Coach Dave Joerger has led the Sacramento Kings to a promising start to the season, but not one without drama. (Jrcla2/Wikimedia Commons)


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The Sacramento Kings are off to a strong beginning after most expected them to finish at or near the conference’s cellar. And second-year point guard De’Aaron Fox’s seismic leap is a huge reason why. James Ham of NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California stops by to break down the Kings’ sizzling start, the organization’s coach-executive drama and where the Kings go from here as they aim to get back into the playoffs for the first time in 13 years.

Here are some particularly regal clips (*Due to dynamic advertising, time stamps may vary per listener):

11:39-12:14: “He [De’Aaron Fox] is incredibly talented. The way that he’s able to change speed and change direction in traffic while people are all around him, his handles, everything else is just next level. The Kings saw it the second he stepped foot on the practice floor before training camp. He lost one game of pickup in like two or three weeks leading up to training camp. He was just dominant. And they were like, ‘Holy cow. This is a different player, a completely different player.’”

13:56 -16:16: “The team is really designed around De’Aaron Fox. Previous years with the Kings that I’ve covered, it was always designed around DeMarcus Cousins…I think they had the wrong ingredients last year, and then they come into this offseason, and, really, they made three moves, but it’s really their two moves that they made that have made a huge impact. And that is the drafting of Marvin Bagley…and then the second is Nemanja Bjelica.”

20:41-24:53: “They don’t have a 2019 draft pick, so they have no reason to lose…[Head coach Dave] Joerger has to balance winning with developing young players…Look, there’s a lot of drama, and it’s not healthy. It’s never healthy. But I think if this team can get out of its own way, they do have a shot to have a really fun and good season. And I hope that these issues go away, because they’re not fun to write about, not fun to talk about.”

32:37-33:00: “Long term, he [Bagley] is gonna be a beast! He’s gonna be sort of a transcendent player at the position, because I think he can do a lot at the 4, and we’re only gonna see him get better. We’re only gonna see him get more confident with his ball-handling, with his shooting from the perimeter, but he has all of the tools, and I expect him to be an All-Star-level player.”

36:00-37:04: “Everything that you want for a young player to do, I think Buddy Hield has done. Now, I think a lot of people look and say, ‘Well, he’s 24, going on 25,’ but look, he played competitively in the Bahamas, which means you played competitively at the Y[MCA] or 24-Hour Fitness as a young kid. So he’s not used to the quality of players and everything. And I think coming into the season, most people around this organization believed this, and this is the telling thing: They believed that Buddy Hield is an NBA player but he would always be suited playing against second teams, because they didn’t think he could defend starters in the league and they didn’t think that he could get loose on the offensive end against first-team players. I think that that’s changed completely. What he’s done in the first 20 games of the season is that he’s proven that he’s an NBA starter.”

38:40-39:55: “De’Aaron Fox has the same amount of blocked shots as him [Willie Cauley-Stein], Buddy Hield has one less, Nemanja Bjelica has one more; that’s not gonna work out. He [WCS] needs to be a defensive force…I think the Kings will allow him to set his value on the open market, and then they’ll make a decision on whether they retain him long term or not.”

44:11-46:05: “The idea that they would be a salary dump spot, where they might get a first-round pick and just eat up this cap space that they have, I think that that idea is starting to go out the window. I do know that they’re interested in a guy like Otto Porter…What they really need is a starting-level small forward – that’s not any disrespect to Iman Shumpert who I think has been actually really good and a really big surprise for the Kings this year, but he’s 6-foot-5; he’s really a shooting guard who’s being forced to play the small forward position.”

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Music: “Who Likes to Party” by Kevin MacLeod.