You’re going to go a long time before you find a better basketball game this season than the one the Kings and Clippers played on Friday night.
This was absolutely the best basketball game of the year and it will probably remain that throughout the rest of the season — playoffs included. It’s absolutely nuts how wild this game got.
The Kings won outright, 176-175. And, yes, that score is wild. But it doesn’t even begin to paint the picture of how crazy this game got.
I know most of you missed this because, well, you have a life. The game didn’t end until about 1:30 a.m. on the East Coast. Y’all had Saturday plans, obviously.
But yerboi watched the whole thing to hold it down for you. Let’s just come through a few stats to show you exactly how wild this thing got.
Traditionally, throughout the history of the NBA, we’re used to seeing Lakers fans traveling and taking over arenas everywhere. Their fans will normally travel and cheer their team on, making every game feel like a home game for the Lakers.
It’ll either be that or — if the Lakers are in the arena of another contending team — there will be “beat LA” chants surfacing throughout the arena.
Very, very, very rarely do we ever see a fanbase take over the Lakers’ homecourt. Especially not Kings fans.
But that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday when the Kings beat the Lakers in a close one. When the game was over, Kings fans broke out in their “Light the Beam” chant and, honestly, it sounded like they were right at home.
Honestly, just last year, this was unfathomable. Not only do the Kings have a signature chant. The fans are also breaking out that signature chant on the road — against the Lakers.
The Lakers have been the bane of the Kings’ organization for years now. LA was the hump Sacramento couldn’t get over in the early 2000s. To see this happening — even in just a meaningless regular season game — is pretty wild.
Ja Morant should’ve taken his own advice against the Kings
Trash talk is great, man. It’s so much fun. It all comes with being part of sports.
But the thing about trash talk is that you have to actually back it up yourself. And, if you don’t? Whew boy. It could lead to some pretty embarrassing moments in front of a lot of people.
Ja Morant knows. He had one of those moments on Tuesday night with the game on the line against the Sacramento Kings.
The Kings were up by 1 point in the game’s waning moments when Malik Monk went to the free-throw line. Morant told him “don’t miss” before he shot the free throws. He didn’t miss a single one.
But the Grizzlies came down on the other end and Ja Morant gets fouled on a 3-point attempt and has a chance to tie the game. What does he do? Exactly what he told Malik Monk not to do.
Game on the line, Ja Morant walked up to Malik Monk and said "don't miss."
The Kings are good, the Lakers are bad and the NBA is fun.
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Happy Friday, folks! It’s Sykes, once again, here to send you off into the weekend with another edition of Layup Lines.
I just want to talk about the Sacramento Kings real quick. Yes, that’s right. The Kings.
The vibes are immaculate around this team. Don’t look now, but they’re actually the best team in California. Like, seriously. They’ve got a better record than Stephen Curry’s Warriors, LeBron James’ Lakers and Kawhi Leonard’s Clippers at 8-6 so far this season.
The team seems to vibe with one another well. Mike Brown has injected a winning culture into a franchise that has typically been a losing one for the last two decades, essentially. They’re doing their cool winning beam thing now. It’s just all awesome. You really want to root for this team.
The thing about this is it doesn’t really feel flukey. Every season there are bad teams that start off hot and you’re like “yeah, this is going to cool down at some point.” And the Kings might certainly cool down. But this effort? The passion? The energy? That all feels sustainable.
That’s what has led to the 2nd best offense in the NBA so far behind only the Boston Celtics with a 117.5 offensive rating. De’Aaron Fox looks like a potential All-Star and All-NBA candidate. Domantas Sabonis has been an offensive fulcrum. Kevin Huerter is coming into his own as a secondary playmaker and scorer. Everyone seems to know their role and what they’re supposed to do.
If the season were to end today, the Kings would be in the Play-In as the 8th seed. And, obviously, the year is far from over. There’s plenty of basketball left to be played.
But, man. If you’d told anyone that back in July? They’d probably have laughed at you. But it’s the Kings’ fans who are laughing now.
We’ll see how it all turns out at the season’s end. But, man. I’ll say this — I’m never going to get tired of seeing that purple beam.
The Tip-Off
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
Speaking of the Lakers, man. It’s so rough seeing where they are now and comparing it to where they were a few years ago before LeBron James. They had all their assets, a number of talented players and a bright future.
Now, obviously, they’ve won an NBA championship. And they wouldn’t give any of that away for anything. But had they been just a little more stingy and shrewd, they might still have a competent basketball team on their hands.
My colleague, Bryan Kalbrosky, wrote about how both Ivica Zubac and Brook Lopez are balling right now. They’re two of the best defensive big men in the NBA. What do they have in common? They both used to play for the Lakers. They’d be perfect fits on the team now.
“Worse yet, both are natural fives that would allow Anthony Davis to play at the four — where he would prefer to play. Davis, instead, has played out of position for Los Angeles. Lopez played for Lakers head coach Darvin Ham when he was an assistant for the Bucks, and both big men would do well in his defensive-oriented approach.”
