Today’s basketball fans are all about stats. Stats focus on a players’s offensive impact on the game. They cannot quantify a players impact on the defensive side of the game outside of steals and blocks… and those stats don’t tell anywhere near the whole story.

Basketball is all about balance and teamwork. Role players. Certain players need to be willing to do the dirty work. Rebound, set screens, sacrifice their body, play defense. The unsexy stuff. The Dennis Rodman types. All good teams have these players.

Coach Mike Brown has prioritized defense in his career and has brought on a few defensive unicorns. The most talented of those unicorns is KZ Okpala. Okpala started in his first preseason game against the Lakers and showed why he was put in the starting lineup with his disruptive defensive and switch-ability. He didn’t shoot well but did everything else well like rebound, push the ball up the floor etc. Coach Brown confirmed this fact after the game and in the following practices it looks like Okpala is continuing to play with the starting group.

The two starting positions that were up for grabs for the 2 and the 4 and Brown came out today and confirmed that Huerter will be the starting 2 guard. The floor is still up for grabs and the clear long-term starter is rookie Keegan Murray. As talented as Murray is, there is wisdom in having him start the season playing a lot of minutes against the other team’s second unit as he learns the NBA game. Marie will also make the King‘s second unit extremely explosive playing alongside Mitchell, Monk and Holmes

If Okpala plays at a high-level defensively and all-around which keeps him playing starter’s minutes, my prediction is the Kings will break their 16 year drought and make the playoffs.

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