Why do I keep watching the endings of Sacramento Kings games? Maybe for the same reason that people slow down when they’re driving by the wreckage left by a car crash. Sometimes things are just so terrible, you can’t look away. Unfortunately, neither can Sacramento Kings Coach Mike Brown nor Phoenix Suns Coach Frank Vogel. Both coaches have had the unenviable bad fortune of having to stand there and watch their teams consistently crumple over in the 4th quarter like a couple of empty potato sacks.
On Monday, March 4th, the Sacramento Kings choked away a 22-point lead to fall to the Chicago Bulls, aided by an 18-point 4th-quarter performance. Just a few days later, they almost let the same thing happen against the San Antonio Spurs, a team with a 13-52 record that was missing rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama.
I can’t speak for the Suns, but I know a lot of Kings’ fans are starting to lose faith in the Kings’ coaching staff, helmed by a man who was the unanimous coach of the year just a season ago. But is it really the coaching that’s to blame?
Team Success
Okay, neither the Sacramento Kings nor the Phoenix Suns are bad this season. With just about 20 games left in the season, the Kings are 7th in the West and the Suns are 6th. And though they finished 3rd and 4th in the West last season, both teams are boasting win percentages that are not far off from where they finished last year. The Kings are down slightly from .585 to .581, while the Suns are actually up a bit from .549 to .587.
So what’s the problem? Well, the Suns have fallen well short of expectations so far this season. After adding Kevin Durant at last year’s trade deadline and inking Bradley Beal this past summer, the team seemed poised for greatness—on paper, at least. It was hard not to look at them as major contender, with many pegging them as the favorite to come out of the West this season. Expectations for the Kings, meanwhile, were clearly not as high. Still, the hope was that they could take that next step by making at least some progress on the defensive end. That hope, too, has basically failed to materialize.
The 4th Quarter Stats
Both teams are crippling themselves with their 4th quarter performances. The Phoenix Suns are dead last in the league, with a 4th quarter margin of -3.2. I cannot emphasize the dead last part enough. There is only one other team in the league right now with a 4th quarter margin lower than -1.0! Compared to this, the -0.6 margin of the Sacramento Kings might not seem like much…until you realize that the Kings are dead last in 4th quarter margin over their last 3 games at -7.7! Not exactly trending in the right direction at a critical time in the season.
On the bright side, the Kings’ -0.6 margin puts them at #23 in the league. Which is about as auspicious a basketball number as you can find.
The 4th Quarter Problem: Who’s To Blame?
It’s tough to blame the players for their teams’ performances this year—at least not the top-tier players. The Phoenix Suns failed to live up to their pre-season hype partly because they were battling injuries in the first half of the season that kept sidelining one or more of Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, and Kevin Durant. The Sacramento Kings, meanwhile, have made virtually no major roster changes since the Summer of 2022, when they dropped the bombshell deal that swapped Tyrese Haliburton for Domantas Sabonis. I’m not saying they should have (or even could have) done more since then. The point is that there wasn’t much reason to expect them to make a huge leap forward this year.
