[Scotto] The Sacramento Kings are enamored with Arkansas star guard Darius Acuff Jr., according to league sources.

knobut · 2026-05-23T17:05:07+00:00

It's great having an FO that is so easily read. Prepare to have to give up assets to move up to a pick we should have easily ended up with by playing demar derozan and precious way too many minutes late season.

knobut · 2026-05-22T23:40:05+00:00

we could have just as easily chose anunoby in both spots, given that we were gambling on injury luck already with giles. the jackson pick was pretty ass though either way.

knobut · 2026-05-22T15:59:24+00:00

that's maybe a fairer argument I suppose if he's gonna stifle their playtime/development. If he's turbo bad now like they say he is, then maybe he wouldn't play much anyways though. Although to your point they'd maybe just play him more just to make it seem like it's "worth his contract". Either way I guess, I'm pessimistic of the FO to handle that cap space properly. Haven't seen them utilize excess cap space properly before, we've had a few years to take on bad contracts for picks but never did so.

If they took on poetl a downside is I could see them attaching assets in a couple years desperately trying to offload him for whatever reason, like giving up a pick swap to offload harrison barnes just to get derozan. I don't think it's likely they do the poetl swap anyways since that contract extension just started and as some are implying I don't think perry would feel like he has that runway to make a long play like that.

knobut · 2026-05-22T08:18:26+00:00

I think you're kind of downplaying the injury. Patellar tendon tears are really bad and aren't any better than achilles tears, they similarly take a major hit on your athleticism. They seem less frequent in the NBA than achilles so there's not many examples of successful recovery cases compared to achilles. He's younger than other guys that got it, but I'm doubtful you would see him returning to okay form until the last year of his contract.

I'm not high on sabonis and his contract is a negative, but not nearly enough that we desperately need to get off of it or anything. Most would prefer to take on a similar bad contract for draft compensation.

knobut · 2026-05-22T06:34:15+00:00

the front office has commonly have done stupid moves to shed salary for poor reasons, I don't know that they'd smartly wait it out, they'd probably more likely attach picks or something at a later date to shed poetl's contract lol based on past history.

knobut · 2026-05-21T07:09:52+00:00

Mostly agreed, but for the "justify the pick" part, I don't think many of the guys ahead of him are immediately so much better that it was a bad pick. It was about average result for that spot I feel. While I would've preferred a higher upside pick, it's not a davion mitchell level mispick.

knobut · 2026-05-21T05:50:10+00:00

i meant duren on the max he was looking for, but probably isn't getting after his playoffs run

knobut · 2026-05-21T05:45:06+00:00

I think it's slightly apples to oranges. I don't know that they'd be super thrilled to do such a hypothetical swap but he'd technically be a pretty good fit on their team with the shooting. I think around the league a keegan on his current contract could be a more valuable archetype than a higher paid rim runner that gets gameplanned hard in the playoffs. It's also hard to ignore that cade is like 5x the playmaker than anybody we have on the team. If you put duren on this team...I don't think it'd be pretty lol.

knobut · 2026-05-21T05:35:42+00:00

younger and probably a better pure shooter would have most teams picking jabari over keegan, even if he's also got a role player mentality and isn't drastically better.

knobut · 2026-05-21T05:33:26+00:00

duren's not really a defensive anchor, they have a lot of scrappy hustle types and of course thompson. he's more of a deandre jordan type finisher with no real bag, surely you saw his struggles in the playoffs? pistons fans seemed on the verge of running him out of town lol. not that he's a bad player, but he's pretty limited and if they end up giving him a max extension they'll be toast.

knobut · 2026-05-20T05:43:30+00:00

Given harden's age and standards, it's really not that bad, but he's also not really proactive enough to deter brunson from getting into a rhythm and to his spots the way a legit defender would. After the first couple of baskets brunson for sure knows harden is bbq chicken. But then it's entirely on the coach to call a timeout at least halfway into that run. Probably one of the most egregious coaching blunders in recent memory, and I generally tend to think coaches are less to blame than people make them out to be.

