probably most damning here: they allow the most three pointers per game. game to their opponents while also allowing the highest percentage of marks from beyond the arc. Teams entering an arena against the Hawks are shooting 42.1% from deep against them and they are averaging over 43 attempts. The Kings take nine fewer and make 8% less than that, so if we suddenly see a Huerter revenge game or DeRozan hits a few he shouldn’t, we know it’s real.

Overall, the Hawks are in transition: somewhere between thought and contention, where Trae Young keeps his head too far above water to fire sales, but young guys like first-overall draft pick Zaccharie Risacher isn’t good enough, or Onyeka Okungwu not getting enough minutes for them to go higher. Jalen Johnson is having a great season, Clint Capela is still around and doing Capela things, but right now they’re the worst possible: simply middle of the road.

The little things

Red Velvet’s Return: Greg wrote at length yesterday about the return of the Kevin Huerter we all know and loved from Beam Team: Season 1. Remove the fan favorites in pursuit of that starting spot – Huerter being good is totally good for the Kings. Whether as a starting 2 or a back up 3, Kevin has no real downside looking confident, hitting at a good clip and kicking ass on defense. If Monte struggles to get Keon more time, Huerter playing well means his value increases. If the Kings defense suddenly falls off a cliff and a lower consumption, a player with a higher defensive ceiling is needed, Kevin plays well off the bench. All sample sizes are still so small, but with each game Kevin continues to prove himself in, my general sense of nervousness bleeds into “hey, if it works!” level of fandom.

Bogie Down: After only missing 3 games all of last season, Bogi is set to miss some time again this season with hamstring surgery that will keep him out until at least December. For all the weirdness surrounding his departure, Bogdanovic is perhaps the former King I root for the hardest in the league, and I hate that his post-Sacramento performance has been absolutely shot due to injuries. Including his off year last year, Bogi is still only averaging 60 games per season with Atlanta.

Forecast

Trae Young is stuck in hell most of the night with Fox and Keon and even Keegan stepping up to guard him all night. 25+ shots, 7 or so field goals made. Jalen Johnson remains a player many Kings fans openly covet, Garrison Mathews remains a player most of us actively despise, and Zaccharie Risacher does the most imaginable.

Kings: 124 Hawks:111