Hot Take: The Sacramento Kings will finish in the top 6 in the West

Welcome to Hot Take Week on Detroit Bad Boys. Longtime readers of Detroit Bad Boys might remember the old slogan on the masthead – “A Detroit Pistons blog with completely fair and unbiased opinions of 29 of the Association’s 30 teams.” We’re going to live that truth with writers delivering blistering truth bombs that may or may not resemble reality all week. There are only two rules:

1. No writing about the Detroit Pistons
2. No doing any research in support of your argument – it all had to come from the gut.

The Sacramento Kings have long been the laughing stock of the NBA. They have made a few playoff appearances here and there since their heartbreak in the 2002 Western Conference Finals, but have mostly been an inept organization who has made confusing decision after confusing decision.

However, things have started to look up the last couple years as the Kings have started to put together a solid young core. It is about time that has started to happen after spending so much time in the lottery with not much to show for it.

That young core, headlined by DeAaron Fox, Buddy Hield, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Marvin Bagley III, and Harry Giles were able to claim the 9th seed in the Western Conference last season. It was a distant 9th place, but 9th place nonetheless.

The Kings got clowned for the DeMarcus Cousins trade. The only headline piece they got was Buddy Hield who they tabbed as the next Steph Curry. And while he is not on the level of Curry, he has developed into one of the best shooters in the league and has actually made the Kings look like winners in the DeMarcus Cousins trade.

DeAaron Fox is an exciting young point guard who has superstar potential. He flashed that potential last season and should be even better this season. Marvin Bagley III is just scraping the surface of what he can become.

Instead of just wasting money like the Kings have done so much in the past, they made smart moves to add veterans around their young core. They brought back Harrison Barnes, who is a decent player, but has always been knocked for being overpaid (although he still is). Dwayne Dedmon is a very solid center who has spent the last couple seasons expanding his range offensively to go along with his very good defense. Cory Joseph is a solid veteran point guard and a great backup for DeAaron Fox. Trevor Ariza is another solid veteran who can hit 3s and play solid defense.

You can argue that they overpaid these players (they did), but that doesn’t matter when we are just spewing out hot takes for this season.

These new additions along with internal growth from the Sacramento Kings young core will vault the Kings into the top six in the Western Conference.

You are probably thinking that I am taking crazy pills. There are so many teams in the West better than the Kings. You have the Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, Trail Blazers, Nuggets, Rockets, Jazz, Spurs, and even the Pelicans that you can argue are all better.

When you are high on a team’s young core, you say crazy things. That is why I am here writing these words right now. DeAaron Fox will continue his ascent into superstardom, Buddy Hield will continue to improve the rest of his game, Marvin Bagley will blow up in his 2nd season, and the veterans will all make key contributions as the Kings shock the league and jump into the top 6 in the Western Conference. I will not predict anything beyond that, but you can come back here to this article when I am proven correct. Or I will just delete it when the Kings finish 11th in the West.