AS DOMANTAS SABONIS and Justin Holiday flew to Sacramento last February — hours after being traded from the Indiana Pacers to the Kings in a blockbuster deal for Tyrese Haliburton — they decided to scan social media for reaction to the trade.
“The comments,” Sabonis says, laughing, “were horrible.”
Haliburton was beloved in Sacramento — a rare lottery win for a team that had 16 lottery chances in 16 years amid one of the longest losing runs in U.S. pro sports history.
“Oh my god, we are gonna get booed!” Sabonis recalls exclaiming.
“Dude,” Holiday remembers saying, “they are gonna boo the crap out of us!”
The comments stung because the trade had excited Sabonis — even though it marked the third major trade of his young career. Sabonis’ father, legendary center Arvydas Sabonis, who played for the Portland Trail Blazers during the Kings’ early-2000s glory days, told his son about the atmosphere he could expect if the team turned around.
“He was saying, the noise level, the intensity — it was just different,” Sabonis says. Sabonis’ agent, Greg Lawrence, told him that 15-plus years ago, the Kings were a prime destination — and the Golden State Warriors, their Northern California rivals, the dead zone.
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“That’s how things can switch,” Sabonis says. “As a competitor, there’s nothing I like more than a challenge — to help change the direction of a franchise. All of that was very exciting. It added spice to my career.”
The turnaround has happened, faster and more dramatically than anyone expected. Behind Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox — both All-Stars — the Kings are 43-28 and No. 3 in the West. They have clinched their first winning season since 2005-06, and are days from snagging their first playoff spot since that season — and ending the longest playoff drought in NBA history. As the West wobbles around them, they are beginning to contemplate bigger goals.
“Everyone has done a great job getting us where we are,” says Mike Brown, Sacramento’s first-year head coach and among the Coach of the Year favorites. “But now we have to try to sustain it — or even surpass it.”
WHEN SABONIS ARRIVED, Fox assured him fans would be welcoming.
“We never even talked about the trade,” Fox says. “I told him how crazy our fans are — how much they cheer our team.”
Still, Sabonis was nervous about the crowd response before his home debut against the Minnesota Timberwolves. As he taped himself up the way he always did before games, Sabonis was surprised to see the rest of his teammates jog to the court without him; the Kings followed a different pregame routine, and hit the floor earlier than the Pacers had. Sabonis would come out alone, all eyes on him.
“I got a standing ovation — screaming, cheering,” Sabonis says. “I had goosebumps.”
Fox and Sabonis appeared in only 13 games together last season before injuries ended Fox’s campaign, but they showed immediate chemistry. Their pick-and-roll styles meshed. Both moved fast and with force, but enjoyed slowing down between screens and dribbles, toying with the game’s pace — and with the minds of uncertain defenders. They made magic in the middle of moves — in that purgatory when the ball hangs in midair and the game seems to freeze.
Those moments hold infinite possibilities. The pauses only make it more jarring when Sabonis and Fox decide, somehow at once, to accelerate — Sabonis snapping into a screen at the same moment Fox hunches into a blur.
Fox bobs and weaves behind multiple screens, carving closer to his pet midrange jumper — the shot that is obliterating the league in crunch time. Sabonis had long been expert at that, flipping the angle of his picks two, three, four times, sliding a step inside with each successive screen.
During Sabonis’ rookie year in Oklahoma City, Russell Westbrook invited Sabonis to early-morning workouts to go through the nuances of pick-and-roll, says Billy Donovan, who coached that Thunder team. They drilled how to read a defender’s feet, when Sabonis could slip screens, how Sabonis could make himself available for pocket passes. (One of Sabonis’ rookie duties was supplying Westbrook with Snapple for team flights, Sabonis and others on that team recall.)
Sabonis was astonished that Fox ceded so much ball handling to him right away, including letting Sabonis rush the ball up after rebounds.
“I was really surprised,” Sabonis says. “He has been with the Kings forever. This is his team. He really let me do my thing. Not many franchise point guards would let their big man bring the ball up. He ran with me. He set screens for me. That’s what shocked me most. That’s what made the transition so easy. Neither of us care who is who. We just want to win.”
