The New Orleans Pelicans will have to try and secure a playoff berth without their star Zion Williamson. The Pelicans announced on Wednesday that Williamson is dealing with a hamstring injury and will miss the Play-In game against the Sacramento Kings.

Williamson was hurt with less than four minutes remaining in the Play-In game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday. At that point, Williamson scored 40 points and added 10 rebounds, helping the Pels tie the score.

However, after Williamson went down, the Pelicans didn’t have enough firepower to complete the comeback and suffered a 106-110 loss. They can still make it to the postseason as the eighth seed if they manage to get a win against the Kings on Friday.

Even if New Orleans clinches a playoff spot, they won’t have Williamson at their disposal, considering he is ruled out for at least two weeks.

Injuries have been a recurring story for Williamson since he entered the league as the No. 1 overall selection in 2019. He played only 114 games in his first four years, a stretch that saw him miss the 2021-22 season completely.

However, when available, Williamson has played at a star level. This season, he appeared in 70 games, his career high, while averaging 22.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 5.0 assists per game.

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The Sacramento Kings have been dealt a tough blow in their pursuit of a playoff spot. Their key bench player, Malik Monk, has suffered an MLC sprain and is expected to be sidelined for four to six weeks.

Monk got injured in the first quarter of Friday night’s 103-107 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. He went up to contest a drive to the rim by Mavs’ star Luka Doncic and feel on the floor with Doncic landing on top of him.

Monk, who joined the Kings in 2022, has been enjoying a career-best campaign in 2023-24. In 72 games played, he averaged 15.4 points, 2.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists.

Whether Monk is out for the season or still ends up returning to action will depend on whether the Kings are successful in their playoff push. In the best-case scenario, he would return midway through the first round in. If he takes longer to recover, then Sacramento would have to make it to the Western Conference Semifinals for Monk to play again before next season.

The Kings are currently sitting in eighth place in the Western Conference with a 42-31 record. They are two games behind the sixth-placed Dallas Mavericks, who hold the final ticket for automatic spot in the playoffs.

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The Sacramento Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox has become the first professional athlete to sign a deal with Stephen Curry’s Under Armour brand, Curry Brand. While Curry has been with Under Armour since 2013, he launched his own brand under the company in 2020.

“This is definitely a special occasion. … To be able to partner with somebody like D-Fox while we’re still competing, while we’re still battling,” Curry said after the deal was signed. “For me to be sitting next to him, to understand what this opportunity really means and allow him to take it and run with it is a dream come true for me because there’s no better guy than him.”

Fox served as a Nike athlete during the first five years of his career before becoming a shoe-free agent last season. It was during that campaign that Fox’s reputation soared, with the player averaging 25 points, 6.1 assists, and 4.2 rebounds en route to being named as an All-Star. He also won the inaugural NBA Clutch Player of the Year award.

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Veteran center JaVale McGee didn’t have to wait too long to find a new team after being waived by the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday. Just a few days later, McGee agreed on a deal with the Sacramento Kings, according to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report.

Reportedly, McGee will ink a one-year minimum contract. This would guarantee him a salary of around $3 million in 2023-24, considering he has more than 10 years of experience in the league.  

McGee joined the Mavericks on a multi-year contract with a reported annual salary of $7 million ahead of the 2022–23 season. He was a starter to begin the campaign but eventually lost his place in the rotation. The 35-year-old ended up playing only 42 games, averaging 4.4 points and 2.5 rebounds.

JaVale McGee could turn out to be a good pickup for the young Kings team. He has 15 NBA seasons under his belt, having played for eight different franchises. McGee, who averaged 7.8 points and 5.5 rebounds throughout his pro career, won two NBA Championships with the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018 and added another title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020.

McGee will likely fight for the backup center job behind All-Star Domantas Sabonis in Sacramento. He faces competition from veteran Alex Len, who served in that role last season.

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The Sacramento Kings added some frontcourt depth to their roster this week by signing veteran center Nerlens Noel to a one-year deal. Noel’s agents confirmed the agreement to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, saying that the deal is worth $3.1 million.

Noel split the 2022-23 season with the Detroit Pistons and the Brooklyn Nets. He played limited minutes with both teams, appearing in a total of 17 games and averaging 2.1 points and 2.7 rebounds per game.

