The Kings provided some positive medical updates on three key players, Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee writes.
DeMar DeRozan, Malik Monk and Domantas Sabonis didn’t play on Monday but are close to returning. All three have been cleared for individual on-court workouts. They could return for Sacramento’s game against the Clippers on Friday.
DeRozan has been sidelined for three games due to lower back tightness. Sabonis missed his second straight contest for the same reason, while Monk missed his fifth consecutive game on Monday after suffering a moderate right ankle sprain on Nov. 10.
We have more from the Pacific Division:
- Mohamed Bamba had nine points and eight rebounds in his season debut for the Clippers on Sunday in 15 minutes of action. He had been sidelined by a left knee injury. “My knees, the doctor would say, are in the 90th percentile of healthy looking knees,” he told Law Murray of The Athletic (Twitter link). “But I kept getting this pocket of fluid in my knee. And it was frustrating because we couldn’t figure out why it was coming. Now we have it settled and a plan in place to kind of mitigate that.” Bamba is currently on a minutes restriction but believes he can play in back-to-backs.
- The Lakers have commissioned a statue of Pat Riley to join Lakers legends on Star Plaza outside Crypto.com Arena, according to a Lakers press release. Riley will join Elgin Baylor, Kobe Bryant, Chick Hearn, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jerry West with statues in the plaza. Riley coached the Showtime Lakers in the 1980s to four championships and also played for the Lakers in the 1970s.
- Kevon Looney missed the Warriors’ game against the Clippers on Monday due to an illness, Anthony Slater of The Athletic tweets. Looney, who is headed to free agency next summer, is coming off the bench this season.
Can’t write anything nice about Looney? He leads the NBA in ORB and TRB per 100 possessions!
Let em know!
Says the one who cant say anything nice at all
Last article that mentioned the Pacific Division he was whinging about Steph not getting the same number of FTs as Fox despite the latter being a driver who routinely finishes through contact and the former being primarily a shooter who avoids contact by not being in the middle of the opposing team’s defense. Shocking.
how bad the warriors are at shooting free throws this year it probably doesn’t matter they would miss most of the m like last night.
yea…..very negative
Kings need them badly, got Fox doing his Iverson impression carrying them hard last 2 games.
Looney’s minutes per rebound is great. They should start him if they decide to do nothing
The Warriors are the 2nd best rebounding team in the Association. No need to change the lineups over that.
Looney is a Warriors Lifer! They will give him a permanent 1 yr contract for the next 10 years!
Hopefully but idk in this new NBA game. Plus we thought Klay was a Lifer
Money is always louder than anything else. There are some teams that might go after him with a lot more money.
Looney’s good, but any team that pays him more than 10 million is overpaying. Very valuable within his skillset, but his skillset itself is limited, especially offensively (rebounds, cuts, lob finishes, that’s mostly it). A high floor player who raises a team’s bottom line, but can’t really push them over the top outside of rare, specific circumstances. There’s a reason he averages only 17.5 mpg for his career and has never topped 24 in a season. Mo Wagner is a good comp in terms of overall value, though their games are pretty opposite, and his current deal is 3/30 (8-11-11).
With Klay, it was different; shooting touch is stupid valuable and Klay’s one of the best options as an off-ball spacer even at this point in his career. Teams will always shell out more for a ceiling boost than a floor boost. Plus, accolades and title experience like his carry a lot of weight even if he’s not that guy anymore. On top of that, he wanted a starting role, and the Warriors couldn’t guarantee that (nor should they have, imo).
Looney, I think the Warriors can keep for a while. He’s more valuable to them than most other teams because of how he fits with both ends of their scheme. Plus Looney clearly loves GS. Great dude, great teammate.
Even $10 million a year for Looney could be out of GSW price range. I see a trend in free agency this year. With Cavs and GSW playing well with role players teams will be ditching the big contract for pieces off the bench. Not many teams will have the luxury of spending big money for all stars so the bench players for around $10 million a year will be in high demand.
What a ridiculous name for a sporting venue, Cryto arena, though it fits the current management/ownership.