The Kings put the rest of the NBA on notice following their 153-121 blowout win over Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets Tuesday night on TNT.
Sacramento now has won seven of its last nine games, and the hype is real in the 916 for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in 16 seasons.
Like much of the NBA world, the "Inside the NBA" crew took notice of the red-hot Kings, and debated where they stack up in the Western Conference.
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Shaquille O'Neal and Charles Barkley got into a back-and-forth exchange regarding Sacramento’s playoff potential.
It went a little something like this:
Chuck: Yeah, I give that general manager a lot of credit, they’ve got a bunch of good young players. Now if they can just be patient.
Shaq: Are they making the playoffs? Because I didn’t get a reaction when I said that they’re making the playoffs.
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Chuck: Let me take a look at the list.
Kenny: I think they can be a play-in.
Shaq: Last time they made the playoffs was 2006.
Chuck: Wait, they’re ahead of the [Golden State] Warriors. They’re not going to stay ahead of the Warriors, fool.
Shaq: I'm just asking if they’re going to make the playoffs.
Chuck: They’re going to be in the play-in game.
Shaq: I said playoffs.
Ernie: Right now, [No. 8].
Shaq: They’re going to be 6 or 7 (seed). They’re going to be 6 or 7.
Earlier in the postgame show, Shaq emphasized that he's "been saying that Sacramento will make the playoffs" this year.
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The NBA Play-In Tournament includes the No. 7 through No. 10 seeds in each conference, meaning the Kings need to have a better winning record than just five other teams in the West.
That doesn't seem far out of reach, at least not from the team that we saw beat Durant and the Nets on Tuesday.
It's early in the season and there's still plenty of basketball to be played, but the Kings already have accomplished at least one of their many goals this season: Waking up the rest of the league.