It’s the same every summer. You go to Carnon-Plage, you like the Tryo concert outside, you send yourself big cotton candy-flavoured ice creams and you get laid with Steven or Paloma when you come back from Macumba before… hotel in front of a Kings game. Incredible but true, the Sacramento Kings remain among the safest summer hits and this year again, it was in Salt Lake City that Californian youth took themselves for a steamroller.
Remember. August 2021, the Kings chained a fifth victory in as many games, against the Celtics, and won the Las Vegas Summer League. Davion Mitchell is the next Little Prince, and Louis King is a future All-Star. A year later and after a season that saw Sacramento miss the Playoffs for the sixteenth straight year and after seeing boy genius Tyrese Haliburton jump ship in a trade? Rebelote, tkings out of three and a nice medal to add to the franchise’s not-so-full trophy cabinet.
The heroes of this summer competition on the Kings side? The pivot Neemias Queta, a huge Portuguese tree trunk and dominant in the mini-competition, bodes well for the “real” NBA season, maybe well. Then Frankie Ferrari, because his name and his looks are beyond comprehension. But if we want to talk about basketball, let’s talk about Keegan Murray, n°4 of the last draft, a little to everyone’s surprise as Jaden Ivey was more likely to be in California, un Keegan Murray propelled his team’s offensive leader and who has greatly satisfied his little world for four days. Tonight ? KM again swung 24 pawns at 9/16 and 3 steals, reminding us of Kyle Kuzma’s great hours in the Summer League, and you have four hours to answer the question “is this really a good omen”.
More seriously, the rookie has demonstrated in these three games that he has all the necessary knowledge to impose himself in his first season with the Kings, to establish himself as a major player in Mike Brown’s rotation and it will already not be wrong. What should be remembered from this aperitif competition? That the Kings are the cracks of the summer, that Nikola Jovic ended up showing real skills for the Heat after a difficult start, that Scottie Pippen Jr. scored points for the Lakers and that we are currently in the process of building a statue of Gui Santos, future Warriors Hall Of Famer rookie. What should we remember from these tapas? That the second Summer League attacked in stride with, already, some hasty conclusions to draw around Chet Holmgren and the Thunder, and that we will have to wait until tomorrow evening to see the biggest stars of the summer with the start of the Vegas show, the most anticipated summer competition each year.
The sun rises in the east, wearing a mask reduces the chances of spreading disease and the Kings are the bosses of the game between June and September. The years go by and some observations do not take gray hairs, to see now how Sacto and Keegan Murray in particular will chain in Nevada from Thursday evening, before going to quietly aim for thirty wins from October 20.