Why Brown’s ‘not comfortable’ with Kings’ rotations after loss

Why Brown’s ‘not comfortable’ with Kings’ rotations after loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SACRAMENTO — With a lot of moving pieces entering the 2024-25 NBA season, the Kings got most of the band back together for their season opener Thursday night at Golden 1 Center.

In doing so, however, it also presented coach Mike Brown with some difficult decisions that — big-picture wise — will take some time to resolve.

Kevin Huerter (shoulder) and Trey Lyles (groin) both were cleared just in time for Thursday’s game after missing training camp and five preseason games.

Rising young guard Keon Ellis filled in for Huerter in that starting shooting guard spot from the end of last season through this preseason, but despite Ellis’ impactful presence in a small sample size, Huerter reclaimed his role with the first five alongside De’Aaron Fox, DeMar DeRozan, Keegan Murray and Domantas Sabonis.

As expected, while he ramps up his work, Huerter played the fewest number of minutes among the starters with just under 20.

The rest of the group played nearly double that — or more.

A 35-year-old DeRozan, in Year 16, played more than 42 minutes. Sabonis played 38 and Fox trailed just behind him with 37. Murray, the youngest of the group, played a team-high 43 minutes.

That’s something Brown doesn’t want to see happen on a nightly basis.

“You can see, just by the minutes, that I’m still not comfortable with my rotation,” Brown said after Sacramento’s 117-115 collapse Thursday. “I don’t want DeMar to average 43 minutes a game. I don’t want Keegan to average 43 minutes a game. And so that’s something that I have to continue working on to help them out. I also don’t want Domas at 38 and I don’t want Fox at 37.

“So, again, that’s something that I have to continue working on with the group to figure out what’s going to be good for us rotationally going forward — and it may take some time.”

The first two players who checked in off the bench Thursday were Ellis and, of course, Sacramento’s sixth man Malik Monk. Next was Lyles before 7-foot center Alex Len checked in with about a minute remaining in the opening quarter.

Brown went…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/why-browns-not-comfortable-kings-063524599.html

Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-10-25 07:07:00

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