Brett W. Huff

There's a lot of negativity around the Kings right now (for good reason). They're 0-5, went winless in preseason, and inevitably will be at the bottom of the standings (again). But I think, in the context of the franchise's position (this is the middle of a teardown/rebuild), there's some positive developments among the slop that bode well for the future. Focus on these in the midst of another otherwise dreary season to keep yourself from going insane. First of course is Acuff has the goods. Currently leading all rookies in both scoring and assists. But more importantly you can see him develop game-by-game. He's become more patient; in the first few games you can see him pull on midrange shots the second he has daylight, but now he's getting deeper into the paint, probing, keeping his dribble and options alive, and finding his teammates or taking easier floaters. NBA defenses will start throwing the kitchen sink at him, there will be more ups and downs, but Acuff is the real deal. You solve the offensive engine part of an NBA team and everything else starts falling into place. Second, I think its important to remember Maxime Raynaud hasn't played at all yet. The knee injury sucks timing-wise because he was having a very productive preseason per-minute (He was producing 22.1 pts /14.5 reb /3.2 ast per 36 minutes in limited minutes). Most intriguing is that he was starting to shoot more threes; he only made 1/4 in his limited preseason, but that's 2.5 3PA per 36 minutes. He only shot 1.4 threes per 36 minutes last season. Remember Raynaud was a stretch 5 in college, will be enormous if he can translate that into the pros. Raynaud was the Kings' best young player last year, and similar to Acuff you can see him develop more and more as the season went along. I think he's going to be another major piece of the rebuild. Next up, I'm bullish on Emmanuel Sharp as an NBA contributor. He's not lighting up the statsheet or anything, but his defense and hustle has popped, and he's shooting 38.5% from three early on (5/13). His on/off splits are nutty: Kings are 3.5 points better offensively with him on the court, but also FIFTEEN points better defensively with him on the court. Stats back up the film here. I'd like to see him pull the trigger more often, he often passes up semi-open looks to dribble into midrange shots or floaters. Those should be replaced either by Sharp taking the three, or a drive-and-kick to someone else. And defensively he's fouling too much, that's just something experience will clean up. But I do think he's going to be a useful player for the future. Again, this is a tear-down year for the Kings. There's no opportunity to really build anything while big money veterans suck up so much of the air in the room (you can thank Vivek for that). I think Sabonis is tradeable playing at this level and can get the Kings some decent assets back. Trade Sabonis, wind down the other contracts, let Acuff/Raynaud continue to develop, see what you have in young roleplayers like Sharp, don't worry about the standings. That's the big picture here.