The dribble handoff theory is sound: The hub, typically a center brutal enough to screen trailing defenders but skilled enough with the rock to make quick passing decisions, thwarts the typical pick-and-roll Coverage by acting as both ball-handler and screener at the same time. With a live dribble, they have the latitude to punish overzealous help defenses and dictate the angle of the screen. The player bypassing the DHO can either jump into open space or attack a slightly displaced defense, with the hub either rolling or popping on its own.

One NBA team, Sacramento, has made the DHO the foundation of its half-court offense. That made perfect sense when the Kings implemented the system two seasons ago and won 48 games; It also helps explain why the team is currently losing out in a conference it passed.

The Kings are 9-12, good for 12th place in the cutthroat West. Since De’Aaron Fox dragged them over the finish line against the Jazz, they have gone 6-1 and lost at home to the Hawks, Nets, Blazers and Spurs. They played the fourth easiest schedule in the league and, as a result, have the second hardest schedule remaining. It was a deeply disappointing first quarter of the season, which to some extent can only be explained by injuries and the West’s even more obvious superiority. So why are they like this?

The silver lining seeker would point to the team’s slightly positive point differential, disadvantage in luck stats, and terrible record in close games and say the Kings aren’t really “like that.” The optimist would point to the Kings’ terrible three-point shooting numbers and their opponents’ eye-popping totals, and argue how seasons and games in the modern NBA depend on the random number generation of volume three-point shooting. The experience of actually watching the team play does not confirm this optimistic attitude. I think the three-point shooting gap doesn’t excuse the team’s failure, but rather explains it.

Simply put, the Kings have failed to keep up with the evolution of the game. This is what it looks like — the ignominious losses to bad teams, the multiple lost clues, the general feeling of being on a northbound boat looking south — what it looks like to be left behind.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that teams are conceding more three-pointers than ever before, although the magnitude of the jump this season is notable. After the average three-point attempt rate fluctuated between 38.4 percent and 39.9 percent for five seasons, the average NBA possession results in a three-point attempt 42.3 percent of the time in the 2024-25 season. That’s a 2.8 percent increase over last season and the largest increase in eight years, which is striking considering that the prevailing pattern in the NBA for a decade has been for teams to hit more three-pointers.

This season it has been interesting to watch how the defense has responded to the barrage. The best units in the league are extremely aggressive and are a lot of fun to watch. They deny players space on the sidelines, aggressively push the shooters and rotate backwards to quickly negate advantages. This is the type of tactic that can only be implemented when all five players act as a unit. The cat-and-mouse metagame of NBA offenses and defenses adapting to each other is always fascinating to watch, and with the offense just a tick behind despite all the three-point weaponry, I’d argue that the Defense finally achieved tactical superiority.

A new dominant form has emerged. Gone are the Thibsist over-rotations from two passes away and the Budenholzerian edge bunkers. Nothing so reactive works against the kind of distance we see today. The only way to fight and win this battle is with aggression and coordination, with all five guys actively trying to make plays and rotate together. Many good teams play more of their reserve players, which allows them to maintain a higher level of freshness and intensity.

That brings us back to the Kings’ DHO stuff, which doesn’t work against teams that can play that way. The problem with Sacramento’s DHO offense is that it relies on teams miscommunicating and making mistakes. For two seasons (actually more like a year and a half), the Kings consistently scored free points through cheap backcuts and wide-open threes, as teams were asked multiple times per possession to defend something like Domantas Sabonis did by passing it or not passing it to Keegan Murray. Two players, including the opposing center, would have to make the right decision again and again at the edge, otherwise the Kings would have a free shot. The problem is that if both guys don’t lose their minds and allow someone to slide to the rim, it’s very easy to make the right decision, which is to chase the ball handler and rotate to the handoff receiver. The Warriors won their first-round series against the Kings two years ago by clogging up the passing lanes and daring Sabonis to score, which he couldn’t.

This year, teams are focusing on the Kings’ shooters and working on handoffs, which is extremely easy now that DeMar DeRozan is in town, to either hit incredibly difficult mid-range jumpers on his possession or stand there and to let the defense play 4-4. on-5 on every other possession. For the third straight year, Sacramento leads the league in DHO frequency, although the Kings are currently scoring just 0.87 points per possession after two years of posting a top-five rate among DHOs, according to NBA.com . They rank 25th in three-point percentage and 24th in attempts.

Two statistics that are uncomfortably similar: Keegan Murray’s three-point shooting and the Sacramento Kings’ win percentage. In the 2022-23 season, Murray set a new rookie record for three-pointers made, making 206 while shooting 41.1 percent. This year, he’s only completing 27.4 percent of his long balls on 5.6 attempts per game. That’s a stunning regression that I think is best explained by the type of three-pointers he’s making in the Kings’ primary offense. The tracking data shows only a slight decline in open and wide-open threes for Murray. However, when you look at the Kings, you see that Murray is under some pressure on most of these shots and that teams don’t let him release anything cleanly from the corners or above the break. So it’s easy to interpret Murray’s torrid 2022-23 season as a quirk of timing. He’s a mediocre athlete who can’t create separation on the perimeter, and when the factory for good shots closes because opponents have adjusted, there’s not much he can do.

Sunday night’s loss to the Spurs was the epitome of the Kings’ season so far. Sacramento dominated in play, on the offensive glass and in transition, but lost by two points, and San Antonio made 23 threes to Sacramento’s 12. The Spurs happily ran everything through Victor Wembanyam and happily took the open threes the Kings gave up to him excessively helping; On the other hand, they forced Fox and Sabonis to perform under a lot of pressure unless the Kings simply played into the Spurs’ hands and left DeRozan isolated. The Spurs are arguably less talented than Sacramento, although they are much deeper than the Kings – who have one of the worst benches in the league – and are far better able to maintain good spacing.

You can look at the Kings’ wins in all the traditional categories and complain about shooting luck, but I saw something far more concerning: A team that knows how to play in 2024 is beating a team that doesn’t.