While Noel has struggled in the past few seasons, he might prove valuable for the Kings as they look to build on a successful 2022-23 campaign. He will provide them with rim protection and outstanding defense in the center position, something that their top two centers, Domantas Sabonis and Alex Len, are lacking.

The Kings actually had an interest in Noel for quite some time. They reportedly considered signing him when he was a free agent in 2021 and were close to trading for him while he was with the Pistons. 

Nerlens Noel entered the league in 2013 as the sixth overall pick by the Philadelphia 76ers. He spent two and a half seasons in Philly before embarking on stints with the Dallas Mavericks, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the New York Knicks, the Pistons, and the Nets. Noel is averaging 7.1 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game in NBA.

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The Sacramento Kings All-NBA center Domantas Sabonis has agreed to a five-year contract extension, the player’s agents, Greg Lawrence and Jason Ranne of Wasserman, confirmed on Saturday night.

Over the five years, the player’s extension is set to cost the Kings $217 million, including $195 million in new money. The Kings used some of their cap space to add an additional $8.6 million to raise Sabonis’s 2023-24 earnings to $30.6 million.

Sabonis has still not taken the maximum salary available to him, however, having previously told the Kings’ leadership that he is prioritizing the franchise’s ability to build a strong roster over his earning potential.

A central figure in the Kings’ locker room, Sabonis has proven to be essential to the team’s revival since arriving from Indiana in 2022. Averaging 9.1 points, 12.3 rebounds, and 7.3 assists, Sabonis lifted the Kings to the playoffs for the first time in 16 years.

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The Sacramento Kings’ star guard De’Aaron Fox received official recognition for his clutch performances throughout the 2022-23 NBA season. Fox was named the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year, becoming the first player to win the newly-established Jerry West Trophy.

Fox received 91 first-place votes, finishing with a total of 460 points. Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler (104 points) and Chicago Bulls’ DeMar DeRozan (80 points) finished second and third, respectively.

Fox led the league with 194 total points and 5.0 points on average in clutch situations this season. He also shot 52.9% from the floor and made 86.0% of his free throws in the clutch. The league defines clutch time as a scoring margin within five points with five or fewer minutes left in the game. 

“You can’t be afraid to fail,” Fox said after being unveiled as the Clutch Player of the Year. “Obviously, you’re not going to make every shot, but my teammates, my coaches, they put me in a position to succeed. So the least I can do is have confidence in myself to take good shots.”

De’Aaron Fox played his best regular season as a pro in 2022-23, averaging 25.0 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. He earned his first All-Star appearance while helping the Kings reach the playoffs for the first time in almost 17 years.

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The Sacramento Kings are a playoff team again. After a 16-year wait, the Kings will make the postseason in 2022-23 after mathematically securing a playoff spot in the Western Conference with a 120-80 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday.

Sacramento improved to a 46-30 record with the Blazers’ win, meaning they can’t finish worse than the sixth seed in the West. This marks the end of the longest playoff drought in the history of the NBA. Also, there was no franchise in the NFL, MLB, and NHL that had been kept longer out of the postseason than the Kings. 

All-Star guard De’Aaron Fox scored 18 points and added six assists against the Blazers, with shooting guard Malik Monk contributing 19 points off the bench.

“I guess this would be like relief. People can’t keep saying it. It’s over and done with,” Fox said after the game. “We want to do bigger things. But [16] years, it’s a long time. It feels great to get it off of us.”

The Kings made several moves in the past two years that set them up for success in 2022-23. They swapped talented guard Tyrese Haliburton for All-Star center Domantas Sabonis last season and followed that up by hiring former Golden State Warriors assistant Mike Brown as their new head coach. Both moves paid off, as Sabonis has been playing on an All-NBA level while Brown built one of the league’s best offenses.

But the Kings don’t want to be content with just making the playoffs. They want to prove they belong there and continue building on this successful run.

“We know what our goal is. It’s not just to make the playoffs. It’s to make noise there,” Monk told reporters.

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The Milwaukee Bucks returned to their winning ways on Monday night, beating the high-flying Sacramento Kings 133-124. But the main talking point after the game was the scuffle between Bucks’ Brook Lopez and Kings’ Trey Lyles that saw both players get ejected.

With his team already eight points up and 15 seconds left in the contest, the Bucks’ superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo decided to dribble the ball and let the clock run out. However, Lyles first tried to steal the ball from Antetokounmpo and then showed him being whistled for a foul.

