{"id":361839,"date":"2026-06-15T20:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T20:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/361839\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T20:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T20:44:09","slug":"top-nba-prospect-had-private-workout-with-sacramento-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/361839\/","title":{"rendered":"Top NBA prospect had private workout with Sacramento Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sacramento Kings have brought in dozens of NBA prospects for pre-draft workouts in recent weeks. Most of those workouts were announced ahead of time and most of those prospects were made available to the media, but one player came in under the radar.<\/p>\n

League sources told The Sacramento Bee on Monday that the Kings brought Arkansas star Darius Acuff Jr. to Sacramento last week for a private individual workout.<\/p>\n

Many draft analysts and NBA talent evaluators view Acuff as the best pure point guard in this year\u2019s draft. The Kings will strongly consider Acuff if he is available when they make their first-round pick at No. 7, but some are predicting he will go to the Los Angeles Clippers at No. 5 or the Brooklyn Nets at No. 6.<\/p>\n

Acuff, a 19-year-old native of Detroit, is 6-foot-3 and 186 pounds with a 6-7 wingspan. He has drawn comparisons to Stephon Marbury, Coby White and Damian Lillard. Kings general manager Scott Perry coached Acuff\u2019s father at Eastern Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Acuff averaged 23.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 6.4 assists in his only season at Arkansas to help coach John Calipari\u2019s Razorbacks reach the NCAA Tournament\u2019s Sweet 16. He shot 48.4% from the field, 44.3% from 3-point range and 80.9% at the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

Calipari\u2019s programs have produced an impressive line of NBA guards over the past 20 years, including Derrick Rose, John Wall, Tyreke Evans, Jamal Murray, Devin Booker, De\u2019Aaron Fox, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyler Herro and Tyrese Maxey. Acuff averaged more points than any of them, and only Wall averaged more assists (6.5).<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Kendrick Perkins had high praise for Acuff on \u201cFirst Take\u201d back in February, saying: \u201cHe is the best guard that John Calipari has coached. I\u2019m not talking about NBA career \u2014 college career. … I would actually take Darius Acuff Jr. with the No. 1pick. He is Steph Marbury times two with a Derrick Rose mentality as far as his demeanor. He is a bona fide killer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Jason Anderson<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Jason Anderson has been the Sacramento Kings beat writer for The Sacramento Bee since 2018. He is a Sacramento native who is proud to provide coverage that is as passionate and dedicated as the loyal Kings fan base.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sacramento Kings have brought in dozens of NBA prospects for pre-draft workouts in recent weeks. Most of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-361839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}