Buddy Hield scored 16 points, on 5-for-14 shooting, going 4 of 7 from 3-point range with four rebounds and three assists in 30 minutes to help the Kings to a 98-87 win against the Mavericks on Thursday, their fourth victory in their past six games after a four-game skid.
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It's what coach Dave Joerger has come to expect from his rookie shooting guard. The team acquired the Oklahoma product in the deal that sent former Kings franchise player DeMarcus Cousins to New Orleans during All-Star weekend in the biggest trade deadline move of the season. Hield, the sixth overall pick in the 2016 draft, broke out in March, averaging 14.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists on his way to being named Western Conference Rookie of the Month.
His output against Dallas came three days after he tied a season high with 22 points on 60 percent shooting from the field in a six-point win against the Timberwolves last Sunday.
Hield's emergence can by no means negate the utter stupidity of Kings' GM Vlade Divac's decision to part ways with a three-time All-Star who's averaged more than 20 points and 10 rebounds per game in each of the past four seasons, and still had a year left on a sweetheart of a contract, given his numbers.
The Kings also shipped Omri Casspi to the Pelicans for a then-disappointing Hield, their old work Tyreke Evans, spare part point guard Langston Galloway and first- and second-round picks in this year's draft. Divac admitted another team proposed a better deal two days before he accepted the one from New Orleans. We attempted the trade on " NBA 2K," and Sacramento's virtual GM was like, "Naw, bruh."
Flopping was one of Divac's fortes during his 16-year playing career, and, through less than two seasons, it appears he's doing the same as a top-level front office executive. So, while Hield's uptick in production can't eliminate the idiocy of the Kings' agreeing to the Pelicans' trade terms (because there couldn't have been much negotiation), it does provide a glimmer of hope amid another gloomy season for a franchise that hasn't played in a postseason game since the first iPhone was still a year away from reaching consumers.
Since coming to NorCal from the N-O, Hield has began to return to the form that helped him average 25 points per game and propel Oklahoma to the Final Four as a senior on his way to earning SN's 2015-16 College Basketball Player of the Year Award .
In 21 games in a Kings uniform, he's improved in nearly every fathomable statistical category. He's attempted more field goals (11 per game from 8.3) and made more (5.3 from 3.2) to improve his shooting percentage to 48.5 from 39.3 percent. He's made similar strides from beyond the arc, upping his clip by 6.5 percent to 43.4 percent, vital figures for an undersized two-guard at 6-4 who gets 72.2 percent of his attempts through catch-and-shoot or pull-up situations.
Just watch him work against Minnesota.
They're starting to call him Buddy Buckets.
Hield has made 14 straight starts for the Kings. He first cracked the their top five on March 11, when he put up 18 in the first half, including four 3-pointers, before going scoreless the final 24 minutes of the contest in a 130-122 loss at home against the Wizards. Nonetheless, it was a preview of what was to come. As a starter for Sacramento, Hield is averaging 15.2 points, more than five better than his season average, on 47.3 percent shooting (41.3 from 3) as the Kings have gone 6-8.
"It feels good, and he's been working hard ... trying to learn a new place and how to be play in the league," Joerger told the Sacramento Bee after Hield won Rookie of the Month. "He's improving. I thought he had one of his better games against Minnesota. You know, he scores baskets, and sometimes, you know, we think he's playing great, but I thought he played great all the way around in Minnesota."
Fellow rookie and former Kentucky man Skal Labissiere has shown flashes of the potential that once made him a five-star recruit, rated behind only Ben Simmons and ahead of the Lakers' Brandon Ingram and the Celtics' Jaylen Brown. Willie Cauley-Stein, also a UK product, has averaged close to a double-double (10.9 ppg, 9 rpg) the past 10 games. Those aren't reasons for Kings fans to be cautiously optimistic just yet.
But Hield is beginning to make things better, and that's all they can ask for.