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Darius Acuff Jr. didn’t shoot well and Nique Clifford could have been more assertive during summer league, but for a moment let’s forget the field-goal percentages and set the scoring averages aside.
The numbers can tell you how each member of the Sacramento Kings performed in eight games over 14 days at the California Classic in Sacramento and NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. Time will tell if those numbers reflect what kind of career each player will have in the NBA, but one story emerged from summer league that could mean more than any individual performance.
The youngest members of the team have bought in to the identity general manager Scott Perry and coach Doug Christie are trying to create. They’ve made it clear that they want to be part of the solution in Sacramento, where a beleaguered fanbase watched a veteran team go 22-60 last season while missing the playoffs for the 19th time in 20 years.
“We want to be a competitive, tough, really menacing team,” said second-year center Dylan Cardwell, a former two-way player who earned a standard NBA contract as a rookie last season after going undrafted out of Auburn. “Last year was a down year for us, especially at home. We had a couple of 40-point blowouts, and it sucked. It stung. It left a bad taste in our mouths.
“It’s just disrespectful to go out in that way. This is the start of a new brand of Sacramento Kings basketball. ... I’m not trying to let teams come in here and punk us anymore. We’re tired of that.”
Perry has spent his first 15 months on the job trying to overhaul an aging and expensive roster. The market has forced Perry to be patient in search of suitable trades for Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine, Malik Monk and DeMar DeRozan (who was recently released). In the meantime, Perry has managed to assemble a young nucleus, giving Sacramento a number of building blocks for the future.
The Kings entered the 2025-26 season with the fourth-oldest team in the NBA with an average age of 27.3. They are currently projected to be significantly younger with an average age of 25.9.
Last summer, Perry made a trade to acquire a first-round pick in order to draft Clifford; selected Maxime Raynaud, an All-Rookie selection, in the second round; and found a hidden gem in Cardwell. This summer, Perry selected Acuff with the No. 7 pick, made a trade to acquire an extra first-round pick in order to draft Alex Karaban, and may have found another second-round steal in Emanuel Sharp.
Sacramento’s summer league squad got mixed results, going 3-0 in the California Classic before going 2-3 in Las Vegas. Acuff appeared in five games, averaging 20.4 points, 4.4 assists and 3.8 turnovers while shooting 35% from the field and 27% from 3-point range. Sharp was second on the team in scoring, averaging nearly 16 points per game.
Sharp is a promising 3-and-D prospect who earned Big 12 Conference All-Defensive Team honors at Houston. Clifford and Cardwell also came to the NBA with reputations as strong defenders.
Kings summer league coach Chris Darnell was asked if the youngsters can help turn the tide for a team that has struggled defensively for years.
“I think you have to start somewhere, and these young guys, since I’ve been here, they’ve been super bought in to the program and that defensive identity,” Darnell said. “We tell them every day about it. They embrace it every day. They know that they’re going to be unaccountable to that, so we’re going to preach that every day. I think that if you do that long enough, it just becomes part of who they are.
“I think we do have guys that we bring in that already kind of embrace that. Our front office has done a great job of identifying players that take pride in the defensive side of the ball, and then it’s on us as coaches to kind of carry that over to our instruction on the court and hold the entire group accountable to that.”
