Kings vs Hawks Preview: Learning to Fly

Hey, if you’ve made it past the summary of the article, I want you to know that I’m sorry, and that the Hawk-tuah thing 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 have to respond to the comments and make those jokes right now. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t Google it, don’t worry about it. Internet culture is rarely worth investigating and it’s certainly not worth your wife (or mother) seeing it in your search history. Speaking of worth it, the Sacramento Kings are in Atlanta today for an early game against Trae Young and whoever 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 guess. And lots of Trae Young hero ball.

Let’s talk Kings basketball.

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

For your consideration

Risacher road: So how concerned are we about the Sacramento Kings and their start to the season? Losing to two good teams, especially in games that were as winnable as they were, is never fun. Beating bad teams has never been more satisfying. But now, four games into the season, is it easier for you to know that the Kings are a paltry six points away from a 4-0 start? This isn’t rhetorical, I’m really curious what the average Kings Herald reader thinks about this.

Heading into tonight’s game: The Hawks are a very strange team. Led by Landry Fields and what sometimes feels like a group of frat brothers, the Hawks front office has been all over the place in recent years, dropping a ton of draft capital on Dejounte Murray and then shipping him away after two seasons of his best basketball. , spreading rumors about trading Trae, drafting players who don’t fit what they say they want to do, switching coaches in and out… there’s a small amount of chaos in Atlanta. Grabbing former Jazz coach Quin Snyder at midseason is a fantastic signing, but there’s a lot of time where they feel like they’re being run by a committee of Twitter users and ESPN panelists.

That said, they’re still a powerful team that could surprise a team unprepared for battle… while also being a team that lost two games in a row tonight to the (improving) Wizards. Through five games, the Hawks have leaned heavily on their offense to get there: 7th in points per game with 117.6 ppg, on the 5th fastest pace in the league and currently with the 11th best offensive rating in the league. The Hawks shoot the second-most free throws in the NBA, rank 19th in both two- and three-point attempts, and shoot in the bottom ten in three-point percentage and top ten in two-point percentage. The engine of this team remains 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 per game. The Kings Herald writer’s chat recently had this conversation and thinks it has merit: Trae is actually Bizarro in the media’s treatment of Haliburton’s Superman. Tyrese is averaging 20 and 5 to start this season, with fewer turnovers and much, much greater help, but because he loves podcasting and Trae is in desperate need of follicular intervention and plays for Atlanta, Haliburton is the darling of the competition, while Trae Remains this 1.0 failed homunculus who exudes points and gruff character in the basement. The media usually loves a good shitbird – they’ve been licking up Draymond’s every word for a decade. So what makes Trae, a guy I’m not even a fan of, different? Evil Haliburton can’t get airtime?

Okay back to the play here: the Hawks’ defensive end still needs to show what Quinn Snyder had to bring to the table when he made the jump, and that’s certainly not all about Quinn. Their actual counting numbers are decent: they’re 4th in steals, 9th in blocks. But they also rank 28th in points allowed, 28th in defensive rating and probably most damning here: they give up the most three-pointers per game to their opponents, while also allowing the highest percentage of goals from beyond the arc. Teams walking into an arena against the Hawks shoot 42.1% against them from deep and they average more than 43 attempts. The Kings take nine fewer and make 8% less than that, so if we suddenly see a Huerter revenge play or DeRozan hits a few, which he’s not supposed to, we know it’s real.

Overall, the Hawks are in transition: somewhere between the tank and the battle, with Trae Young keeping their head too far above water to fire off the sale, but young guys like the first pick in the draft, Zaccharie Risacher isn’t good enough or Onyeka Okungwu. getting enough minutes to go even higher. Jalen Johnson is going to have a great season, Clint Capela is still around and doing Capela stuff, but for now that’s the worst thing you can imagine: just in the middle of the road.

The small stuff

The Return of Red Velvet: Greg wrote a lot yesterday about the return of the Kevin Huerter we all know and love from Beam Team: Season 1. Strip away the fan favorites chasing that starting spot – Huerter being good is downright good for the Kings. Whether that’s as a starting 2 or a backup 3, Kevin looking confident, hitting a good clip and busting his butt in defense is no real disadvantage. If Monte does everything he can to give Keon more time, Huerter playing well means his value goes up. If the King’s defense suddenly falls off a cliff and a lower usage player with a higher defensive ceiling is needed, Kevin will be just fine coming off the bench. All the sample sizes are still so small, but with every game where Kevin continues to prove himself, my general sense of nerves bleeds into the “hey, if it works!” level of fandom.

Bogi down: After missing just three games last season, Bogi will miss some time again this season due to hamstring surgery that will keep him out until at least December. For all the strangeness surrounding his departure, Bogdanovic is perhaps the former King I’m rooting for the loudest in the league, and I hate that his post-Sacramento performance absolutely fell through due to injuries. Including his outlier last year, Bogi is still averaging just 60 games per season with Atlanta.

Prediction

Trae Young is stuck in hell for most of the night while Fox and Keon and even Keegan watch him all night. 25+ shots, about 7 field goals. Jalen Johnson remains a player that many Kings fans openly root for, Garrison Mathews remains a player most of us actively despise, and Zaccharie Risacher does the most middle-of-the-road things you can imagine.

Kings: 124 Hawks: 111