DeMar DeRozan's admission after Kings' 9-12 start to season

12/02/2024 06:30 PM

The Sacramento Kings made a serious splash in the offseason, acquiring DeMar DeRozan in a trade with the Chicago Bulls. However, they haven’t been playing the best basketball early on, sitting at 9-12 so far.

On Monday, DeRozan gave his honest take on the Kings’ struggles.

Via James Ham:

“I mean, it’s always frustrating when you lose but I think it’s all about how you build character from this and come out of it,” DeRozan said. “Everybody has those rough patches throughout the season at some point and we’re just there, we’ve dealt with injuries early on, you know when we was trying to get a rhythm and everything, it’s just how we come out of this.

It’s frustrating losing but there’s a lot you can learn from it, there’s a lot of character within that can be built from this that can give you the competitive nature to come out of this even better.”

Sacramento is currently in 12th place in the Western Conference and has gone just 3-7 in their last 10 games. One of the biggest problems for the Kings is defending the three-pointer, with opponents shooting 38.2% from downtown against them. That was an issue in Sunday’s loss to the San Antonio Spurs, who shot 50% from deep. The Kings also blew a 17-point lead in the first quarter.

With a Big 3 of DeRozan, De’Aaron Fox, and Domantas Sabonis, there’s no way Mike Brown’s squad should be losing this much. But, as DeMar pointed out, this is a learning experience for them.

Malik Monk who was put in the starting lineup on Sunday, was not happy with how the Kings defended the perimeter:

"It can't be unlucky when they f—ing wide open," Monk said. "Excuse my language, but they just be wide open. We just have too many mental breakdowns, and I feel like we don't rotate enough when we need to, and that's why we're 9-12."

DeRozan is averaging 22.9 points, 4.4 assists, and 4.2 rebounds per night. He’s doing his part — the Kings just need to play better as a collective unit and really improve their ability to contain the triple.

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