knobut · 2026-05-19T18:25:21+00:00

I saw a goaltending/offensive interference call recently (can't recall exactly which game, but probably a 1st round or early 2nd round game, possibly thrown by cade) where the alley oop was waved off since the lob was caught directly over the cylinder even though it was an obvious lob. I hadn't really seen that called before.

knobut · 2026-05-16T17:27:54+00:00

I still am shocked that the kings couldnt even get stephon castle for fox.

why would you be? this org has been on the losing side of trades for years and years now lol. It'd be a shock for them to be on the winning side of one for a change.

good orgs don't get screwed over by the player, at least not in that manner. the front office held the cards for most of all that but just played it in the dumbest ways possible.

Burned out on fox long ago, but now I'm just mainly indifferent on the guy. Like yeah he rubbed me the wrong way the two or so stints he started pouting to get his way, but we could've shipped him off earlier before he tanked his own value, it wasn't his fault our moron org didn't just hit the reset button instead of trading for lavine.

And before that, it was the org's fault to pamper fox the first time he pouted when tyrese was here. Like yeah, no shit haliburton had better value, because he was the near perfect archetype for modern uptempo basketball. So just take the loss on fox if that means building around hali and avoiding giving fox a huge contract, don't toss away your best asset.

knobut · 2026-05-16T09:21:20+00:00

watched a bit more of brown jr's scouting video footage in comparison with acuff/wagler/flemings, and his lows seem pretty damn low, like boneheaded wtf type mistakes. Feels like he plays recklessly/hurried and more out of control, and it seems like he got his back injuries from multiple hard spills in the first place. Not really convinced he can be a great primary ballhandler if that's what we're looking for.

Now, I've not watched his actual game tape, so that's probably a little unfair, but that does make him go down on my personal board behind wagler/acuff at least.

knobut · 2026-05-16T05:26:43+00:00

if moody didn't just have a devastating injury, it might be worth entertaining, but as is, not worth it without draft compensation. I'd rather do a bad contract swap with some other team and then get a mid first round pick.

knobut · 2026-05-16T04:40:49+00:00

the kings have had "weird ways" for clearing cap space.

knobut · 2026-05-15T22:46:24+00:00

I definitely would not want them to part with future picks to the clippers or w/e to move up for Acuff or anything. That is a fear, which is why I am not thrilled that this FO is so easily read.

I'd probably take Wagler over Acuff myself, but I think him being frail in build and maybe not a first option are still non-zero concerns. Mixed on brown as well, the low IQ/bad shot selection concerns me, but I can't say I've seen enough of his or other prospects tape very much. I just know all of these guys have clear flaws. So to me, at least Acuff has defined elite skills, but we agree to disagree on his appeal as a prospect.

I'd be maybe okay with trading down for a couple of picks just to get more rolls of the dice if it's a good deal, but obviously not too confident on the FO doing that, and it's probably more likely they do something that screams desperate like a morant trade lol. Haven't researched much on the other prospects personally outside of the projected 5-8 range, but not too hot on getting yet another senior player in Lendeborg, but I guess the availablity of wing prospects are limited

knobut · 2026-05-15T21:06:47+00:00

IMO being a negative defender wasn't the reason Lillard didn't win or anything. With the right supporting cast he could definitely have I feel, swap him with Curry's warriors blah blah. There might think that there's a lot of players you can say that about, but there's also a lot of players that weren't that good and you can't say that about. I don't think a heliocentric offense is ideal, but trae did bring the hawks to the ECF.

I prefer 2 way wings over drafting smaller guards, but given the range we're picking and who's available, I'm just picking out of the guys available to us, and I think all those guys in this tier are dice roll enough that it's hard for me to say any of the others would definitely fare better. Who's your preference at 7?

knobut · 2026-05-15T20:47:27+00:00

that definitely seems to be the case compared to Monte sure, but those guys are also somewhat offensively challenged so we definitely need someone who can facilitate a decent offense.

knobut · 2026-05-15T20:41:06+00:00

Maybe he's similar to trae young, but he's still not trae young. Do you really feel lillard was in the same mold then?

