The Western Conference's nexus of pain is in an unsurprising location: Sacramento. Let us consider three NBA teams whose seasons have been impinged upon by straying too close to The Beam, whether physically or psychically.
Exhibit A: Houston Rockets
Houston is currently spiraling, losing three games in a row. As the halfway point of the season approaches, evidence for their would-be contenderhood—the double-big stuff with Amen Thompson flying around gives them an actual edge on the Thunder, and they have maybe the best wing depth in the NBA—is matched if not exceeded by the evidence for their possible fraudhood: rotten turnover differential, inability to make enough three-pointers, an offense that "looks like shit."
To that last point: It's become uncomfortably clear over the last two months that Reed Sheppard is a critical player for Houston. This is a problem for coach Ime Udoka, who wants to win every game 82-70 and utilize nothing but mean, nasty 6-foot-9 guys who beat the crud out of people and play offense more or less on accident, with the sole purpose of resting to come back even meaner and nastier on the next defensive possession. The team is mostly composed of those sorts of guys, but you cannot build a functional offense out of them. Besides Amen Thompson, none of the big Rockets can dribble, and Thompson is a weird point guard in the first place for his total inability to score farther than four feet from the basket. Sheppard is a lively gunner who can beat guys off the dribble and get into the lane but, while he competes hard on defense and tries to make plays, he is also a tiny man who gets bullied more often than Udoka wants (which, to be fair to Sheppard, the bar for Udoka getting ornery about physicality is at the floor). Absent Sheppard, Houston's offense is Alperen Sengun and Kevin Durant playing your-turn-my-turn, which often works because those guys are great, but they don't make each other better.
This all came to a head in Sacramento on Sunday night, when Houston scored 22 points in the fourth quarter to lose to the Kings (owners of an 8-30 record coming into the game) by 13. It looked horrible, nothing but Durant dutifully pulling up for 17-footers and Dorian Finney-Smith dribbling the ball off his leg. Thompson was incredible, because Sacramento has zero good athletes who can stick with him (Russell Westbrook is an incredible athlete, but he is increasingly unable to apply that athleticism in a productive manner), and yet, one day after Udoka called his team "mentally weak" for being totally reliant on Kevin Durant dutifully taking 17-footers, they went and laid an egg.
The Rockets do have an excuse though: They were unable to book a hotel in Sacramento that was up to NBA standards, because the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks are already in town and have taken up the few available rooms. The Rockets stayed in San Francisco and drove, which to be fair takes roughly two hours. I have zero sympathy for Houston. I do that drive all the time; it's easy. The Knicks are spending like four days in America's Farm To Fork Capital, and I think they are slated to have a fantastic time if they can avoid Fog Madness. Maybe they will go check out the game between the Kings and Lakers tonight; the arena is actually really nice.
Exhibit B: Golden State Warriors
The Warriors beat the Kings by 34 on Friday night, which was a mercy to this reporter, who spent most of Friday trying and failing to get someone to commit actual United States dollars to watching said game in San Francisco (responses included, "No," "Shut UP," and the question mark). Steph Curry was asked after the game about the "rivalry" between the two teams, a rivalry that is limited to one first-round series in which Curry bludgeoned the Kings to hell, and he justifiably scoffed at the notion. "Geographically," he said. "That's about it." Correct.
Unfortunately, the Warriors were tainted by proximity to the Kings, as they followed that win by dropping a dispiriting one to the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night. In the loss, Golden State showed off all its considerable flaws: Draymond Green's presence on offense puts his team into a 4-on-5 hole; the tallest functional player on the team is 6-foot-5; the zoomer cadre meant to usher the Warriors gracefully out of the Curry era is in fact just sort of bad; and coach Steve Kerr continues to flail through a massive rotation, not because the Warriors are bad, but because he doesn't really know what works. Meanwhile, Jonathan Kuminga, the exiled and soon-to-be-ex-Warrior who has not played since Dec. 18, becomes trade-eligible later this week. His agent celebrated Golden State's loss by posting a Kuminga highlight reel to Twitter. Very Kingsy, especially since it seems Kuminga is destined to don the purple and black. Speaking of ...
Exhibit C: Sacramento Kings
The Kings were the worst team in the Western Conference for a day or two, though the New Orleans Pelicans have reclaimed that spot. Sacramento hosts Luka Doncic and the Lakers on Monday, and the Kings will be without Dennis Schröder, as the German point guard was suspended for three games after reportedly attempting to punch (and possibly successfully punching) Doncic after a Dec. 28 Kings loss in Los Angeles. Doncic reportedly had spent the game calling Schröder a "bitch" and taunting him for turning down a four-year, $82 million deal from the Lakers in 2021. Per ESPN, afterward, "Schroder left the visitors locker room [...], spotted Doncic and tempers flared again inside the tunnel across from the home bench. [...] Lakers center Deandre Ayton tried to drag away Schroder from the confrontation while a stunned Doncic attempted to exit as security intervened."
It makes sense that Doncic, whose on-court persona is "Li'l Stinker," would talk line-crossing shit like that, and I think Schröder is justified in trying to hit him. For his part, the Kings point guard commented on an Instagram post by ESPN's Shams Charania, hinting that he successfully punched Doncic. Sadly, Schröder will not be on the court for Monday's rematch. Pity for Sacramento: He has been so bad this season, and a very handy tank commander. Without their backup point guard, the Kings had nobody to dribble around aimlessly and take horrible pull-ups on Sunday against the Rockets, so they accidentally won their ninth game of the season, a result that left no one happy. So, in its way, it was a perfectly in-character Kings game.
