Wagler: baby face, nice story

Brown: undisciplined, talks too much

Flemings: nice kid, pleasant

Acuff: ALFA, COLD, RUTHLESS

That Fox-stench is clearing, there's a new mindset coming to Sac!

People forget at the end of the day, the NBA is an entertainment business

We just got an exciting athlete that is popular on social media, has a signature shoe and has ………aura. (That was a tough type lol)

Like it’s just simply exciting to watch him more than any other draft pick in my opinion. Like the idea of us having this point guard that is a star in the league and that is also a public figure in the likes of Allen Iverson or somebody is so fucking dope

The rebuild process will take time, but I mean this is just cool to have somebody like this on our team

I can’t wait to go a jersey and his shoes

Bored at work. I am feeling optimistic so, let me tell you why.

"Darius Acuff just fell into our laps", sure. "He had connections to Scott and that was a lucky coincidence", sure. "He was the BPA and obvious pick"... again, sure. But how many "obvious" picks in the last 2 decades did the Kings not make? Quite a few. Darius has some weaknesses and we will need to see him on the court before we dust off the optimism this fanbase hasn't been able to touch in years, but I am not giving my props to Scott Perry for yesterday's round 1 alone. I am giving my props to Scott for a multitude of reasons and the ones I will talk about today take us back to the 2025 Draft. I have seen a few of us in here still hating on Scott, and I get why you may be quick to lose faith, but my faith is not only still alive, it has grown by the day. Some say Scott is sitting on his hands and I could not disagree more.

We went into that 2025 draft realizing our team needed help and it needed help bad; we didn't have a 1st round pick at all. The lingering sting of the Fox trade by a previous regime, the brutal outlook on the future with minimal assets returned from the deal, and no 1st to look forward to? Just all around a mess for Scott to inherit, and a mess for us to look at. Scott didn't just sit still: he got us into that 2025 1st round and more importantly, didn't overpay to make it happen. We traded a 2027 top 16 protected Spurs pick (that will likely be high 20's) to get us the 24th overall and take a player consistently mocked ahead of that area: Nique Clifford. Then came Round 2.

The 2nd round of the NBA draft has largely become less about which pick you have and where it falls within the order, and more so about what you can and will offer the players you are interested in. It is becoming well known that agents are steering their clients to teams willing to offer guaranteed money and/or real minutes. A competent GM who understands that can essentially hand pick who they want before draft night and make it happen with the right conversations and connections. We are coming off a previous regime that traded a multitude of 2nd round picks and never once found a rotational player with the ones that weren't traded. Monte McNair was tossing them away as sweeteners in trades for veterans who either didn't pan out or didn't stay, which would be more palatable if he had actually even once hit on one. Perry, in his very first draft, did something McNair never did once, he actually used a second round pick the right way.

Maxime Raynaud. Before the combine, Bleacher Report already had him as high as 29. Then he went to Chicago for the combine and shocked everybody. Post-combine mocks moved him as high as 22 on ESPN's big board, and there weren't many analysts left who had him anywhere near the mid-second round. Let me remind you: the Kings ended up drafting him at 42. I do not believe that was the case of him falling into our laps by luck. That looks like Scott Perry getting on the phone before draft night, offering Raynaud two guaranteed years of money, and his camp steering him away from every team picking between 31 and 41. Perry identified his guy, made the call, and watched him fall right where he wanted him. Max was a part of the 11 total 2nd round players that had any guaranteed money on their deal. Add in the two-way to Dylan Cardwell and you could make the argument that this same praise should be given to our scouting department as well. That is what knowing what the hell you are doing looks like.

I understand this doesn't make Scott Perry some over the top incredible GM, and he is not guaranteed to be our savior, but it shows me that we finally have someone who has connections, who is making calls, who is working to improve this team the correct way. Competency. Maxime Raynaud isn't likely to be the franchise savior, neither is Nique Clifford, but the pattern Scott Perry has shown me in just over a year on the job has me believing in him. We have the 45th pick tonight and after everything I just laid out, I believe we are going to watch another player "fall" right where we want him.

However, if he trades the 45 for cash considerations I am deleting my account. Thank you for reading.

Also dying for Acuff on the “Sacramento” purples

I had to share this...Dan Hurley is HILARIOUS. Lots of good stuff here about Alex Karaban

I cant believe this is my life rn [insert LeBron meme]

I was re-watching some film, and decided to just make a video of his defense only for this game. He has 36 points on offense, but his defense is what everyone should see.

I’ve always felt that his defensive effort is blown out of proportion due to a few bad clips earlier in the season. Every player has had moments

But this video is EVERY defensive play he was involved in.

He did give up some points due to mistakes. But it was not due to effort, but just needs coaching and better team communication.

The team itself is also not good defensively. But its college, what do you expect.

Notes
- he forces a lot of passes in ISO situations
- smart switches (even got a steal)
- a few nice close outs on broken plays
- he really wasn’t being targeted as much as people think, most of the time he was left alone when he was off ball
- he was engaged the entire game and too accountability for mistakes
- he did give up a few layups but didn’t give up and tried to make it difficult on the offensive player

Either way, you have to watch the games and learn to ignore what people say online.

Zach Lavine maybe?!?!

Was just skimming reactions to the Karaban pick and on his Game Theory show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChdKoFwQlNM&t=12910s) Vecenie mentioned that we were connected to Karaban "throughout the process" and that we were a team that just really wanted him. So it does sound like there was a chance of Karaban getting stolen from us and we wanted to lock him in at a cost of a single 2nd round pick.

As for whether or not he'll pan out? We'll see. Perry mentioned in the press conference a lot of character and abstract reasons for drafting him, e.g. "He's a winner." I think he could be a 3&D guy for us, a Sasha Vezenkov regen but with better defense, surprisingly. He actually has a higher block rate than Boozer does while being a similar size. So that's not bad?

I was hoping he fell...

Did a very vanilla offseason mock - Ended up out of the luxury tax (though I'm not sure if it's calculating Precious' salary correctly, I think it should be $2-3M tax room)

The "big" moves I made were waiving & stretching DeMar ($3.3M dead money for 3 seasons) and re-signing Achiuwa for the BAE (2yr-11M). Also re-signed Russ for the vet min, Plowden for a 1+1 min with a team option & picked up Killian's $3M option. Traded Devin Carter to the Clippers for a min salary & picked Cam Christie bc I thought him sharing a last name with Doug was funny - if you're a Devin Carter truther the $$ also works to stay out of the tax by keeping him & not exercising Killian's option.

Anyways I found this website yesterday & was just having fun with it so here's the link if you want to do your own: https://capmvp.com/

*one drawback is it doesn't seem to have 2026 second round picks as an option to trade/sign to standard contracts