Luke Walton is looking to start his tenure as the head coach of the Sacramento Kings with an identity. Based off the film he has watched and the players on his roster, he feels the Kings should be an uptempo team that constantly passes the ball to find ways to score.
This was the original philosophy Walton learned under Steve Kerr with the Golden State Warriors and the same one he tried to apply in his first stint as a head coach with the Los Angeles Lakers, using the likes of Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram as break starters, as well as unselfish ball handlers to generate the offense:
“I’ve always loved an uptempo, skilled, passing type of game,” Walton said, according to Jason Jones of The Athletic. “And then as a coaching staff, it’s our job to build a system around the players we have. So when sitting down with my coaching staff this summer, sitting down with (assistant coach) Igor (Kokoskov) and deciding what we were going to put in, where’s our strengths, what are we great at, what do we want to meld as far as getting the most usage out of something and that we create the type of offense we want to run.”
Walton will have a solid starting point with De'Aaron Fox at the helm of it all — one of the most developed point guards who made a striking improvement from his rookie year to the next. Fox ranked 13th in the league in assists with 7.3 per game, and he could see that production bloom even more with backcourt partner Buddy Hield and Harrison Barnes under a full training camp (came over via trade).
The Kings' new coach has the pieces to be a run-and-gun team. They were already one of the fastest teams in the NBA last season, so keeping up that style shouldn't be difficult with Fox at the point of attack and a host of young legs ready to run.
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