76ers (-1.5, -120) vs. Bucks (+100), O/U 212.5, 8 PM ET
(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Obviously, this is going to be one of the more fun games of the night. It’s Giannis Antetkonunmpo vs. Joel Embiid. Do I really need to say more? Jrue Holiday may not play, however. And with the Bucks missing a key piece on both ends of the court, they’ll need someone to step up in his absence. I don’t think a lot of scoring will get done in this one, but it’ll be epic anyway. I’m taking the under.
The Nets allowed a shocking 153 points on Tuesday night in a blowout loss to the Kings.
The Brooklyn Nets suffered a 32-point loss to the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night, making it the team’s third loss in five games.
The Nets had one of the worst defensive performances in the history of the franchise against Sacramento. According to Statmuse, Brooklyn’s 153 points allowed is the second-most in team history, trailing only a double-overtime 161-157 loss to to Steve Nash’s Suns in 2006.
A total of six different Kings scored at least 14 points as Sacramento ran up the score on the Nets’ defense. Terence Davis torched the Nets from beyond the arc, making seven 3-pointers in just 26 minutes on the floor to lead all scorers with 31 points.
Here’s what fans, analysts and players were saying after Tuesday’s loss:
The NBA world felt shockwaves when the Jazz sent Rudy Gobert to Minnesota in a blockbuster trade for a historic return. When the Jazz got eliminated from the playoffs in April, speculation began on whether the Jazz would break up their All-Star duo and enter a rebuild. In our offseason preview for the Jazz, we concluded that they were in good hands for a rebuild under newly hired Danny Ainge because of his history of extracting optimal value in trades.
The former Boston Celtics executive managed to outdo his previous haul from the 2013 trade with the Brooklyn Nets by not only getting three unprotected first-round picks again (2023, 2025, 2027), but also an additional Top 5 protected first in 2029. If you include this year’s 22nd overall pick, Walker Kessler, the Jazz got five first-round picks for Gobert, all without taking on any long-term money. They also traded Royce O’Neale to the Nets for a first-round pick on the eve of free agency.
Now the big question is, what happens next? And what that really is asking is if the Jazz will also trade Donovan Mitchell now that the roster has taken a major competitive hit in the short term. As hard as it is to move an all-time generational defender, who by all accounts was fully bought-in to the organization and the city of Utah, the return they got was too good to pass.
The NBA Draft is less than a week away, with more potential big trades on the horizon following the Christian Wood acquisition by the Dallas Mavericks, as noted throughout our new HoopsHype aggregate mock draft.
To get a better projection of where all of the projected top prospects stand currently, we compiled mock drafts from ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, Sports Illustrated, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, SB Nation, Yahoo, Basketball News, and USA TODAY’s For The Win.
The most notable risers within the projected lottery selections included Dyson Daniels moving up further within the top 10 picks, Ousmane Dieng becoming a projected lottery pick, and Jalen Williams vaulting into the Top 20 range. Jake LaRavia and Dalen Terry, two of the biggest risers throughout the draft process, have moved into the late first round.
Other risers in the second round include Ryan Rollins, Andrew Nembhard, David Roddy, John Butler, Michael Foster, Gabriele Procida, and Dereon Seabron.
The notable name that fell was MarJon Beauchamp, who now is projected outside the top 20 picks despite receiving a green room invite. Josh Minott and Jean Montero were among those whose stock fell in the second round.
NOTE: These rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for the overall consensus, not our own opinion. For example, if a player was the first pick on a publication’s mock draft, he received 58 points. If a player was second, he received 57 points and so on. We then tabulated the total number of points for each player’s consensus ranking.
HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report
Following the withdrawals of several prospects, the aggregate NBA mock draft has shifted noticeably, and more intel on teams have surfaced with the draft nearing.
To get a better projection of where all of the projected top prospects stand currently, we compiled mock drafts from ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, Sports Illustrated, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, SB Nation, Yahoo, Basketball News, and USA TODAY’s For The Win.
The most notable risers within the projected lottery selections included Keegan Murray leaping Shaedon Sharpe into the top five range, Dyson Daniels entering the top 10, and Malaki Branham cracking the end of the lottery. Dalen Terry also vaulted 12 spots since our last aggregate mock draft and is currently positioned as an early second-round pick.
Some of the more notable names that fell slightly included TyTy Washington, Max Christie and Leonard Miller.
NOTE: These rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for the overall consensus, not our own opinion. For example, if a player was the first pick on a publication’s mock draft, he received 58 points. If a player was second, he received 57 points and so on. We then tabulated the total number of points for each player’s consensus ranking.
HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report
This massive four-team trade just kicked off the NBA trade deadline
The NBA trade deadline is officially upon us, folks. We’re starting off the final day of this thing with an absolute bang.
We got not a two, not a three but a four team trade as the first deal completed a few hours ahead of the deadline.
The Milwaukee Bucks moved Donte DiVencenzo but got Serge Ibaka back. The Kings finally got rid of Marvin Bagley III. The Pistons got another project for the future. The Clippers saved themselves a whole lot of money.
There were a lot of moving parts to this thing. But don’t you worry — we’re going over all of them here and grading each one.
