Predicting where Sacramento Kings will finish in Western Conference next season

The Sacramento Kings finished last season with a 46-36 record, good for ninth place in the talent-rich Western Conference. Luckily, they’re in the in the middle of a rockstar offseason – a team that has seen its team improve considerably.

Unfortunately, the West remains a juggernaut, so it’s hard to say how much their offseason progress will help them in the standings. In this article, we attempt to estimate where the Kings will be in the standings next season.

In early AugustNBA.com’s John Schuhmann has released his latest edition of the Western Conference power rankings. In this edition, he has the Kings at eighth in the conference. Here are his complete Western Conference rankings.

While there are many other power rankings out there, we’ll use Schumann’s as a reference point, as I think his rankings do a good job of capturing the general consensus on the Kings.

Let’s start with some eliminations. Unless things go south, I’m pretty confident that the Kings will be better than the Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz, and San Antonio Spurs. On the other hand, barring a miracle, I have a hard time seeing the Kings move ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Dallas Mavericks, Minnesota Timberwolves, or Denver Nuggets in the standings. By that logic, we’re somewhere between fifth and 12th in the conference.

Now, as for the teams Schumann has behind them, I think the Kings are better (on paper) than the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets. We’ll talk about the Grizzlies in a moment.

As for the teams that await them, I think the Kings are actually better than the Phoenix Suns, New Orleans Pelicans and Golden State Warriors with their progress. In my opinion, none of those teams have made as significant positive changes as the Kings have this summer. And in the Pelicans’ case, I think they’ve taken a step forward. quite difficult off-season.

The only team in that 5-12 group that I talked about that I think I rank above the Kings is the Grizzlies. To me, if they can stay healthy, the Grizzlies are a top team. serious threat in the Western Conference (to find out why, see this article).

So, by that logic, I think the Kings are somewhere between the fifth and 12th seeds. But if I had to pick an exact spot, it would be the sixth seed (which would help us avoid the play-in tournament).