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Kings vs. Lakers preview: DeMarcus Cousins's turn to show off his summer work

The Kings get another preseason game in on Thursday in Vegas. Yes, Vegas.

By Tom Ziller
Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

The Kings are back in action on Thursday, taking on the Lakers in Las Vegas at 7 p.m. Pacific on NBA TV and 1140 AM. There's no local TV, and I suspect we'll be getting the Lakers broadcast team on NBA TV.

We'll have a game thread at 7. Until then ...

3 THINGS OF SOME POTENTIAL IMPORT, POSSIBLY

1. Turnovers! Holy crap the Kings had a lot of turnovers on Monday: 26 of them. Almost everyone was culpable, including DeMarcus Cousins, Isaiah Thomas and Ben McLemore. That's far too many, obviously, and not something that is likely to happen regularly. In fact, the Kings ranked No. 9 in turnover rate last season: it was a major contributor to the better-than-average offensive ranking. We'll see how a perimeter rookie or two in the rotation plus the Tyreke Evans-Greivis Vasquez swap will affect that this season, but for the rest of the core, turnovers haven't traditionally been a problem. So it'd be nice to see that high-turnover trend end at one game.

2. DeMarcus Cousins on offense. We all appreciated Cousins's commitment on defense in Game 1. But offense was a different story: he forced the action, took lots of tough shots and finished 2-10 from the floor. But the Warriors have Andrew Bogut. The Lakers have Pau Gasol, Jordan Hill and Chris Kaman. Night and day in terms of defense. So hopefully we'll see Cousins more comfortable on offense.

3. McLemore! He was a whole lot of fun on Monday. More, please.

PREGAME HAIKU

The city of sin
and Maloofs, which is way worse.
Don't catch something, Kings.

PREDILICTION

More concerns from the TV broadcasters about DMC's big extension than the fact that Kobe is making $30 million this season.

PREDICTION

Kings 104, Lakers 96.

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