Sideline spat a positive sign for Kings team searching for accountability?

The Kings Beat is a reader-supported newsletter/blog that currently allows both free and paid subscriptions. 

For those generous souls that jump on board for the premium edition, you are providing the means to continue this endeavor into independent coverage of the Sacramento Kings.

The moment is coming when much of the content on The Kings Beat will become gated. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to continue to have full access to all future podcasts, features and columns.

Sometimes brothers fight. 

At the end of the first quarter of the Kings’ 121-114 win over the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday evening, Moe Harkless lost his cool and it was very clear that Buddy Hield was the target of his frustrations. 

We could see an altercation breaking out from our media seats and ABC10’s Sean Cunningham quickly picked up his camera and started rolling tape.

When you spend as much time together as NBA players do, you are going to have moments like this. You are going to have loud disagreements, they just usually happen behind closed doors.

Looking back at the tape of the waning moments of the first quarter, Hield overplayed Lonnie Walker and gave up a straight line drive to the basket for an easy two with 50 seconds remaining in the period. Outside of that, Hield had a rather pedestrian quarter.

Following the game, it was a topic of discussion during the media session with players, but neither Harkless nor Hield came to the press conference room to speak. Instead, Tyrese Haliburton and acting head coach Doug Christie fielded questions. 

Christie, a player who spent 14 seasons in the league and is widely remembered for his own altercation with former Laker Rick Fox, gave the right response.

“For me, and I don’t know, because everyone is different, but that’s good, you care, you’ve got a pulse,” Christie said. “Show me that this is what you want. On top of it, we constantly ask for communication. They’re communicating. How they are communicating, I’ll leave that up to everybody else to judge. The fact that they worked it out together and we keep it moving, I’m so here for that, because if you hold it in, what happens then?”

Haliburton took a different approach. Asked specifically about Hield, he took the question in a completely different direction. The second-year guard heaped praise on the play of Harkless, who posted a team-best +15 in the plus/minus category.

“Shoutout to Moe, Moe was amazing for us defensively, especially late in that game, guarding Dejounte (Murray), hands in the passing lanes, there was that possession when he got like a tip out and they got it back and he stole it again,” Haliburton said. “Moe was really really good for us tonight, he helped us a lot. And then Buddy’s doing his thing, man. He can shoot then cover off the ball and it’s just one of those days when it feels like everything is going in, right?”

It’s Christie’s job to both coach the team and keep the peace. He can be seen in the video trying to calm Harkless down, while drawing up plays. If he wasn’t the acting head coach, he probably would have done more to mediate the situation.

His response in post game was to straddle the fence and avoid adding fuel to the fire. He’s been in these situations as a player. He understands that on the court, it can get heated. He defused the situation and turned it into a positive, whether it turns out to be one or not in the future.

The response from Haliburton is something different than we have seen from this Kings team. It wasn’t expected, but it might be what we see moving forward from a young man who already had a voice, but now is figuring out how to use it the proper way within the team structure.

Haliburton made a point. Whatever was happening on the court, Haliburton sided with Harkless and took the issue of accountability to the next level. This is how the Kings get better. This is how they end the culture of “my bad.”

Harkless isn’t flashy and his numbers rarely capture his impact on a game. But he is one of the veterans on this team and he has played major minutes for winners. His voice in the locker room and on the court matters.

Hield is known as a mistake player, but for a long time, he’s been able to make up for some of his gaffs by scoring in bunches. But at this point, he’s inconsistent as a scorer and hitting a couple of three’s can only mask so much. 

The Kings’ woes aren’t all on Hield. There is plenty of blame to pass around to multiple players. But that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t be held accountable for his mistakes.

This situation could have gone in plenty of different directions. The team could have crumbled coming into the second quarter, but they didn’t. 

It’s possible that the conversation played out in the locker room at halftime as well. Hield was an offensive star in the second half, scoring 24 of his 29 points in the final 15 minutes of the game on a perfect 6-for-6 shooting from 3-point range. 

Harkless and Hield are polar opposites, both on and off the court. Harkless does the dirty work and has a reserved personality. Hield is flashy and when he’s on, he’s an elite 3-point shooter. 

For the 2021-22 season to work, the Kings may need these two players to balance each other on a nightly basis. Harkless can take the tough cover, set screens and get an occasional bucket. Hield can get all of the glory with his shooting, but he has to be more.

The Kings need accountability. Holding team meetings or players only meetings has value, but only if they follow through afterwards. This looked like one player holding another player accountable for his mistakes. It shouldn’t always look this way, but at the end of the day, Hield responded and the Kings picked up a win.

Sometimes brothers fight. Sometimes it’s the best thing for a relationship. This could be the way that the Kings grow and begin the process of finding consistency.