The 2021-22 NBA season might not have turned out the way the Kings envisioned, but their potential draft position could be a silver lining after missing out on playoffs.
Including Wednesday’s game against the Houston Rockets, Sacramento has just six contests left in the season. How well -- or poorly -- the Kings play during that stretch will have a direct impact on where the team stands in the 2022 NBA Draft, and Steve Kornacki broke it down for fans during NBC Sports California’s Kings Pregame Live.
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Simply put, the Kings’ playoff picture is all but nonexistent. Despite missing out on the postseason for an NBA-record 16th straight season -- the Kings likely will be officially eliminated within the next few days -- the team’s current 27-49 record is the sixth-worst in the league and means they could be sitting pretty following the NBA Draft lottery.
“So obviously the question becomes not making the playoffs, the question becomes the other great drama of this spring in the NBA: The NBA draft lottery and the NBA draft, what kind of draft position could this translate into for the Kings,” Kornacki said.
At their current No. 6 position in the draft, the lottery and its ping pong balls could spell fortune for Sacramento, according to Kornacki. From the sixth-worst spot, the Kings have a 37.2 percent chance of landing a top-four pick via the lottery and a nine percent chance, or one in 11 shot, of landing the No. 1 overall pick.
But with games still left to be played, nothing is guaranteed.
NBA
“Again, that’s if they finish where they are right now,” Kornacki said. “The other thing to keep in mind on this, though … Look who is breathing right down [the Kings’] neck as it were -- the Portland Trail Blazers just a half a game better than the Kings in the standings right now.
“... Portland and the Kings down the stretch, this is sort of a backwards race we’re talking about here, but from an NBA Draft situation here whoever loses more, whoever wins less between these two teams is probably going to end up in that sixth-worst spot and get those ping pong odds we were just telling you.”
The Kings and the Trail Blazers both have the same number of wins at 27 prior to Wednesday’s games. Of the Kings’ remaining six games, four of those contests are against teams with sub-.500 records: The Rockets, who they play twice, the New Orleans Pelicans and the Los Angeles Clippers. Sacramento also plays the Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns.
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The Trail Blazers, on the other hand, face five sub-.500 teams in their last seven games.
Kornacki pointed out that should the Kings play better than the Trail Blazers over the final stretch and end up with the seventh-worst record rather than the sixth, the odds of landing either the top-four or No. 1 overall pick will fall several points.
“This is a very different kind of race where the incentives are a little bit backwards, but Kings, Blazers, who ends up with the worse record ends up with the most ping pong balls,” Kornacki said. “May be the interesting way of watching the end of the season.”
The Kings selected guard Davion Mitchell with the No. 9 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, and took a guard the year prior as well with the No. 12 pick in 2020 when they drafted Tyrese Haliburton. Sacramento has made the most of those picks, dealing Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers earlier this season in a blockbuster trade which brought Domantas Sabonis, Justin Holiday, Jeremy Lamb and a 2023 second-round draft pick to the 916.
While Mitchell has continued to impress this season, only time will tell how the Kings' 2022 draft pick will turn out -- whoever it may be.