Like so many teams in the NBA, the Sacramento Kings have been unable to avoid the spike in positive COVID-19 tests. Sacramento has six players that are sidelined in De’Aaron Fox, Alex Len, Marvin Bagley III, Davion Mitchell, Louis King, and Terence Davis. Interim head coach Alvin Gentry has been away from the team for personal reasons as well.
Being down so many rotation players is always tough to overcome. The Kings have enough time winning games when they are fully healthy, let alone having to replace some of the best players on their team.
The backcourt has been hit especially hard, as Fox is their best player and Mitchell was the team’s first-round pick this season, being selected No. 9 overall. With them sidelined, the Sacramento Kings were in desperate need of someone to step up, and thus far, that player has been Tyrese Haliburton.
Haliburton, the No. 12 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, has stepped his game up to another level since teammates began being taken out of the lineup.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: 3 Trade Deadline Targets For Every Team This NBA Season
In his last four games, he has double-doubled in each one, becoming the focal point of the team’s offense. While Sacramento has gone 1-3 in the four games, Tyrese Haliburton has done everything he could to get his team some wins.
He has put up some gaudy numbers despite facing off against some of the better defensive teams in the NBA. Against the Memphis Grizzlies, the first game that De’Aaron Fox missed, Haliburton scored 21 points with 10 assists, six rebounds, and one block.
In the following game against the San Antonio Spurs, he was even better, scoring 27 points, a one-off of his career-high, with 11 assists, four rebounds, and two steals in a win.
Against the Golden State Warriors, the best defensive team in the NBA thus far this season, Haliburton poured in 24 points with 11 assists, four rebounds, and three steals. In the most recent game against the LA Clippers, Haliburton handed out a career-high 13 assists to go with 22 points, three rebounds, three steals, and one block.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: 3 Trade Deadline Targets For Every Team This NBA Season
What is even more impressive about those scoring numbers is that he is doing it very efficiently. He is shooting 52.9 percent overall from the field, going 36-of-68. From the 3-point line, he has been excellent as well, making 50 percent, going 11-of-22.
Earlier in the season, there were reports that Fox and Haliburton were struggling to coexist, and there was some truth to it. Fox’s best games of the season came without Haliburton in the lineup. The same can now be said about Tyrese Haliburton, who is playing the best stretch of basketball in his career and it is without De’Aaron Fox in the lineup.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: 3 Trade Deadline Targets For Every Team This NBA Season
Sacramento has to figure out a way to get their young backcourt on the same page as both are extremely talented individuals. They are both capable of carrying the team when one is sidelined, but they now have to learn how to play together and help the team win games while sharing the backcourt.
If that does not occur, the team is going to have to make a move and trade one of them for the betterment of the franchise.
