Overlooked Kings star deserves inclusion in discussion of best big men

Sacramento Kings center Domantas Sabonis went off again Monday night, posting a double-double for the 54th consecutive game, the longest streak since the 1976-77 ABA-NBA merger.

Sabonis broke the record in grand fashion during Sacramento’s 108-96 win over Philadelphia by also posting a triple-double. He finished with 11 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists. 

Despite his output game after game, Sabonis is rarely mentioned in any conversation about the best big men in the NBA.

Sabonis has been a double-double machine dating to his days his days with the Indiana Pacers, where he was a two-time All-Star before being traded to the Kings in 2022. 

The son of former Portland Trail Blazer and Hall of Famer Arvydas Sabonis, Domantas is having his best season in the Association, averaging 19.8 points and 13.7 rebounds. He's having such a good season — he's shooting 60.8% from the field and 40.8% from three — that his name has entered the MVP conversation.

Whether Sabonis ends up getting MVP consideration or not, it is a bit surprising how he continues to be overlooked when it comes to the top big men in the league. He's not on the level of Denver's Nikola Jokic or Philadelphia's Joel Embiid (when healthy), but you’d be hard-pressed to find many other centers impacting the game as much as Sabonis.

The hierarchy of NBA centers isn’t exactly the deepest of depth charts. Make no mistake, there are good NBA centers, but only two or three can be considered dominant — and that depends on what position the Lakers' Anthony Davis plays on a given night.

Sabonis’ double-double streak has been one of the quietest accumulated records we’ve seen. Many fans probably didn’t hear much about it until he’d gotten within a couple of games of setting the record. Had this been Embiid or Jokic, we’d hear about it every day.