A few weeks ago I heard something that piqued my interest on the Sactown Royalty Podcast, hosted by Tony Xypteras, when he had Bryant West on as a guest. After a deep dive into the upcoming draft class they discussed the development of Buddy Hield and Bogdan Bogdanovic. Both players are at their best when playing the 2, so they questioned what their roles on the team should be over the next few years. Buddy has mostly been the 6th man this season, but they made the point that he might be getting too good not to include in the starting lineup going forward. Then Tony asked the question that really got me thinking:

"Do you think Buddy Hield, Bogdan Bogdanovic and De'Aaron Fox should just start and play together?"

They went on to discuss their concerns with starting such a small lineup. Bryant remarked that despite his listed height, Bogi is only about 6'4" and Buddy is even shorter. This presents a problem in a league with so many long and gifted wings. Obviously Fox is the point guard of the future for the Kings, and his role in the lineup is not part of the question. So I wondered to myself exactly how well Buddy and Bogi had played together throughout this past season. I had seen bits and pieces of it, but not enough to be sure if it was really working or not. It interested me, but I didn't really think about it too hard. Then just yesterday Tim Maxwell (The Baby Giraffe) made a point on Twitter that reminded me of the question they had posed. He posted that the Kings need a clear first-option scorer, and may have to trade up to get one. I replied that Buddy was actually a pretty high scorer on a per-minute basis, and asked why simply playing him more wouldn't solve that problem. Maxwell included this in his response: "It's the conundrum of the Kings that their two best players (Hield and Bogi) play the same position."

A conundrum, indeed. After reading that reply I decided that it was time I get to the bottom of this issue, and see how the Kings performed with both players on the court. So I looked up the ten most common lineups for the Kings, and their scoring differentials. Here is what I found:

The first thing that jumped out to me was the fact that the Kings didn't play a single lineup for more than 174 minutes across the whole season. There may be some decent reasons for that. The Kings are young and they lack an identity. The veterans need their rest and the prospects need to find their fits and best pairings. But it was surprising to learn that over 3951 minutes of game time, the most common lineup was on the court for only 174 minutes. That's only 4.4% of the time. For contrast, the Timberwolves played their Teague-Wiggins-Butler-Gibson-Towns lineup for 1,131 minutes, or 28.6% of the time. And that figure would have been even higher had Butler not been injured this year. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the Kings go "full Thibs" and pick five guys to play 40 minutes a night, but somewhere in the middle would be nice. And it would go a long way to addressing The Baby Giraffe's concern of not having a high PPG player.

But back to the matter at hand. Let's look at the "plus/minus" and "plus/minus per 48" columns of that first chart. Only two of the ten most frequent lineups for the Kings finished positive on the season. Who were the common players on both lineups? Turns out that it's Bogi, Buddy, and Willie Cauley-Stein. I found this very interesting, but the sample size seems small. Even though they were the 5th and 6th most frequent lineups, they didn't even comprise 5% of the Kings playing time this year when combined. So next I tried to isolate that trio of players and compare it to other common trios. I hoped to confirm the significance of this grouping with a higher sample size. Here's how the ten most frequent trios performed for the Kings this year:

So we see that none of the common trios had a positive plus/minus on the year, but one clearly outperformed the team average. As suspected, it was the Bogdan-Hield-WCS grouping. This iteration of the Kings had a scoring differential that was about 2.6 points better than team average on a much more substantial sample size. I personally wouldn't have predicted that Willie would be in the mix like this. I am pretty firmly in the camp that wants the Kings to extend Cauley-Stein and am surprised at how often I see Fanposts on StR that are hopeful he will be traded. Maybe there is a strong Pro-Willie argument that could be made based on these numbers, but I don't feel inclined to make it here or now. I'll just let the numbers speak for themselves. In fact, I think it's wise to take him out of the mix and just look at how the Bogdan and Buddy pairing did, as compared to the other most common duos:

So there is the meat and potatoes of the original question. Can Buddy and Bogdan play together? Yes, of course they can. Can they be successful? Clearly the answer is yes. It seems that they were actually the most successful combo that the Kings fielded all year. The fact that lineups that contained both players resulted in a point differential that was 3.6 points higher than the average Kings lineup makes me want them on the court together. Just because neither is at their best when defending the Small Forward position doesn't mean they need to be staggered in the lineup completely. While I absolutely agree with Bryant and Tony that a lineup with three guys under 6'5" will have serious defensive issues, I don't see a better option on the roster right now. If starting a true 3 with more size like Justin Jackson means that the team is going to play worse, I'm happy to put an undersized player at that position.

What's more important than chasing these numbers though, is using them as a model for building successful lineups going forward. Let's keep in mind what types of lineups and groupings worked, and what didn't. The lineups that worked had multiple shooters, which translate to better spacing. If the Kings end up drafting a wing with good size and shooting, then the benefits of starting Bogi and Buddy together could become redundant. The same could happen if Justin Jackson develops a better stroke from range, though I wouldn't necessarily count on that. My gut feeling is that Willie's presence on the most successful lineups suggests that the gravity of a seven-footer playing around the rim enhances the spacing created by the shooters. This opens up lanes for passing, cutting, and driving. But some credit is likely owed to WCS for recent improvements in his assist and turnover ratios as well. What didn't work? Well, I'll just point out that all five of the worst performing trios had Zach Randolph in them. Same goes for the two worst performing duos. If you've seen Fanposts from me before then you know my feelings on Randolph, but what these numbers suggest to me is that he is likely taking too many shots away from Bogi and Buddy. The Kings may be better served with a 4 who is more willing to pass, less likely to turn it over, or more active on defense. In an ideal scenario they could get all three of those qualities.

So with all of that in mind, I can't help but imagine what my answer would be if Tony were to pose the question to me now.

"Do you think Buddy Hield, Bogdan Bogdanovic and De'Aaron Fox should just start and play together?"

"Absolutely," I would say. "At least until the Kings get a bigger wing who can shoot."