But while Antetokounmpo wasn’t fazed by Lyles’ actions, Lopez was having none of it. The Bucks’ center approached Lyles, and the two got into a heated exchange that became physical rather quickly. The players from both teams had to jump in to separate the two and prevent an even bigger altercation.

After things cooled down, both players were hit with technical fouls and ejected from the game. Lopez finished the night with 23 points and eight boards, while Lyles had six points and eight rebounds.

“It’s unfortunate. I think it was a great game,” said Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer after the game. “I was so impressed with Sacramento and the way they play. I’m not going to say anything about what did or didn’t happen.”

The Milwaukee Bucks sit comfortably at the top of the Eastern Conference with the league’s best 49-19 record. The Sacramento Kings are third in the West at 40-27. 

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Fresh from the All-Star break, the Sacramento Kings and the Los Angeles Clippers played a game for the ages on Friday night. The Kings got a two-overtime 176-175 win over the Clippers in what was the second-highest-scoring game in NBA history. The only game that saw two teams combine for more points was Detroit Pistons’ 186-184 win over the Denver Nuggets in triple overtime in 1983.

The game saw an even contest in the first quarter before the Clippers went on to build a significant lead in the next two periods. The LA team held onto their advantage throughout most of the fourth quarter, being 14 points in front with less than five minutes to go in regulation. However, the Kings didn’t have any intention of giving up, crawling their way back with a 22-8 run that included a three-pointer from Malik Monk as the clock was winding down.

The Clippers raced to a healthy lead in the first overtime as well, but the Kings rallied again to force an additional five minutes. At that point, it was about which team had fresher legs and more focus, something that ended up tipping the game to Sacramento’s side.

The Kings were led by All-Star point guard De’Aaron Fox, who had 42 points, 12 assists, five rebounds, and five steals. Malik Monk contributed 45 points off the bench on 15-24 shooting.

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George led the Clippers with 44 and 34 points, respectively. Newly-acquired veteran point guard Russell Westbrook also made a solid contribution in his debut as a Clipper, scoring 17 points and adding 14 assists.

With the win, the Kings improved to 34-25 and kept the No. 3 seed in their possession. The Clippers remained in the fifth spot with a 33-29 record.

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The New Orleans Pelicans will have to try and secure a playoff berth without their star Zion Williamson. The Pelicans announced on Wednesday that Williamson is dealing with a hamstring injury and will miss the Play-In game against the Sacramento Kings.

Williamson was hurt with less than four minutes remaining in the Play-In game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday. At that point, Williamson scored 40 points and added 10 rebounds, helping the Pels tie the score.

However, after Williamson went down, the Pelicans didn’t have enough firepower to complete the comeback and suffered a 106-110 loss. They can still make it to the postseason as the eighth seed if they manage to get a win against the Kings on Friday.

Even if New Orleans clinches a playoff spot, they won’t have Williamson at their disposal, considering he is ruled out for at least two weeks.

Injuries have been a recurring story for Williamson since he entered the league as the No. 1 overall selection in 2019. He played only 114 games in his first four years, a stretch that saw him miss the 2021-22 season completely.

However, when available, Williamson has played at a star level. This season, he appeared in 70 games, his career high, while averaging 22.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 5.0 assists per game.

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The Sacramento Kings have been dealt a tough blow in their pursuit of a playoff spot. Their key bench player, Malik Monk, has suffered an MLC sprain and is expected to be sidelined for four to six weeks.

Monk got injured in the first quarter of Friday night’s 103-107 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. He went up to contest a drive to the rim by Mavs’ star Luka Doncic and feel on the floor with Doncic landing on top of him.

Monk, who joined the Kings in 2022, has been enjoying a career-best campaign in 2023-24. In 72 games played, he averaged 15.4 points, 2.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists.

Whether Monk is out for the season or still ends up returning to action will depend on whether the Kings are successful in their playoff push. In the best-case scenario, he would return midway through the first round in. If he takes longer to recover, then Sacramento would have to make it to the Western Conference Semifinals for Monk to play again before next season.

The Kings are currently sitting in eighth place in the Western Conference with a 42-31 record. They are two games behind the sixth-placed Dallas Mavericks, who hold the final ticket for automatic spot in the playoffs.

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The Sacramento Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox has become the first professional athlete to sign a deal with Stephen Curry’s Under Armour brand, Curry Brand. While Curry has been with Under Armour since 2013, he launched his own brand under the company in 2020.

