The Sacramento Kings have started Las Vegas Summer League with a win, but the bigger story inside the locker room is how quickly this young group can come together.
Rookie guard Emanuel Sharp said the focus is less on the scoreboard and more on building something that holds up over the rest of the summer.
"Win or loss, we're just taking it as a chance to improve our chemistry," Sharp told reporters after the game. "Improve how comfortable we are with each other. We're listening to what coach says and just trying to execute every game."
That approach showed up in Sacramento’s ball movement against the Los Angeles Clippers. The Kings finished with 22 assists in Thursday night’s victory, with Darius Acuff Jr. leading the way with seven and Isaiah Stevens adding five.
For Acuff Jr., that kind of distribution has been a point of emphasis. After a rough California Classic debut, he said he wanted to do a better job getting teammates involved.
Across his first two games against the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks, the Kings’ seventh overall pick had six total assists. He answered in the Las Vegas opener by piling up seven, a strong bounce-back after what may have simply been some early rust in the California Classic.
He also delivered the game-winning assist to Nique Clifford in Sacramento’s three-point win over Brooklyn last Saturday.
The chemistry piece matters even more because Sacramento has a couple of familiar faces in the mix. Dylan Cardwell and Clifford, both sophomores who played rotation minutes in the regular season, are back in summer league and taking on a mentoring role for teammates who were in the same spot they were in last year.
That veteran presence has meshed well with Acuff Jr., and it’s helped smooth his transition to the NBA game. Sharp, meanwhile, has already flashed the shooting that made him stand out, knocking down 3 of 8 attempts from beyond the arc against the Clippers.
With a perfect run through both the California Classic and Las Vegas Summer League so far, Sacramento is also chasing something bigger: the franchise’s third summer league championship. The Kings have the talent, the veterans and the staff to make a real push.
Their next test comes Sunday against the Washington Wizards, who will bring first overall pick AJ Dybantsa to the floor.
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The hope now is that Darius Acuff Jr. becomes part of the next wave, but even that comes with the usual summer uncertainty. The 2026 first-round pick has flashed enough to keep attention on him, yet his Summer League play has been uneven, which only adds to the sense that Sacramento is still searching for a clear path back to relevance. [Read more 🡒]
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One Sacramento rookie, the No. 45 pick, led the way with a game-high 21 points while adding defensive disruption and taking care of the ball, a useful sign for a player trying to carve out a role quickly. The Kings also had another summer league performance worth noting in a separate win over Orlando, where a different young player filled the box score with scoring, rebounding and rim protection, giving the front office a little more to track as the summer rolls on. [Read more 🡒]