The Sacramento Kings have been lighting up the beam all season, which has them right in the thick of the playoff race in the West. But could De'Aaron Fox and co. be due for a regression?
According to a report from senior ESPN writer Kevin Pelton, there are two factors that have worked in the Kings' favor but might not be sustainable.
The first is the Kings vastly outperformed their quantified shot making (qSM) model which measures shot quality versus actual offensive performance. According to the metric from Pelton, the Kings have exceeded their own shot quality metric through the first 17 games by the third-largest amount. Now it could be in part due to improvement from Sacrament's standouts like Kevin Huerter, Malik Monk, and De'Aaron Fox, but it's not unreasonable to expect a dip in that area going forward.
The second is the fact that the Kings are the healthiest team in the NBA by a wide margin. The team has dealt with just four total games missed due to injury or illness through 18 games on the year. They're the only team in the single-digits up to this point and it's almost impossible for that good fortune to continue throughout the entire 82-game grind.
That's not to say that the Kings aren't a legit playoff contender. A handful of their players are performing at career-best levels which could very well be through individual improvement and solid coaching – factors that are very much sustainable throughout their hot start. All Sacramento needs to do is keep the beam lit through the inevitable bumps down the road.
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