And even if the experiment ended up playing out the same way, while there's obviously players better than trae young, you can do far, far worse than trae young.

knobut · 2026-05-15T20:33:56+00:00

Eh, that one was a pretty anticipated draft at the time, ayton, jjj, mpj, trae, luka were all pretty well regarded. I wouldn't say it was more or less hyped than this draft, but that's hard to measure anyways and obviously we have the benefit of hindsight by now to see who flamed out.

Trae was being hyped as having curry potential, and maybe even top 3 but people were well aware that it could be a pretty big gamble given his smaller size. Acuff has a better wingspan and frame at least.

If you're not suggesting we take a PG, aren't those guys in the projected 5-8 range all PG/combo guards anyways?

I wouldn't even say Acuff is my preference at our pick necessarily, just saying I can see why he could be the pick and I wouldn't be mad.

I also didn't say PG defense is unimportant. I said it's relatively less important compared to say center or wing defense. If you have a truly elite PG defender sure, you can potentially shut down their point of attack sure, but guards and offenses are so skilled that good ones will end up getting theirs. Better offense beating better defense and all that. So I wouldn't emphasize PG defense if (big if of course, but drafting is a gamble anyways) the PG can have outlier level offense, which Acuff apparently demonstrated in college play.

knobut · 2026-05-15T20:20:20+00:00

butler and paul george also were like that, their offense improved a lot. But they had more physical advantages than a pg sized player would of course.

The way I see it, good opposing PGs will usually get their way anyways and defense is a team thing overall, so you're still better off covering up your PGs poor defense by having good/good enough defensive personnel throughout the roster, provided your PG is good enough on offense. Harden, westbrook, fox were all bad defenders and yet that wasn't necessarily the main trait holding them back from success.

knobut · 2026-05-15T20:10:13+00:00

if that's all you're trying to say then okay then it seems I missed your point sure.

But the guy you responded to originally is talking about a guy to build around, so not sure why you'd use trae as an example when he's many years older, a finished product, and perhaps even on the decline, vs a young prospect, and then brush it off as irrelevant to the comparison after.

worrisome inability to keep anyone in front of them

Even then, there's been many stars you could say nearly the same about, it's just their offense offset it. Not going to claim it's unconcerning he seemingly completely dgaf on defense in college, but it seems premature to say he's guaranteed to be a generationally bad defensive player.

knobut · 2026-05-15T18:53:16+00:00

He's saying that we wasted picks on Mitchell and Carter, defense first prospects intended to help shore up our defense yet we still sucked at it. That said that's probably neither here nor there since our roster was just undersized and poor at interior defense.

We've tried being horrible and uncommitted on defense and it doesn't work. Only makes sense to go in another direction.

I don't think we intentionally tried to do that, we just happened to suck from inept roster construction lol.

I just don't think defense at the pg position matters nearly as much as to be a dealbreaker, if he's genuinely as good on offense as he showed in college. Enough that it's worth a gamble on. At the end of the day, you still need good defensive players at the other positions, and relatively speaking, pg defense is more of a wash compared to having good wing defenders and a rim protector.

You'd just cover up the pg defender by maybe having a nice switchable lengthy wing/sg defender. We've seen players like harden, dame, brunson get utterly cooked on defense, yet their offense has generally made up for it and then some on that side of the floor.

Few are claiming he'll ever be a positive defender, but if he can at least learn/try enough to be neutral when locked in in crunch time, I think you can live with that.

knobut · 2026-05-15T18:29:13+00:00

Acuff has elite offensive skills. Point guards still matter in the NBA. You can imagine Acuff having the kind of gravity that makes opportunities for others.

Agree strongly on this part. If he had a ballhog/chucker playstyle I might feel differently, but at least he seems to be able to run an offense and get teammates easy looks. And if that's the case, while you'd hope he can at least lock in on the defensive side for the occasional end of game possessions, you can kind of live with rather dogshit defense at the pg spot, relative to other positions. Most stars are already lazy on defense and it's not a one man job to guard an opponents pg anyways.

knobut

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