Hassan Whiteside's fringe players who were cut to the Kings were a wake-up call to realize that they were not safe in their position on the team, including Li Tian, who was a little relieved that he was finally officially in the team's rotation and was able to get a certain amount of playing time almost every night.

In the subsequent home game against the Suns, Li Tian once again got 9 minutes of playing time, but his performance in this game was not as impressive as in the previous games, scoring only 4 points on 2-of-4 shooting, and one of the reasons for this was that he and Thomas were on the court for a while.

Of course, in addition to scoring, Li Tian also contributed in other aspects, in addition to getting 1 rebound, there was also 1 steal and 1 assist.

In the end, the Kings lost to the Suns 96-104 and failed to win two in a row. It's not easy for the Kings to get a winning streak right now.

I don't know if Li Tian's performance in this game disappointed Smart, or because the veteran Garcia played well, Li Tian did not get the opportunity to play in the next away game against Celtic. In this 84-92 loss to the Celtics, although Li Tian's veteran rival Thomas and veteran Garcia performed well, scoring 23 and 17 points respectively, Cousins and Evans' abnormal play still made the Kings have to accept defeat and usher in two consecutive defeats.

Fortunately, Smart did not keep Li Tian on the bench this time, and in the second game of the Eastern Conference road trip, in the game against the Washington Wizards, Li Tian got the opportunity to play again, and had a good performance in the game against Tanhua Brand Beal.

In this game, Li Tian played 15 minutes for the first time, got 11 points, 2 rebounds and 1 block, and helped the team win 98-91 against the opponent and end the losing streak.

After the victory over the Wizards, the Kings continued the third game of their Eastern Conference road trip, this time against the Philadelphia 76ers, and finally the Kings won 93-87 again, a rare two-game winning streak.

In this game, the hero of the King's victory was the star Terek Evans, who had 29 points, 6 assists, 2 steals and 4 rebounds in this game.

The team's other core, DeMarcus Cousins, contributed a double-double of 19 points and 12 rebounds, and also took it

to three times capping.

Li Tian continued to come off the bench in this game, got 14 minutes of playing time, 4 of 6 shots, 1 of 2 three-pointers, and scored 9 points, and half of Evans' assists were obtained through Li Tian.

The Kings' rare two-game winning streak was a bit of a surprise to the fans, but the King's immaturity was also evident at this time, and then, they were shocked to lose five in a row.

Away 10 points to the Thunder, this game is normal, after all, the gap in strength between the two teams is not small, and the Thunder was reversed by the king not long ago, and naturally the strength will be completely revealed in the game, a blood feud.

However, the next two big defeats were really unexpected, 93:121 at home, a 28-point margin to the Nuggets, and this game saw that there were almost no fans in the arena at the end.

And then the game at Madison Square kept many fans until the end, but these fans were to see how the Knicks bullied the Kings.

81:120,39 points of fiasco. In this game, the whole team of the Kings seemed to be blinded, several main players played abnormally, and the performance of the substitutes was extremely average. Li Tian scored seven points in the last 12 minutes, and Robinson had a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds in this game, but to no avail.

The Knicks scored double-doubles in six players in this game, including Anthony, Stoudemire, and JR-Smith all scored more than 20 points, and the Kings' defense completely collapsed.

As if they were addicted to losing, the Kings lost to the Jazz and Grizzlies on the road, and the only consolation for the Kings was that they did not lose badly in these two games, with scores of 91-98 and 102-107 respectively, and the margin was in single digits.

In the locker room, Li Tian can clearly feel that the team atmosphere is not good, and the head coach Smart's temper is much worse, whether it is in the locker room or in the team training, the probability of Smart roaring has increased significantly.

It's no wonder Smart is like this, the King's record at this time is 17-34, and the winning rate is only 33 percent, and the pressure on Smart can be imagined.

While the Kings are in turmoil, the team may even change hands, and management is likely to make changes, Smart can't guarantee that management will take him first.

Especially at this time, the players on the team also began to voice dissatisfaction, Evans and Cousins both expressed their disappointment with the team's record in interviews.

To Smart's and the Kings' delight, in the next game, they finally waited for their long-awaited victory, hosting the Utah Jazz, who won by 120-109 by 11 points.

In this game, the Kings blossomed more, and seven players on the team scored double-doubles, including Li Tian's 11 points, which was also his second double-double after the away game against the Wizards, and his efficiency was still good in terms of his 13 minutes of playing time.

By this time, the time has come to mid-February, the All-Star Weekend is about to begin, and the Kings only have one last game left before the All-Star Weekend, and the opponent is the Houston Rockets.

In terms of strength, the Rockets are naturally superior, but the result is that the Kings won the game, although the Kings' defense in this game is still not flattering, and the Rockets scored 124 points in the whole game, but fortunately, the Kings continued the offensive state of the previous game, this time they had 7 people score double-doubles, and 3 people got 20+, with such offensive firepower, they finally won the game 131:124.

Li Tian was also one of the seven people who scored double doubles, and he scored exactly 10 points.

In the 10 games before the All-Star Weekend, Li Tian got the opportunity to play in 7 games, averaging 11.2 minutes per game, averaging 8 points, 1 rebound, 1.1 steals and 0.7 assists per game.

It is not eye-catching in terms of statistics alone, but combined with his playing time, his performance is undoubtedly very good, and this performance has also attracted the attention of some media, especially domestic media.

Many Chinese media began to focus on Sacramento and Li Tian, and some domestic basketball fans also began to pay attention to Li Tian's performance.

The king itself is not very popular in the Chinese, coupled with the team's poor record, and Li Tian's playing times and time are still relatively short, so such attention has not formed a scale, but, just as a spark can ignite the plain, as a Chinese player, Li Tian actually does not need to worry too much about popularity, as long as his performance can reach the league average level and have relatively stable playing time, popularity will naturally increase.

To Li Tian and Pete Smith, it is a little regrettable that Li Tian got the playing time too late, and if he can have this kind of playing time at the beginning of the season, with Li Tian's performance, he can almost enter the Rookie Challenge, which is a very good opportunity to increase his popularity.

The rookie challenge roster was determined at the end of January, so Li Tian was destined to be missed.

Thomas Robinson was also not selected for the Rookie Challenge, and his performance improved a bit heading into February, but the roster was already established at the end of January, so he was not able to participate either.

Because no one on the Kings team participated in the All-Star Weekend, this All-Star Weekend was a rare break for the Kings as a team.

However, what people didn't expect was that just after the All-Star weekend, the Kings were in turmoil.