This past March, when Nik Stauskas was still sporting a blue and yellow Wolverines jersey, his mom, Ruta Stauskas could be seen every so often in the stands wearing a “Real Moms of Basketball” T-Shirt.
Nowadays, his mom is getting social.
“I know she always goes on Twitter and checks my tweets, but I thought she was going on Twitter [without a username],” Nik admitted. “But then I found out she has a Twitter account, so I gave her a shout-out. She actually has some followers now and she followed me back.”
Ruta created a profile (@RStauskas) roughly five months ago and started favoriting her son’s posts. At the time, Nik didn’t realize who it really was, but recently checked her profile and found out his mom was following one of his current teammates.
“I saw zero followers and 1 following and there’s Boogie Cousins,” said Stauskas with a big grin. “Cuz was the only person she was following – he’s her favorite player apparently.”
Stauskas Ready for Early Test
Nik Stauskas is beginning to realize what the rigors of an 82-game regular season mean in the NBA. Not only does No. 10’s rookie season feature 17 sets of back-to-back games, but October & November also boast 11-of-17 matchups against playoff teams from a season ago.
“We’re playing some good playoff teams in this first month [of the season] and a lot of road games too, so it’s going to be a difficult challenge for us,” said Stauskas, who admitted the daily flight plans will take some time to get used to.
As a unit, the Kings have already surpassed 15,000 miles traveled this preseason with another thousand in the books today as the team heads to Las Vegas to face the Los Angeles Lakers.
The flights may take their toll on the player’s bodies, but they haven’t stopped Sacramento’s offense from putting up encouraging numbers. With field goal percentages near the top of the NBA and averaging over 100 points per game, the Kings are looking to carry those numbers into the regular season.
“I feel like we’ve made some good strides so far,” said Stauskas. “I think we’ve shown signs of playing really well together offensively and defensively. At this point, it’s about us being consistent – that’s what separates the good teams and the great teams, the ability to do it for 48 minutes every single night. I believe we’re on that path, we just have to keep working.”
When asked just how good he thinks this offense can be, Stauskas replied, “I think it can be really good. With a guy as talented as DeMarcus – you saw it down in San Antonio, he’s virtually unstoppable when he gets it going like that – we have a lot of great pieces around him – guys who can shoot and make plays for each other.”
‘We Have to be Ready to Roll’
With a handful of seasoned veterans leading the way, practices have been intense, unforgiving and emotional.
“We’re trying to change things around here,” said center Ryan Hollis. “We’re going to go down fighting whether we win or lose, and you’re going to have a fight when you play us. That mentality has to start in practice.”
The Kings will look to carry that mindset over into Friday’s preseason game against the rival Los Angeles Lakers – a game no player is taking lightly.
“We have to set the tone for the season, so we’re trying not to approach this as preseason, but a regular-season game,” added Hollins. “[We want to] do the things that we’ll do once the season starts, so we have to be ready to roll.”