The Kings have returned

📣 We're getting 40 wins this year. 📣

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Hear me out.

Keegan Murray, Summer League MVP. High-level scoring on great efficiency, showed some defensive instincts, immediately fills a critical need for the Sacramento Kings roster and looks ready to contribute Day 1 as a shooter and scorer. Murray is 22. Age 22 Peja Stojakovic, for what it is worth: 12 points on 45/38/88 shooting. Keegan can do that. (Peja became PEJA at age 23, by the way, his third year in the league and fifth since being drafted.)

Domantas Sabonis arrived in Sacramento as a 25-year-old All-Star averaging around 20/10 per game with some superb passing skills. You know who once arrived in Sacramento as a 25-year-old All-Star averaging around 20/10 per game with some superb passing skills? That’s right: Chris Webber.

De’Aaron Fox has never been an All-Star. Jason Williams nor Mike Bibby ever made the All-Star team. Fox is nothing like either: White Chocolate was an ordained minister of the dime who couldn’t shoot and didn’t score, while Bibby was a deadeye shooter best suited as a third option who didn’t need to make plays or attack much. Fox is a top-20 scorer, a downhill score-first attacker with an inconsistent jumper. A really good but not All-Star point guard, at least at this point.

Davion Mitchell, pitbull guard defender with a head to go to the rim when the lanes are there and the best nickname in the league.

Kevin Huerter knows exactly what he’s supposed to do. Lock in.

Harrison Barnes, still here. Glue. Defense. Maturity. Leadership. Buckets, when you need them.

Malik Monk. Buckets. Helps the Kings might their constitutionally required Kentucky Wildcat quota. Trey Lyles, quality minutes. Trey “Quality Minutes” Lyles?

Richaun Holmes, push shot, BANG.

Tony Xypteras @TonyXypteras

90 seconds of the most automatic signature shot in basketball today: The Richaun Holmes push floater.

Chimezie Metu, hell yeah. Neemias Queta. Talking back to the No. 1 pick. YOU DON’T KNOW ME, BRUH.

ESPN @espn

Paolo Banchero: "You wasn't supposed to hit that three-ball." Neemias Queta: "You don't know me, bruh."

KZ Okpala, steeped in (717 career minutes of) HEAT CULTURE. His new coach had him for the Nigerian national team and said he could be a Defensive Player of the Year if he could get on the floor. Guess who controls whether he gets on the floor now? Make it happen, Coach.

D’Tigers | Nigeria Basketball @NigeriaBasket

"KZ is a remarkable talent. He can be a defensive player of the year candidate..." - Coach Mike Brown with high praise for KZ Okpala

Mike Brown, miscast a million times after a hugely successful run alongside LeBron. Defensive wizard tasked not with a big-personality team trying to win a title (as in his stint in L.A.) or a rebuilding club looking for identity (Cleveland Part II), but to take some fertile fields in the Valley and bear fruit. To make it make sense.

You feel the ground moving under your feet. It’s happening. It’s finally happening.

THE KINGS HAVE RETURNED.

40 wins. Maybe 42.