NBA basketball is back. The Kings are one of 22 teams that will resume the season beginning Thursday inside the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando.

The Kings will play the San Antonio Spurs on Friday in the first of eight seeding games before the postseason begins. They will have to outplay the Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trail Blazers and New Orleans Pelicans over those eight games to force a play-in scenario for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference.

No one could have envisioned this as we left Golden 1 Center on March 11 after the NBA postponed the Kings’ game against the Pelicans and suspended its season due to the coronavirus pandemic. Eventually the bubble concept was born and now we’re here, bracing for an abbreviated end to the regular season and a truncated playoff race that promises to be wildly unpredictable.

How will Kings coach Luke Walton plan to attack the bubble? Who will he start? Who’s ready for some basketball? You have questions and we have answers in this week’s NBA restart edition of the Kings mailbag.

Note: Some questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How much will Richaun Holmes play?

@JamesNalley13 asks: Should we expect to see 25+ minutes for Richaun Holmes in the first game of the restart after he saw 18 in the last scrimmage?

That might be a tad on the high side for Game 1, but probably not unreasonable if Holmes is playing well and the Kings need those minutes from him.

Holmes was working through some rhythm and timing issues in Monday’s scrimmage against the Los Angeles Clippers, but he said his conditioning wasn’t a problem. He was quarantined for 10 days in a 320-square-foot hotel room after inadvertently leaving the NBA bubble. That is not an ideal training environment for a world-class athlete, but Holmes made the most of it, emerging from isolation without any apparent atrophy.

“I tore that room up, doing defensive slides, doing little quick sprints as much as I can, jumping rope,” Holmes said. “We had an exercise bike in there. I was doing a lot to stay busy, doing a lot to keep myself in shape, and I always ended with the punching bag, so it was a good cardio session.”

Walton has noted on a couple of occasions the team is consulting with the sports science side of the Kings’ medical staff to monitor individual workloads in an effort to prevent injuries after an extended layoff. Ultimately, this decision will be up to them, but Holmes has boundless energy and it won’t take long for him to get into to shape.

Is Luke Walton headed for the hot seat?

@real_one_mayne asks: Will Luke Walton be on the hot seat if the Kings go winless?

No.

Who should start for the Kings?

@foxthefuture asks: It seems like an endless debate always, but what do you think the starting lineup should look like?

This is such a tough question, complicated by the fact that this team hasn’t been healthy even once this season. Some people point to the season opener, but Harry Giles III was unavailable and Marvin Bagley III was out with a broken thumb by the end of the night.

You might remember they started that game with De’Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield, Harrison Barnes, Bagley and Dewayne Dedmon. They wanted to pair Bagley with a floor-spacing big, but Dedmon was dreadful and Bagley has been hurt all season, so that didn’t work.

Fortunately, this team has good depth, so Walton still has options. In my mind, it comes down to two questions: 1. Should Hield return to the starting lineup at shooting guard; and 2. Should Barnes move to power forward?

It’s fun to talk about how certain lineup changes would impact the team, but it’s usually wise to defer to the head coach on these matters. Probably more so in the bubble environment, where so much depends on what each player did during the shutdown and what each is capable of doing RIGHT THIS MINUTE in an eight-game playoff race.

That has been difficult to ascertain, even for coaches, because of injuries and now because of COVID-19 — because 2020 — but now they know what they have. They see the players in practice every day, and they have the strength team monitoring everybody with machines like they’re Ivan Drago.

They also have access to the best in advanced analytics, so they have to know they are better with Barnes at power forward. This is a question Walton has quietly wrestled with all season. He has mentioned the effectiveness of the team’s small-ball lineups. He knows the Kings rank 26th in the NBA in net rating (-4.6) with Barnes at small forward and 12th with him at power forward (+2.3), as Tim Maxwell of The Kings Herald explained in great detail earlier this month.

If you’re wondering why the Kings have shown a tendency to fall behind early all season, this might be part of the problem. Barnes was the prototypical small forward the Kings had been missing since Rudy Gay got hurt, but the game is evolving and even Gay is playing power forward now for the San Antonio Spurs.

We know the Kings have been good when Walton goes to his bench and slides Barnes over to power forward, but that tends to happen against the opponent’s second unit. The question is whether the Kings would be better against opposing starters with Barnes at power forward, with Hield at shooting guard and with Bogdan Bogdanovic as an undersized small forward, and then how does that affect the bench?

Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that. Hield has struggled with defense and decision making, but he is working hard to improve in areas of deficiency and has established himself as one of the most elite shooters the NBA has ever seen. That’s why the Kings signed him to a four-year, $86 million extension in October. If Hield can guard his position and take care of the ball, you start him. If not, you bring him off the bench to light up the opposition in moments when he doesn’t have to spend so much time guarding other elite scorers.

We also have to consider how a small-ball lineup would change Nemanja Bjelica’s role. According to Basketball Reference, Bjelica is one of only five Kings with a positive plus-minus rating at +6. The others are Holmes (+23), Alex Len (+14), Giles (+3) and Barnes (+1).

I can tell you this: Last weekend as Barnes made his way to Florida, I asked Walton if he had decided whether to move forward with him starting at small forward or power forward.

“That’s all going to depend on how Harrison looks,” Walton said. “If Harrison is completely healthy and ready to go, then we’ll take a look at that, but right now we haven’t seen him in a while, so it’s too early to make that call.”

How is Alex Len?

@Kellen_Browning asks: What’s up with Alex Len? COVID-19 hit him hard?

One player the Kings haven’t gotten back yet is Len, the 7-foot center who came to Sacramento in a February trade with the Atlanta Hawks. Hield and Jabari Parker recovered fairly quickly from COVID-19 and Barnes never developed symptoms, but Len was hit much harder by the virus.

Len lost taste and smell and experienced chest tightness during a 24-day battle with COVID-19 before he was cleared to join the team July 17. Nearly two weeks later, Len is still trying to get game-ready in time for Friday’s bubble opener against the Spurs.

“We’re hopeful,” Walton said earlier this week. “He’s working hard, but he has not joined any 5-on-5 contact-type of drills yet. … We’re hopeful that we can have him by the time games start, but there’s a chance that we don’t.”

More small ball?

@Dalerich81 asks: Will we see a lot of small ball by the Kings?

Yes, whether Walton starts a small-ball lineup or not, he will make good use of that personnel group. Despite being the team’s starting small forward, Barnes has logged 54% of his minutes at power forward and 3% at center, so Walton isn’t shy about going small.

With Bagley out and Len’s status still uncertain, Holmes and Giles are the only true centers, although we’ll probably see Bjelica get minutes there as well.

One thing we should keep an eye on is the physical condition of Barnes, who leads the team with 2,231 minutes this season. If Barnes isn’t able to log as many minutes after missing time with the coronavirus, Walton will have to decide how he wants to divide those minutes between the two forward spots, and who fills in the gaps. That could mean more minutes for guys like Kent Bazemore, Corey Brewer and DaQuan Jeffries.

DaQuan Jeffries or Corey Brewer?

@CJ4011 asks: What are your thoughts on DaQuan Jeffries vs. Corey Brewer? Who does Walton lean on when the games count?

Brewer, 34, is a trusted 13-year NBA vet. He played for Walton with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2017-18 and for the Kings in 2018-19, so coaches and teammates know what to expect from him.

Jeffries, 22, is an undrafted rookie who is emerging as an intriguing prospect. He’s 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds with a 6-11¼ wingspan. He’s incredibly strong, very switchable defensively and an explosive leaper who soars high above the rim for lobs and put-back dunks. Walton said Jeffries “has earned the right for us to keep looking at him.”

I think that’s your answer, but if the moment proves to be too much for the rookie the Kings know they can depend on Brewer.

Will Luke Walton use his depth?

@RekeDMC asks: Nobody’s really talking about the depth and versatility of the Kings, which is as good or arguably better than the other No. 8 seed hopefuls. With conditioning likely a league-wide issue, seems as though this is an advantage if used properly. Will Luke use a 8- or 10-man rotation?

You pretty much said it all. Walton has to go at least 10 deep if he wants to utilize the team’s depth and versatility. That seems like a must in this environment.

Let’s say you start Fox, Bogdanovic, Barnes, Bjelica and Holmes with Cory Joseph, Hield, Bazemore and Giles as primary backups. That gives you a nine-man rotation and you still haven’t accounted for Len’s role as a defensive enforcer or the wing depth provide by guys like Brewer and Jeffries.

I would anticipate rotation minutes for nine or 10 players with spot duty for two or three others.

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