(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
THE KINGS UNDER Brown have leaned even further into using Sabonis as a playmaker and amping up the pace. Sabonis leads the NBA in rebounding and is dishing a career-high 7 assists per game. Every teammate — even Fox — knows to run the wings when Sabonis grabs a defensive board.
“He is as close to Draymond Green as any big man I’ve seen in terms of someone who can get it off the glass, bring it up, and make the right play,” says Brown, who coached Green as an assistant in Golden State for six seasons.
The Kings are fast and — with Sabonis as hub — physically bruising, a rare combination. They run off makes, misses, free throws. The pace translates into the half court; the Kings run every cut and handoff with sprinting urgency. There is no moment to relax. With Fox and Sabonis pushing, backpedaling defenses can’t always match up the way they want — leaving one of Sacramento’s All-Stars with a mismatch, and sewing panic everywhere else.
“They say the game slows down in the playoffs,” says Jordi Fernandez, Sacramento’s associate head coach. “Well, we won’t slow down.”
Fox, perhaps the fastest end-to-end player in the league, never considered it a sacrifice to hand Sabonis the baton at times. “What he does is unique, and I just felt it would help us — and take pressure off me,” Fox says.
In the clutch, the offense belongs to Fox. He is 68-of-125 (54%) in the last five minutes of games when the score is within five points, and leads the league in total points in those scenarios. After he drained a buzzer-beating triple to defeat the Chicago Bulls last week, cameras caught Fox telling teammates, “I’m f—ing nice!” “Down the stretch, my teammates get out of my way,” Fox says. “That was my way of saying, ‘Yo, I’m gonna deliver.'”
Right away in Sacramento, having the paint to himself invigorated Sabonis. As a rookie during the first Westbrook triple-double season in Oklahoma City, the Thunder — with Steven Adams starting at center and Enes Freedom backing him up — tried developing Sabonis into a stretchy, playmaking power forward. (On April 9 of that season against the Denver Nuggets, Sabonis missed two shots off passes from Westbrook that would have given Westbrook his 10th assist and then-record-breaking 42nd in-season triple-double. The flashbulb assist came on a 3-pointer from Semaj Christon. “I was so upset,” Sabonis says. “It still haunts me.”)
In Indiana, he shared the center spot in a sometimes awkward pairing with Myles Turner.
Fox and Sabonis ended last season eager to carry over the momentum they had built. In June, Sabonis invited teammates and coaches to his home in Napa Valley to play pickup, tour wineries, and watch the NBA Finals.
“I am a big believer in getting to know people off the court,” Sabonis says. “If we are close, it’s more likely you’ll fight for your brothers on the court.” (Dining together doesn’t always persist into the season. Sabonis is known for asking teammates who are already out to bring food back to him at the hotel. “T.J. McConnell and I were essentially his Uber Eats service on the road, but he paid us back on the court,” says Doug McDermott, Sabonis’ teammate for parts of four seasons. “He was getting his three-hour massage while we were out eating, and relied on us to bring him back six pasta dishes.”)
Over the next few weeks, the Kings made two moves to retool the roster around Sabonis and Fox. On draft night, they selected Keegan Murray No. 4 — ahead of the heralded Jaden Ivey. They also traded Holiday, Maurice Harkless, and one future first-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks for Kevin Huerter, an ace shooter with playmaking chops. Over the prior season, the Kings had eyed Huerter’s Atlanta teammate John Collins; ahead of the trade deadline — and before the Kings had zeroed in on Sabonis — the two teams came close to a deal that would have sent Harrison Barnes and a protected 2022 first-round pick to Atlanta for Collins, sources say. (The protections were such that Sacramento would have ended up retaining the pick that became Murray at No. 4). That deal fell away as the Sabonis one emerged.
From afar, McDermott and Holiday perked up at the Huerter deal. They knew firsthand how Sabonis’s dribble hand-off game could spring shooters.
“Every time he crossed half court, I felt like I had a 95% chance of getting a backdoor layup or an open 3,” McDermott says. “That shows you his IQ and how great a screener he is. He wants to pass first. He will get on you if you’re open and you don’t shoot. I became a much better player playing with him. I owe him.”