“This is definitely a special occasion. … To be able to partner with somebody like D-Fox while we’re still competing, while we’re still battling,” Curry said after the deal was signed. “For me to be sitting next to him, to understand what this opportunity really means and allow him to take it and run with it is a dream come true for me because there’s no better guy than him.”

Fox served as a Nike athlete during the first five years of his career before becoming a shoe-free agent last season. It was during that campaign that Fox’s reputation soared, with the player averaging 25 points, 6.1 assists, and 4.2 rebounds en route to being named as an All-Star. He also won the inaugural NBA Clutch Player of the Year award.

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Veteran center JaVale McGee didn’t have to wait too long to find a new team after being waived by the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday. Just a few days later, McGee agreed on a deal with the Sacramento Kings, according to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report.

Reportedly, McGee will ink a one-year minimum contract. This would guarantee him a salary of around $3 million in 2023-24, considering he has more than 10 years of experience in the league.  

McGee joined the Mavericks on a multi-year contract with a reported annual salary of $7 million ahead of the 2022–23 season. He was a starter to begin the campaign but eventually lost his place in the rotation. The 35-year-old ended up playing only 42 games, averaging 4.4 points and 2.5 rebounds.

JaVale McGee could turn out to be a good pickup for the young Kings team. He has 15 NBA seasons under his belt, having played for eight different franchises. McGee, who averaged 7.8 points and 5.5 rebounds throughout his pro career, won two NBA Championships with the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018 and added another title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020.

McGee will likely fight for the backup center job behind All-Star Domantas Sabonis in Sacramento. He faces competition from veteran Alex Len, who served in that role last season.

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The Sacramento Kings added some frontcourt depth to their roster this week by signing veteran center Nerlens Noel to a one-year deal. Noel’s agents confirmed the agreement to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, saying that the deal is worth $3.1 million.

Noel split the 2022-23 season with the Detroit Pistons and the Brooklyn Nets. He played limited minutes with both teams, appearing in a total of 17 games and averaging 2.1 points and 2.7 rebounds per game.

While Noel has struggled in the past few seasons, he might prove valuable for the Kings as they look to build on a successful 2022-23 campaign. He will provide them with rim protection and outstanding defense in the center position, something that their top two centers, Domantas Sabonis and Alex Len, are lacking.

The Kings actually had an interest in Noel for quite some time. They reportedly considered signing him when he was a free agent in 2021 and were close to trading for him while he was with the Pistons. 

Nerlens Noel entered the league in 2013 as the sixth overall pick by the Philadelphia 76ers. He spent two and a half seasons in Philly before embarking on stints with the Dallas Mavericks, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the New York Knicks, the Pistons, and the Nets. Noel is averaging 7.1 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game in NBA.

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The Sacramento Kings All-NBA center Domantas Sabonis has agreed to a five-year contract extension, the player’s agents, Greg Lawrence and Jason Ranne of Wasserman, confirmed on Saturday night.

Over the five years, the player’s extension is set to cost the Kings $217 million, including $195 million in new money. The Kings used some of their cap space to add an additional $8.6 million to raise Sabonis’s 2023-24 earnings to $30.6 million.

Sabonis has still not taken the maximum salary available to him, however, having previously told the Kings’ leadership that he is prioritizing the franchise’s ability to build a strong roster over his earning potential.

A central figure in the Kings’ locker room, Sabonis has proven to be essential to the team’s revival since arriving from Indiana in 2022. Averaging 9.1 points, 12.3 rebounds, and 7.3 assists, Sabonis lifted the Kings to the playoffs for the first time in 16 years.

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The Sacramento Kings’ star guard De’Aaron Fox received official recognition for his clutch performances throughout the 2022-23 NBA season. Fox was named the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year, becoming the first player to win the newly-established Jerry West Trophy.

Fox received 91 first-place votes, finishing with a total of 460 points. Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler (104 points) and Chicago Bulls’ DeMar DeRozan (80 points) finished second and third, respectively.

Fox led the league with 194 total points and 5.0 points on average in clutch situations this season. He also shot 52.9% from the floor and made 86.0% of his free throws in the clutch. The league defines clutch time as a scoring margin within five points with five or fewer minutes left in the game. 

