The Sacramento Kings are an ascending team in the NBA's Western Conference that currently sits in fourth place. The Kings are making waves, but they aren't too far away from being a lottery team, either.

The closeness of the standings currently highlights the importance of the next few weeks in the NBA, as the league's top teams and players are prepared to make statements with additional In-Season Tournament matchups.

The Kings are set to take on the Pelicans in a knockout stage matchup that has the diehard NBA community buzzing. A young Kings player who deserves more minutes was spotlighted recently.

On Monday, a Kings press conference was held with Mike Brown behind the microphone. The Kings coach revealed his truest thoughts on the situation involving star point guard De'Aaron Fox and the lack of love he has been shown in the still relatively new for this season MVP race.

“That’s cool and all but Jokic and Giannis would be players of the week damn near every week but they want variety,” one fan said, seemingly skeptical, on X.

Another fan was also not impressed.

“Is this the new Embiid PR campaign so they can take it away from Jokic again? Win a playoff series,” they said.

Pelicans Face Kings in In-Season Tournament 

The Kings took on a Pelicans team that was hungry for a Quarterfinals In-Season Tournament win on Monday night. As the first quarter wound down in Sacramento, the Kings held onto a 36-35 lead.

Sabonis had four points, Fox had four points, and Keegan Murray had eight for the Kings. Malik Monk added eight points for a high-scoring Kings team while Kevin Huerter had 7.

The Pelicans got 8 points from Brandon Ingram and 7 points from Herb Jones in the first stanza along with just 2 points from Zion Williamson and 6 points from Trey Murphy III.