“He’s like a brother to me,” Holiday says. “As a shooter, Domas makes it a walk in the park. He knew how I wanted the ball, and I trusted him to hit my guy [with screens] every time.”
In Sabonis’ first preseason scrimmage with Kings teammates, he indicated he wanted Huerter on his team, Huerter recalls: Let me get Kev. “Right away, I was flying off screens,” Huerter says.
The variety of counters that flow out of a simple handoff is bewildering. Play above Huerter to block his path to Sabonis, and Huerter might zip backdoor. If the lane is too crowded, Huerter might fake his usual sideline cut — and then dart up the gut for a surprise inside handoff:
One handoff might transition into a Huerter-Sabonis pick-and-roll — which could cycle into a second handoff around the top of the arc:
Get too jumpy at the handoff, and Sabonis busts out the quarterback keeper:
Sag off Sabonis, and he revs up — and plows right through you:
In the reticent Murray, Sabonis found a new pupil. Early in the season, he told coaches Murray was too predictable using Sabonis’ screens for 3s. He wanted Murray to mix it up, and to cut to the rim more. When Murray executed that cut on Jan. 3 in Utah — resulting in a gorgeous, flying layup — Sabonis shouted, pumped his fist, and turned to the Kings bench: He did it! Sacramento’s coaching staff took note, wondering if Sabonis would have been confident enough to throw that pass to Murray even a few weeks prior.
(They also smiled when — during one recent game — Murray looked Sabonis off after a defensive rebound, brought the ball up himself, and scored. Some within the team regarded that as a key moment of Murray asserting his readiness to do more.)
Ten days before that game in Utah, the Kings’ season teetered. Sabonis suffered an avulsion fracture in his right thumb and ligament damage in his hand. Fixing it required surgery that would cost between six and eight weeks. The Kings were 17-14, sixth in the West, only a couple games ahead of No. 11.
Sabonis wanted to keep playing. “In my mind, sitting out was not an option,” he says. “Six to eight weeks — we can’t risk that.”
He asked the team’s medical staff to wait to see if the swelling would subside. It did — enough. He joked that he didn’t use his right hand anyway. After consulting with doctors, trainers, and Sabonis’ agents, the decision was made: He’d play on. The training staff nicknamed him “Wolverine” for his apparent imperviousness to pain.
Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
AT GONZAGA UNIVERSITY, Mark Few, the team’s longtime head coach, smiled reading about Sabonis’ choice. In January 2015, Sabonis dislocated a finger during a Gonzaga practice. Gonzaga’s next game was a likely easy win; it would be safe for Sabonis to rest. Sabonis called his father for advice, Few says, and came back determined to play. “This is a big statement, because I’ve been here 35 years, but Domas is probably the best competitor we’ve ever had here,” Few says.
Few still tells new players that after every practice, Sabonis would eat and return to the court for an individual evening workout. Each day, Sabonis would hone a different skill: hooks one day, then his weak hand, then 3s. “He had a plan,” Few says. “He wasn’t just ‘working,’ in quotes, on his game.”
Sabonis is intensely hard on himself. As he walked to the bench for his normal rest in one recent game, he apologized – earnestly, with his head down — to Brown for a turnover he had just committed. “I was like, ‘Domas, Domas. Hold on. Do not apologize for a turnover. How the f— can I get mad at you? You play too hard for me to get mad at you. Never apologize for a f—ing turnover.'” (The incident had Brown, a San Antonio Spurs assistant in the early 2000s, remembering how Spurs coaches nicknamed David Robinson “Bobblehead” for the way he looked at the floor and nodded every time Gregg Popovich reamed him for some perceived mistake.)
Sabonis playing through injury underlined the stakes for the Kings and — combined with his effort and accountability — gave him gravitas as a leader. The coaches urged him to speak up. If he wanted Murray (or anyone else) to do something different, Sabonis should tell that person himself instead of using coaches as intermediaries, they instructed.
“He didn’t always understand — this should come from you,” Brown says. “To tape that thumb up and say ‘I’m playing,’ it sets the tone for the whole team. If he and De’Aaron are doing things like that, everyone else falls into line.”
