The NBA in-season tournament resumes on Friday, November 17, featuring a West Group C showdown between the Sacramento Kings and the San Antonio Spurs. The Kings are heavy road favorites in the NBA odds.
The Kings were one of the best stories of last season but have had an up-and-down start to the 2023-24 campaign. While Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs have had bright spots, they’ve largely struggled despite eye-popping flashes from their impressive prospect.
Our NBA picks and predictions for Kings vs. Spurs on Friday, November 17 believe that Sacramento is a tough matchup for San Antonio now that De’Aaron Fox has returned from injury.
Kings vs Spurs odds
Kings vs Spurs predictions
If you haven’t been watching the San Antonio Spurs closely, you might be under the impression that they’re doing alright this year. But aside from two surprise wins over the Phoenix Suns, the Spurs have been the worst team in the NBA, by a wide margin, even with Victor Wembanyama providing so much versatility on both ends already.
The Spurs are bottom in the NBA in point differential with a ghastly -12.2 mark, nearly three points worse than the second-worst Washington Wizards. They’re underperforming the spread by just shy of eight points per contest, a remarkable figure given how many points they’re spotted in just about every matchup.
There were always going to be growing pains, but you have to squint very hard to find anything the Spurs do particularly well. Their greatest flaws, however, are glaring.
The first issue stems from their experiment of having Jeremy Sochan run point guard, in a jumbo starting lineup that is the definition of a work in progress. Sochan is a 6-foot-8 power forward who has never played point guard at any level in his career. There have been understandable but catastrophic growing pains, as he’s coughing it up on 17.9% of his possessions.
Those groups also don’t score and struggle to get Victor good shots despite the fact that his catch radius around the rim is bigger than Godzilla’s.
The Spurs play much better with traditional point guard Tre Jones running the show, but they’re committed to giving Sochan reps. It’s an understandable sacrifice in some ways, but it puts a hard ceiling on how good San Antonio will be this season.
The Spurs only look like a real team in the minutes that Jones is at the helm, and he’s doubtful for Friday’s contest. Devin Vassell, probably their best player outside of Wemby, is also out, which hurts their already limited spacing.
The troubling thing is that despite their added size, they’re not good at defense either. If this Spurs team was going to be ahead of schedule (or even close to on schedule for that matter), they were going to have to defend at something approaching league average. Instead, they’re disorganized and giving up the highest opponent effective field goal percentage in the NBA (58.1% per Cleaning the Glass).
The Sacramento Kings don’t look sharp either, if you’re just looking at season long statistics. They’re 17th in offense with a -0.4-point differential one year after breaking the all-time record for offensive efficiency. But this team is more than their profile suggests.
The Kings' statistics can be deceiving because De’Aaron Fox is so central to everything they do, and they played like a different team in his absence. Fox missed five games with an ankle injury, and they’re a much better squad with him back.
Lineups with Fox in them are scoring 124.4 points per 100 possessions, one of the top marks in the NBA. They’re shooting at an elite level, never turning it over, and getting out in transition and scoring in bunches in those groups.
With Fox restoring order and the Spurs focused on development over winning now, I think Sacramento should be in position to dominate this matchup.
My best bet: Kings -6.5 (-110 at DraftKings)
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Kings vs Spurs same-game parlay
Kings -6.5
Kings team total Over 119.5
De'Aaron Fox Over 1.5 steals
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Keeping it simple with Friday’s same game parlay, I’m pairing a Kings cover with their team total Over 119.5 points and Fox to go Over 1.5 steals.
The Kings just have so much shooting surrounding two All-NBA caliber creators in Domantas Sabonis and Fox. Kevin Huerter is also on fire to start the season, and Sasha Vezenkov gives them one more elite shooter for nights when Huerter or Malik Monk aren’t at the top of their game.
The Kings also run on makes relentlessly. The Spurs could get demoralized in this one and allow a truly gaudy score total.
For Fox’s part, he’s in the 87th percentile among point guards for steal percentage so far this season. He’s going to have plenty of chances against San Antonio, who are sloppy with the ball to a disastrous degree.
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Kings vs Spurs spread and Over/Under analysis
The Kings opened as -5.5 favorites against the Spurs for Friday. That’s since grown to as high a -7 at some sportsbooks, and if Jones gets ruled out ahead of tip-off, that could see this number climb even higher.
The Spurs are very much a team figuring stuff out. Spurs head coach Greg Popovic has been open about not giving Wemby too many instructions early on, instead wanting to see what he plays like before trying to mold him. Combined with the point Sochan experiment, this team is playing much below what they could be if they were optimized to win now.
The Kings, meanwhile, are a well-oiled machine and a real challenge to guard for a young team.
When their offense is humming around the handoff hub of Sabonis and Fox, the points can fall like an avalanche. It takes experience to know where to be and how to anticipate the cuts and options of this offense, and the Spurs will struggle with it.
Fox also has an edge in the pick and roll game when he’s playing alongside Alex Len or JaVale McGee, and having two offensive styles that stand in such great contrast to one another makes them a tough cover. The Spurs are 4-7 against the spread this season.
Friday’s total opened at 232.5 but has ballooned to as much as 237.5 at some sportsbooks. Though the Kings have modest offensive numbers in the aggregate, this team is capable of absolutely running up the score against even quality defenses.
In the two games since Fox’s return, they dropped 125 on the Los Angeles Lakers and 132 on the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Over is 9-2 in San Antonio’s 11 games.
Kings vs Spurs betting trend to know
The Spurs are 4-7 ATS this season. Find more NBA betting trends for Kings vs. Spurs.
Kings vs Spurs game info
| Location: | Frost Bank Center, San Antonio, TX |
| Date: | Friday, November 17, 2023 |
| Tip-off: | 7:30 p.m. ET |
| TV: | ESPN |
Kings vs Spurs latest injuries
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