The Sacramento Kings have steadied the ship since that 1-7 start, winning five of their last eight, and things seem to have settled down big time. The Kings were able to win on Wednesday without star player DeMarcus Cousins, and it had a lot to do with the combination of Omri Casspi and Rudy Gay. Casspi has been a bright spot for the Kings so far this season, and because of that he may be in line for even more minutes, according to James Ham of CSN Bay Area.
Head coach George Karl has been trying to figure out exactly what he wants to do with his rotation moving forward, and in recent games he has started to figure out who he will give minutes to consistently. Willie Cauley-Stein is a player that has started to earn some solid minutes as the backup center, and recently Karl has really liked having Casspi and Gay on the floor together.
"I think I am learning a little bit about who plays well with who. I think I need to keep Omri in with Rudy Gay as much as possible. It seems that combination really complements with size there and also the ability to find a mismatch situation that is beneficial to us," said Karl.
So far this season it seems as though Casspi has really only seen consistent time with Gay when Cousins is out, as Karl resorts to a smaller rotation in those instances, but he thinks he needs to find a way to get the two on the floor together more. The NBA is going in a direction of smaller lineups, and although the Kings have a very good frontcourt the Gay-and-Casspi combo has proved to be successful so far.
Casspi has appeared in all 16 games so far this season and is averaging 10.9 points and 6.1 rebounds in 26.1 minutes per game. Casspi has also shot 52 percent from the field and 45 percent from three, but his biggest contribution might be how much better he has made Gay when they are on the floor together. Twenty-six minutes per game is a healthy amount of minutes for a bench player, but Karl wants to get him even more time so we will have to wait and see if and how Karl is able to accomplish that.
