Juniors Jake and Bryce Longoria love to play, watch and talk basketball, especially about the Sacramento Kings.
Jake: Bryce, how’ve the Kings been doing since we traded Demarcus?
Bryce: We finally won a game after losing eight straight. So not bad.
J: That’s terrible!
B: Yeah, it’s called sarcasm.
J: I mean, I thought we’d be doing badly since we traded away the best player on our team. Do you think we should’ve traded him?
B: Yeah. He wouldn’t have made us anything more than a low-tier playoff team, if that.
J: But making the playoffs would’ve been cool. We just spent $532.6 million on the new arena.
B: But would it have been cool to get swept in the first round?
J: At least we would’ve sold tickets!
B: In the future, we would’ve been stuck there, though. No free agents wanted to come to Sacramento to play with Demarcus, and we wouldn’t have a chance at a high draft pick.
J: But we didn’t get much in return. All we got was Buddy, Tyreke, Langston and the Pelicans’ picks.
B: Yeah, Vlade said he had a better offer two days before he made the actual trade.
J: Then why’d we take the trade from the Pelicans?
DeMarcus Cousins
B: It’s clear “basketball expert” (and owner) Vivek (Ranadive) really wanted Buddy.
J: But we traded away our starting center!
B: To make room for the other four on our bench! Willie Cauley-Stein has been playing pretty well. In the first game without Demarcus, he scored 29 points.
J: I definitely think Skal (Labisserie) could be the Kings’ future. He has great scoring games – like when he scored 15 points in 15 minutes against the Spurs.
B: But he’s not a very good on-ball defender, and he gets bullied by stronger big men.
J: His jump shot is nice, and he has a good post fade. He’s like a more athletic version of Dirk. And Dirk just hit 30,000 points!
B: I think Cauley-Stein is the obvious choice because he played backup to Demarcus. He’s better right now because he does almost the same thing as Skal on offense, but he’s better defensively.
J: But Skal is the @OneBigHaitian we need. And he’s only 20. He has so much time to grow, and his athleticism will take him far.
What about the picks? A second-round pick in two years doesn’t benefit us at all right now.
B: But the first-round pick is shaping up nicely.
J: I think we’re putting too much blind hope into this draft.
B: It’s one of the deeper drafts. We could get guys like Malik Monk or Lauri Markkanen with the sixth or seventh pick. Each could be an All Star.
J: That’s if we get the sixth or seventh pick. But hopefully you’re some kind of prophet!
—By Jake and Bryce Longoria
