By Morris Phillips
It’s not the simplicity of fantasy sports, but the Kings’ real-life, off-season roster moves turned out like those of a random dude seizing control of his fantasy basketball league solely based on a brilliant draft pick.
GM Vlade Divac and the Kings wanted the Bulls’ Zach LaVine, and convinced the super athletic, shooting guard with a significant injury in his recent past to sign an offer sheet worth $78 million over four years.
The Bulls, who traded Jimmy Butler to Minnesota for a trio of younger players, highlighted by LaVine, weren’t ready to live without the former Slam Dunk champion after seeing him in a Chicago uniform for only 24 games following his return from surgery to repair his ACL. So 48 hours after the Kings offered, the Bulls matched, keeping LaVine in Chicago.
And the Kings were forced–or satisfied–to turn back to Buddy Hield, their key acquisition in the DeMarcus Cousins deal, a credible shooting guard without the eye-popping athleticism or size of LaVine.
Fast foward to a cold, blustery Monday night in the Windy City, and the Kings couldn’t be happier with Hield, while not yearning for LaVine.
The Kings slept walked through the first half, trailing 53-45 at the break only to outscore the woeful Bulls by 30 in the second half of their 108-89 victory. A microcosm of both teams seasons in a ballgame, the Bulls soared early, then self-destructed while the Kings stayed patient until their moment to seize control materialized, and they pounced on the Eastern Conference’s worst team.
“I thought their energy went up and our energy went down as the game went on,” said new Bulls coach Jim Boylen. “That’s something we talked in there as a team, and that’s something we need to fix.”
Of course, the ebbs and flows of the ballgame closely mirrored the contributions of LaVine and Hield, as the Bulls struck first, behind LaVine’s 19 points, including a crowd-pleasing dunk in the first quarter. But LaVine’s night in the scoring column would end with 5:45 remaining in the third when his 3-pointer put Chicago up, 66-57.
That’s when Hield, De’Aaron Fox and the Kings took over.
Sacramento would end the third quarter on a 24-8 run that would give them the lead, and of their 51 points in the game’s final 18 minutes, Fox would contribute 22, and Hield 11.
“After those two steals, the whole momentum of the game just changed,” Fox said of his momentum-changing plays that came 90 seconds apart in the third. “After that, we never looked back.”
LaVine has proven his worth by averaging 23.8 points per game on 45 percent shooting over 35 minutes of floor time per game. But Hield has averaged 18.6 points on 47 percent shooting across 31 minutes a game. The biggest difference between the two? Hield is clearly a better shooter from distance converting 42 percent of his attempts while LaVine has struggled, shooting 31 percent.
And of course, the Kings have a future in their present, sitting ninth in the Western Conference, currently a game behind eight-place Portland. The Bulls won’t arrive anytime prior to 2019-2020 after losing 22 of 28.
The Kings (13-11) finished 3-1 on their four-game road trip to Phoenix, Cleveland, Indianapolis and Chicago. They open a stretch of 13 of 18 at home with the Timberwolves on Wednesday at Golden 1 Center.
