Season preview: Kevin Huerter expected to start opener after missing seven months due to injury

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Playing shorthanded through training camp and preseason isn’t ideal, but it was the reality for the 2024-25 Sacramento Kings. The list of names kept getting longer, but slowly, players started to rejoin the group.

Now just hours before the start of the regular season, Kings head coach Mike Brown is getting a pair of his rotational pieces back in Kevin Huerter and Trey Lyles. Both veterans practiced fully both Tuesday and Wednesday. Brown wasn’t sure if either would play as of Tuesday, but on Wednesday afternoon, the Kings’ front man announced that both would play and Huerter is set to start. 

Huerter hasn’t faced 5-on-5 contact since tearing the labrum in his left shoulder on March 18. He’s worked tirelessly to rehab the shoulder and was finally cleared for contact a little over a week ago.

The 26-year-old wing has cleared the team’s “return to play” protocols after missing seven months with a major surgery. The wounds are healed, but a cautious approach is warranted as he ramps back up.

Despite the long layoff, Huerter will not be on a minutes restriction according to Brown and the same goes for Lyles, who has missed the last six or seven weeks with a left groin strain.

This is all good news for the Kings as they prepare to face the Timberwolves, but there is at least a small amount of trepidation for Brown and his staff. Sacramento added a major piece in DeMar DeRozan during the offseason, as well as some minor additions. Neither Huerter nor Lyles has played extended minutes with the six-time All-Star during the preseason outside of some scrimmages over the last two days. 

Brown was honest with his assessment of the team during Tuesday’s practice. 

“This is probably the first time that I still feel like I don’t have my hands wrapped all the way around what I want to do, because not everybody that’s going to play in the regular season played in the preseason,” Brown said. “So it’s exciting from the standpoint that everybody grew another year. It’s exciting from the standpoint that we have some new faces that are going to contribute. And then it’s also exciting to a certain degree because I don’t quite know exactly what we have yet.”