The Kings are in China for two preseason games against the Brooklyn Nets. It is the Kings' first trip to China since back in 2004 when they played an exhibition game against the Houston Rockets. Brooklyn and Sacramento both share international backgrounds as the two teams with the only foreign-born owners in the NBA (Mikhail Prokhorov and Vivek Ranadivé).
Both of these games will be televised but due to the 16 hour time difference, they will not air until late at night. We will still have game threads and recaps, but you might want to record these if you don't feel like being up super late/early.
This first game is at 10:00 pm Pacific tonight and airs on NBA TV and KHTK 1140 AM. As of the time of writing this post I can't see if the game will be re-airing on Sunday at a later time but we will be sure to keep you posted if it does.
3 THINGS TO LOOK FOR
1. Omri Casspi and Derrick Williams seem to be battling for a rotation spot, and over the first couple games, it seems that Omri has pulled ahead after a very good performance against the Raptors at home. It seems likely that Williams will see more time tonight after not playing at all in the second game, and it will be interesting to see how he responds.
2. The Kings offense has definitely looked high octane in their first couple games, and the ball movement has been much better. The defense on the other hand has not been good and I expect that Michael Malone will want to see a renewed emphasis on that end as preseason develops.
3. DeMarcus Cousins recently told Scott Howard-Cooper that he "feels like a 45 year old" after working non-stop this summer with Team USA. Cousins hasn't been playing too much so far in preseason, but I wonder if he and Rudy Gay will be taking a game or two off at some point during this preseason to get some extra rest. It'd also be a good chance to see some more of Ryan Hollins and to get Eric Moreland some playing time.
PREGAME LIMERICK
The Kings flew all the way to Shanghai
along with a silly wise guy.
They brought Carmichael Dave,
who came out of his cave,
and actually managed to fly.
PREDICTION IN GIF FORM