“You can’t be afraid to fail,” Fox said after being unveiled as the Clutch Player of the Year. “Obviously, you’re not going to make every shot, but my teammates, my coaches, they put me in a position to succeed. So the least I can do is have confidence in myself to take good shots.”

De’Aaron Fox played his best regular season as a pro in 2022-23, averaging 25.0 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. He earned his first All-Star appearance while helping the Kings reach the playoffs for the first time in almost 17 years.

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The Sacramento Kings are a playoff team again. After a 16-year wait, the Kings will make the postseason in 2022-23 after mathematically securing a playoff spot in the Western Conference with a 120-80 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday.

Sacramento improved to a 46-30 record with the Blazers’ win, meaning they can’t finish worse than the sixth seed in the West. This marks the end of the longest playoff drought in the history of the NBA. Also, there was no franchise in the NFL, MLB, and NHL that had been kept longer out of the postseason than the Kings. 

All-Star guard De’Aaron Fox scored 18 points and added six assists against the Blazers, with shooting guard Malik Monk contributing 19 points off the bench.

“I guess this would be like relief. People can’t keep saying it. It’s over and done with,” Fox said after the game. “We want to do bigger things. But [16] years, it’s a long time. It feels great to get it off of us.”

The Kings made several moves in the past two years that set them up for success in 2022-23. They swapped talented guard Tyrese Haliburton for All-Star center Domantas Sabonis last season and followed that up by hiring former Golden State Warriors assistant Mike Brown as their new head coach. Both moves paid off, as Sabonis has been playing on an All-NBA level while Brown built one of the league’s best offenses.

But the Kings don’t want to be content with just making the playoffs. They want to prove they belong there and continue building on this successful run.

“We know what our goal is. It’s not just to make the playoffs. It’s to make noise there,” Monk told reporters.

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The Milwaukee Bucks returned to their winning ways on Monday night, beating the high-flying Sacramento Kings 133-124. But the main talking point after the game was the scuffle between Bucks’ Brook Lopez and Kings’ Trey Lyles that saw both players get ejected.

With his team already eight points up and 15 seconds left in the contest, the Bucks’ superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo decided to dribble the ball and let the clock run out. However, Lyles first tried to steal the ball from Antetokounmpo and then showed him being whistled for a foul.

But while Antetokounmpo wasn’t fazed by Lyles’ actions, Lopez was having none of it. The Bucks’ center approached Lyles, and the two got into a heated exchange that became physical rather quickly. The players from both teams had to jump in to separate the two and prevent an even bigger altercation.

After things cooled down, both players were hit with technical fouls and ejected from the game. Lopez finished the night with 23 points and eight boards, while Lyles had six points and eight rebounds.

“It’s unfortunate. I think it was a great game,” said Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer after the game. “I was so impressed with Sacramento and the way they play. I’m not going to say anything about what did or didn’t happen.”

The Milwaukee Bucks sit comfortably at the top of the Eastern Conference with the league’s best 49-19 record. The Sacramento Kings are third in the West at 40-27. 

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Fresh from the All-Star break, the Sacramento Kings and the Los Angeles Clippers played a game for the ages on Friday night. The Kings got a two-overtime 176-175 win over the Clippers in what was the second-highest-scoring game in NBA history. The only game that saw two teams combine for more points was Detroit Pistons’ 186-184 win over the Denver Nuggets in triple overtime in 1983.

The game saw an even contest in the first quarter before the Clippers went on to build a significant lead in the next two periods. The LA team held onto their advantage throughout most of the fourth quarter, being 14 points in front with less than five minutes to go in regulation. However, the Kings didn’t have any intention of giving up, crawling their way back with a 22-8 run that included a three-pointer from Malik Monk as the clock was winding down.

The Clippers raced to a healthy lead in the first overtime as well, but the Kings rallied again to force an additional five minutes. At that point, it was about which team had fresher legs and more focus, something that ended up tipping the game to Sacramento’s side.

The Kings were led by All-Star point guard De’Aaron Fox, who had 42 points, 12 assists, five rebounds, and five steals. Malik Monk contributed 45 points off the bench on 15-24 shooting.

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George led the Clippers with 44 and 34 points, respectively. Newly-acquired veteran point guard Russell Westbrook also made a solid contribution in his debut as a Clipper, scoring 17 points and adding 14 assists.

With the win, the Kings improved to 34-25 and kept the No. 3 seed in their possession. The Clippers remained in the fifth spot with a 33-29 record.

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