The start of the NBA season has been unpredictable, but the fact that the Sacramento Kings languish at the bottom of the Western Conference standings isn’t a surprise. Sacramento entered the season with expectations to be the worst team in the West, and so far, only the Utah Jazz have been worse.
Tonight, the Kings will play host to one of the West’s surprisingly good teams, the 8-3 Portland Trail Blazers, at 10 p.m. ET. The game is part of Emirates NBA Cup West Group C action, with each team looking for its first win in group stage play.
For the Trail Blazers, Vít Krejči (ankle), Ja Morant (hamstring), Shaedon Sharpe (meniscus), and Chris Youngblood (foot) are all out, and of those four, Sharpe is the only one not to have appeared so far this season. Precious Achiuwa (ankle), Alex Karaban (G-League), Jonathan Mogbo (G-League), Sean Padulla (G-League), Maxime Raynaud (knee), and Ben Simmons (Achilles) are all out for Sacramento. With the exception of Achiuwa, none has played significant minutes.
Portland is a 10.5-point favorite for tonight’s game on DraftKings Sportsbook (-468 Moneyline), with the point total set to 229.5. The Kings are +361 on the Moneyline.
Below, I’ll break down this All-West Coast affair and offer a prediction.
Portland Trail Blazers at Sacramento Kings preview, prediction
The Trail Blazers have benefited from playing a few uncompetitive teams in their 8-3 start, but they’re coming off of back-to-back double-digit wins against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who have finished with the best record in the Western Conference in each of the past three seasons. Although Morant’s injury put a damper in what has been a bounce-back season for him so far, Toumani Camara (13.1 points per game on 43.2% shooting from beyond the arc) and Jrue Holiday (13.4 points, 44.4%) have both been fantastic, and Donovan Clingan has emerged as a genuine two-way interior force with some stretch potential. Portland has the league’s fourth-best offense and its 11th-best defense so far.
Meanwhile, Sacramento got off to an 0-6 start before finally picking up its first win against the Dallas Mavericks, and it’s followed that result up with four more defeats. Still, the Kings might have found their future face of the franchise, as seventh overall pick Darius Acuff Jr. leads the league in minutes per game and is averaging 26.2 points and 7.3 assists per game, and while his efficiency hasn’t been good, that’s not unexpected for a rookie guard. Alongside him, Domantas Sabonis remains among the league leaders in rebounds per game, and Zach LaVine has provided an efficient 22.3 points per contest. But those flashes haven’t been enough; Sacramento ranks fourth-to-last in offensive rating and third-to-last in defensive rating.
Trail Blazers at Kings pick, best bet
Neither of these teams has been particularly good at getting to the basket, as the Trail Blazers rank ninth-to-last in restricted-area attempts per game and the Kings third-to-last. Sacramento has been the slightly better finishing team overall, as Sabonis has made nearly three-quarters of his layups, though I’d expect Deni Avdija’s finishing to tick back towards the 65.7% he posted last season eventually. On the other end of the floor, neither has conceded many close-range tries, either, but opponents have shot 75.6% against the Kings (the worst mark in the league) and 61.8% against Portland (the fourth-best). That discrepancy should be sustainable; individually, Clingan has ranked in the top quartile in rim points saved per 100 possessions in each of his three seasons, and Sabonis ranked in the bottom sextile in 2025/26.
This game pits two of the league’s best individual rebounders against each other in Sabonis and Clingan, but the infrastructure around Clingan is much better than that alongside Sabonis, so the Trail Blazers rank fifth in total rebounding percentage and Sacramento 26th. The Kings might be even worse on the glass with Achiuwa off the floor, given that he’s played a lot in double-big lineups this season alongside Sabonis and can also serve as the lone big with the Lithuanian sidelined. I also expect Portland to extend its edge in transition; although it’s not quite as dangerous in the open court without Morant, it has been tremendous at getting back quickly while Sacramento has struggled. Both teams have been somewhat undisciplined, but the Trail Blazers have drawn the most fouls per game and the Kings the fourth-fewest.
Shooting will be by far the more important factor for Portland. The Trail Blazers rank second in the league in three-point attempts per game so far this season, while Sacramento has largely eschewed the perimeter, though both teams rank among the middle tercile in accuracy. The shot quality chasm between these teams is massive: only the Golden State Warriors have generated more wide-open threes per game than Portland has, and no team has created fewer than the Kings. The same has held true defensively; the Trail Blazers have limited opponents to the fifth-fewest wide-open threes per game, while Sacramento has allowed the second-most.
The fact that the Kings have been exploitable from both the perimeter and around the basket should play into Portland’s strengths well, especially if Avdija can bait Sabonis or Acuff into foul trouble. Camara and Holiday could be due for some regression, but the Trail Blazers’ offense has been more a function of their ability to generate open threes and free throws than it has been purely luck. Portland scored 128 points the last time these teams faced off on October 23, and there’s no reason not to expect that to happen again.
