RealGM

t is interesting to look from an analytical standpoint why the experts were so far off on the Kings. Here are my hypothesis as to why the big miss.

Reason 1: the net points for/against can be very misleading. The metric isn’t controlled for outlier games where a team may go to their bench. A perfect example is the recent Minnesota game versus New Orleans. The Kings on the third game in 4 nights and a long Dallas to Minnesota back to back waived the white flag. Outliers should be removed from the metric.

Reason 2: Clutch isn’t random. The current metric assumes clutch play is random and anyone who has played can tell you it’s not. The Kings were one of the most clutch teams last year as they are this year. The guys doing game predictions don’t accurately factor in clutch.

Reason 3: it takes minutes to score. Buddy isn’t scoring at a better rate this year than last year. He is just playing more minutes because Jeoger isn’t trying to look at all players. Put Buddy in Ben Mclemore’s minutes and strangely enough both his and the teams offensive numbers will go up.

Reason 4: Pace matters and last year the Kings had the slowest pace. With a Fox at point that was unlikely to continue.

Many of the factors still come into play with 538 projecting the Kings with 37 wins and likely to finish 7th.

De'Aaron Fox improved from a from a typical strugglung Rookie PG to a Borderline All-star and he runs the team

Two main reasons.

First is the improvement from Fox. He was bad as a rookie and massively better this year. While improvement from a 1 and done rookie into his 2nd year is expected, a routine level of improvement from Fox would have left him as a very poor starter.

The 2nd is the switch to a modern lineup. Last year they played most of the game with 2 old-school bigs, often with the very slow ZBo at PF. It's not clear if this was stubbornness from their coach or a stealth tank move but it was really holding Sacramento back.