Sacramento Kings
Other than being a division rival, the Kings are also a strange matchups with the Suns.
The Suns have a weakness at point guard and power forward, which happen to be the Kings’ strengths. Given that the teams are building around inverse types of players, the games should be very fun to watch.
The two young cores are both rounding out well, and the teams seem to be on a similar timetable. The Kings boast De’Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield, and Marvin Bagley III, the latter of which is in a similar boat as Luka Doncic.
Taken the pick after Deandre Ayton, Bagley will always be a guy the Suns will look back on and wonder if they shouldn’t have selected. If he turns out to be a good player, it will always beg the question: is he better than Ayton?
He made it clear before the draft that he believed he should be the number one pick, and that could mean he has some resentment towards Ayton and feels disrespected by the Suns. Those are exactly the kinds of feelings that lead to hostility.
The Kings don’t have their first round pick this year because they traded it to the Sixers to sign Rajon Rondo for some reason. That definitely puts a damper on their chances going forward. But they still have the core to compete with Phoenix going forward in what could already be a budding rivalry.