{"id":114300,"date":"2024-12-27T14:21:07","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T19:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=114300"},"modified":"2024-12-27T14:21:07","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T19:21:07","slug":"kings-all-star-demar-derozan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/27\/kings-all-star-demar-derozan\/","title":{"rendered":"6x All-Star Looks To Himself Amid Kings Season Trials"},"content":{"rendered":"

The offseason addition of 6x All-Star\u00a0<\/span>DeMar DeRozan<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to the Sacramento Kings was one of the summer’s loudest deals. The move was meant to boost the Kings into the upper echelon of the West. Instead, the Kings look derailed and defeated as their surprising underperforming season continues to dive. DeRozan points to a significant factor as the reason for his team’s 13-18 season.<\/span><\/p>\n

6x All-Star Looks To Himself Amid Kings Season Trials<\/h2>\n

DeMar DeRozan Speaks on Kings’ All-Star Trio Shortcomings<\/h3>\n

The emergence of the Beam Era began in the 2022-23 season when the Kings eventually made the NBA postseason for the first time since 2006. Lighting the beam is now a trademark the Kings have made popular in the past couple of seasons. The intention to keep the beam lit brought DeRozan over from the Chicago Bulls this past summer. Inserting one of the league’s best scorers and mid-ranger shooters beside\u00a0<\/span>De’Aaron Fox<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Domantas Sabonis<\/span><\/a>\u00a0was supposed to dramatically heighten Sacramento’s threat in the West.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we’re just past Christmas, and the Kings are currently out of a playoff position and five games under .500. A one-point loss to the\u00a0<\/span>Detroit Pistons<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on Boxing Day added more punches to gut as the Kings dropped their fifth straight contest, which included two back-to-back losses to the\u00a0<\/span>Los Angeles Lakers<\/span><\/a>. Suffice it to say, the Kings have issues, and DeRozan pointed to a key factor pressing those issues this week during a practice reporters session.<\/span><\/p>\n

“…the only way to get out of it is to dig your own self out of it, you can’t feel sorry for yourself. Let it piss you off, and hopefully that translates in the right direction and accumulate wins.” DeRozan said this regarding the team struggles, then pointed the finger at himself<\/a>. “You gotta let it feel you, it pissed you off, it’s tough, it’s frustrating, its all those things. Individually, you wanna play better, when you go through a struggle it’s about how you get out of it, it’s what matters the most. That’s my main focus right now.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

DeRozan is speaking to his personal struggles on the court right now, which have, in part, affected the Kings’ recent slide. In the Kings’ five-game slide, DeRozan has scored 19, 2, 12, 10, and 17 points. These numbers are well below his season average and individual standards.<\/p>\n

Too Early to Call Sacramento’s Big Three A Failure?<\/h3>\n

On paper, the Kings are a top-five team in their conference. Fox, DeRozan, and Sabonis are complimented by\u00a0<\/span>Malik Monk<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Kevin Huerter<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Keegan Murray<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Keon Ellis<\/span><\/a>\u2014all excellent role players, Monk especially. That’s a formidable group. On top of that, the three All-Stars are all averaging 20-plus points a night. If you do the math correctly, that’s 60 points between DeRozan, Fox, and Sabonis per game. Still, Sacramento sits outside of a play-in spot. Something isn’t clicking, that’s evident. That being said, given that star power and offensive talent the Kings put on the floor each night, should Kings fans expect a turnaround at some point?<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s only DeRozan’s first season playing alongside Fox and Sabonis. It could be that the three are taking a while to adjust to each other. However, keep in mind Fox’s situation and the fact that he is already surfacing in rumors surrounding his future. Potential teams who could trade for him are already being mentioned. Fox has expressed his desire to remain in\u00a0<\/span>Sacramento<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for the long haul, provided the Kings give him reason to do so. But that is for the future, and in the present, the Kings have to pick themselves up in speedy fashion and figure out how to win games with the big three leading the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is this season a failure? Not yet; there is time. It’s hard to imagine two players of DeRozan’s and Fox’s caliber not figuring it out. It’s not a failure yet, but it could be if the Kings don’t start winning games. As DeRozan admitted, he needs to figure it out on his end to help his team better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The offseason addition of 6x All-Star\u00a0DeMar DeRozan\u00a0to the Sacramento Kings was one of the summer’s loudest deals. The move was meant to boost the Kings into the upper echelon of the West. Instead, the Kings look derailed and defeated as their surprising underperforming season continues to dive. DeRozan points to a significant factor as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":114303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,1608,62],"tags":[664,350,1102,4606,4624,1600,700],"class_list":["post-114300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kings","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-deaaron-fox","tag-demar-derozan","tag-domantas-sabonis","tag-keegan-murray","tag-keon-ellis","tag-kevin-huerter","tag-malik-monk"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114321,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114300\/revisions\/114321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}