CHICAGO — A little more than an hour before tipoff at United Center, Buddy Hield sat at his stall in the visitors locker room with his trademark smile.
It was if he knew something no one else knew about the game that was to be played.
He was being replaced by Bogdan Bogdanovic in the starting lineup and coming off the bench for the first time since the 2017-18 season.
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Still Hield was grinning, perhaps to cover up the confusion as to why amid all that’s wrong with the Kings this season, he was the one losing his starting job.
Hield responded with a team-high 21 points in Sacramento’s 98-81 win over the Chicago Bulls to end their six-game losing streak.
After the game, Hield told The Athletic his sunny disposition before the game was how he dealt with the talk that he was at fault for the Kings’ struggles the last five-plus weeks that saw the Kings go from 12-14 (going 12-9 after an 0-5 start) before stumbling to 15 losses in the next 19 games.
So Hield, who never seems to be down, kept smiling and kept with his usual pregame routine before heading to chapel as he always does.
As for his play on the court, Hield has been criticized for his shot selection, turnovers and defense.
Still, Hield is all smiles.
“Stuff like that, they don’t start you and after that everybody says, ‘Oh, he’s the problem,'” Hield said. “You just let everybody know what the fuck is going on. That’s what I’ve been doing and God he knows what I’m doing, I know what I’m capable of doing.
“Nobody was saying that when we had a 12-14 record, it was, ‘He’s carrying the team,’ stuff like that. When we start losing, it’s a big problem. It is what it is, I’ve just got to stay confident, stay locked in and be ready and professional. That’s what it is, man. If I’m happy or not happy, I’m not going to show it out on the court. I’m going to go out and play my minutes.”
Kings coach Luke Walton said the decision was not meant to blame Hield for any of the team’s struggles.
Instead it was about trying to find something that might spark the Kings, who have dealt with injuries to key players all season and were coming off a disheartening 21-point loss to a short-handed Detroit team Wednesday.
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“We’re struggling to win games right now so we’re looking to see different groups give us a better chance to do that,” Walton said before the game. “There’s nothing permanent with it, it’s not a punishment to Buddy at all. Buddy’s been great, we expect him to be great again for us tonight. We’ve got to find something, we’ve got to keep looking for something that works for us.”
It worked against the Bulls. Hield shot 7 of 12, 5 of 9 on 3-pointers and had eight rebounds. It was as good as Walton could have expected Hield to react to being benched.
“We talk about team a lot and it doesn’t matter who starts and it really doesn’t,” Walton said after the game. “But sometimes when you do that, players can take it and go in a negative direction. He did the exact opposite. We don’t win that game tonight without Buddy.”
That doesn’t mean Hield didn’t take Friday’s decision personally. The Kings have had myriad issues, but as the only player removed from the starting lineup, it stung, even if Hield was smiling.
“Of course, as a competitor you’ve got to look at it like that,” Hield said to reporters after the game. “You want to figure out the reason for that. You never get a straight-cut, clear answer, but as a player, as a professional, you go out there and lock in and whatever the coach wants you to do, you do. Regardless if you like it or not, you’ve still got to be locked in and ready to play and when he calls your number, just produce.”
Though Walton praised Hield before and after the game, the relationship Hield and Walton seemed to build during the offseason has definitely been affected and made him question his contributions.
Hield had questioned whether Walton trusted him last month after he was held out of games in the fourth quarter because of his defense.
The two publicly patched things up and Hield apologized to his teammates for causing a distraction, but even with a smile, not starting bothered Hield.
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“It feels like they give up on you and that’s kind of insulting regardless of how anybody takes it,” Hield said. “And when I say insulting, I don’t mean they disrespected me, I just felt like I’m letting everybody down and they don’t believe in me. It just feels like a big letdown for myself, it’s insulting for myself.”
As for now, Hield is a part of the Kings’ nucleus, having signed a four-year contract extension worth $86 million in October that could be worth as much as $106 million in incentives.
It’s not the kind of contract teams sign reserves to, and Hield does not see himself as a reserve. Hield was the key player acquired when the Kings traded All-Star center DeMarcus Cousins in February 2017 to New Orleans.
Former Kings coach Dave Joerger preferred to bring Hield off the bench, but an injury to Bogdanovic to start the season cleared the way for Hield to start last season, and he broke out, averaging a career-high 20.7 points, made a franchise-record 278 3-pointers and held the starting shooting guard job until Friday.
Entering Friday, Hield was averaging 20.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and a career-best 3.5 assists, but his shooting percentages had dipped with more responsibility.
Hield shot 45.8 percent from the field and 42.7 percent from 3 last season. Those were down to 41.6 percent and 36 percent, respectively, entering Friday.
Hield said in spite of the situation, he feels good about himself. So the smile isn’t going anywhere.
“My confidence is always high, man,” Hield said. “Just some weird shit going on. Just got to figure it out.”
(Photo: Nam Y. Huh / AP)
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