When the team returned to Sacramento after the All-Star break, Brown called a meeting for all players, coaches, and staff. “We have done a really good job of getting to where we are,” Brown told the group. They had all known by mid-November that with work, good health, and some luck, they could make the playoffs, Brown went on. Now it was time to see if they could take the next step: become a serious playoff team. “And that has to come from within you guys,” Brown recalls saying. That started, he told the group, with the team’s best players.
“I challenged them,” Brown says. “It was, ‘You need to talk to your teammates, and your leaders need to talk to you.'”
Brown by then had already set up a four-player leadership council to guide the team and relay messages from the coaches: Fox, Sabonis, Harrison Barnes, and Davion Mitchell. On Feb. 26, Brown called another meeting of just those players, plus he and Fernandez. Together, they went through the calendar, Brown giving the players some power to decide the team’s schedule — picking off days, practice days, times where it might be best to skip shootaround.
The Kings might practice more than any NBA team. “We practice like a college team,” Huerter says. The collective bargaining agreement states that teams must provide every player at least 18 off days throughout each season — days on which there are no games, practices, travel, or promotional activities. If a team lands at an airport anytime after 1 a.m., that day must be counted as a travel day — and not one of the 18 off days.
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There was good-natured drama Thursday night in Brooklyn; the Kings and Nets tipped off at 7:30 p.m. and were traveling to Washington, D.C. after the game. If they landed in D.C. before 1 a.m., the coaches could count that day as an off day — preserving another future potential practice day. They needed to leave Brooklyn fast. One person lingering could make or break everything. They landed at 12:54 a.m.
Even if the players might sometimes want more rest, they understand the operation is humming for the first time in almost 20 years. Fox and Sabonis, franchise tentpoles, have been through enough to grasp the preciousness of this chance.
Fox has seen so much in his six seasons — including four different head coaches, and the Kings drafting Marvin Bagley III over Luka Doncic. In 2019, the team finally seemed to have a direction under coach Dave Joerger — and with a young core of Fox, Buddy Hield, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Bagley, and Harry Giles. All but Fox are long gone.
“I wouldn’t say I can’t believe we’re here now, but I do think sometimes, ‘Wow, we’ve come a long way,'” Fox says. “A lot of things happened. A lot of things didn’t work out. But I always knew it would take time to win.”
Sabonis has already been a part of three landmark trades, starting with the Thunder’s move in 2016 to acquire his draft rights and Victor Oladipo from the Orlando Magic in exchange for Serge Ibaka. A year later, he was on the move again — to Indiana, with Paul George coming to the Thunder.
Sabonis was heartbroken. “The Thunder were like my first love,” he says. In the weeks before the trade, Thunder officials had talked to Sabonis about playing him more at center — the position he preferred. He pictured himself in Oklahoma City long-term.
As free agency approached, Sabonis heard rumors the Thunder might sign Blake Griffin and worried he could end up traded as a result. When news broke that the Clippers had re-signed Griffin, Sabonis was relieved and went to bed to rest up for his summer league game the next day. Minutes later, Thunder officials called to tell him he had been traded. “I was in shock,” he says. “Like, are you joking? I was not so happy.”
He empathized last season, he says, when he saw Haliburton’s emotional reaction to their trade — a second-year player who had embraced one team coming to grips with that franchise sending him elsewhere.
The Kings still have a ton to prove. Rivals respect them, but don’t fear them — yet. They don’t have a ton of stylistic or rotational variety. They rank 25th in points allowed per possession, with limitations at several key positions — including Sabonis’ shaky rim protection.
There are hints that they might be better than that on defense. They nail a lot of the low-hanging fundamentals: transition defense, rebounding, foul avoidance. They don’t allow many 3s or shots at the rim. Opponents have shot well from almost every range. Is some of that bad luck? Or is it the result of the Kings being a bit small across the board?
The playoffs will be telling. The Kings are gearing up for the challenge. They are eager to test themselves.
Sabonis is at peace. He thinks back to the flight, and the mean tweets, and the things he repeated to steel himself.
“I know what I bring as a player,” he says. “The Kings wanted me. They wanted to build the team around Fox and me. The goal was to change the franchise. The comments didn’t matter. What mattered was how much the Kings loved me.”
Source: espn.com