How Kings G Nique Clifford Can Reach His Full Potential

When the Sacramento Kings selected Nique Clifford 24th overall out of Colorado State, he was coming off the highest usage season of his career by a significant margin. Still, Clifford wasn’t expected to be a primary ball-handler or playmaker coming out of college. Nique likely won’t ever become a point guard in the strictest definition, but developing his on-ball skills will be huge for his career and could prove to be what takes him from a rotation player to a high-level starter.

Can he become a point guard?

The first player that always comes to mind when I watch Clifford is fellow Coloradian Derrick White. Similar to Clifford, White was an older prospect coming into the draft and exploded onto the scene in his senior year.

I think we are (finally) seeing a fully unleashed Nique Clifford and he’s delivering in an expanded role

He’s a super high-feel player, with the ability to create for himself and others while also playing within an offense pic.twitter.com/e8i5UETG4t
— Point Made Basketball (@pointmadebball) February 8, 2026

Other than rebounds and blocks, their numbers in their respective senior years are eerily similar, and the two are roughly the same size as well. I don’t know RC Buford or Gregg Popovich personally, but I would also venture a guess that White wasn’t drafted by the San Antonio Spurs to be a primary point guard either.

The Spurs had just drafted Dejounte Murray in 2016 to be their lead guard, but an ACL injury before the 2018-19 season opened the door for a young Derrick White to take over the Spurs offense. White played in just 17 games his rookie season and averaged roughly eight minutes per contest, then jumped to nearly 26 minutes per game after Murray’s injury.

Players still need to have the talent and work ethic to improve, but it doesn’t seem unfair to say that the increase in usage while Murray was injured created the foundation that led to him becoming the Boston Celtics’ starting point guard.

Derrick White might be the poster boy of great performance relative to role pic.twitter.com/fwxbO0iG2A
— Taylor Wyman (@taylormetrics) January 11, 2026

White was never going to develop into a primary scoring option or a top-tier creator, but he never needed to. White has the luxury of both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to take on the majority of the playmaking burden. White simply needs to be able to bring the ball up, make the right reads, and knock down open shots.

We’re seeing more examples of players like White, who are excellent defenders and capable ball-handlers, take the role of point guards in offenses that already have high-level playmakers. Maybe that’s a path that Clifford can take as well.

The more likely scenario

While his personal accolades and counting stats aren’t all impressive, White is still a two-time All-Defensive selection and one of the most important players to a perennial title contender. There’s a very real chance Nique never becomes that level of player or develops the on-ball skills that he has. That would likely drop him into the next bucket of players, off guards who can initiate offense when necessary.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker PnR skip pass to Anthony Edwards for the corner 3 pic.twitter.com/rfC4Tr3UZ6
— Timberwolves Clips (@WolvesClips) May 9, 2025

The players that fit into this bucket (in my mind) are Donte DiVincenzo, Grayson Allen, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Ayo Dosunmu, among others. DiVincenzo is a lot closer to the Derrick White mold than the others, mostly because the Timberwolves haven’t had another option to fall back on at point guard. Regardless, he’s better suited to play off-ball like the others, and this is probably going to be the case for Nique as well.

Devin Booker a pass away often entails good things for the person on-ball.

The Grayson Allen drives continue to be impactful. pic.twitter.com/ZWjb00JOGS
— Stephen PridGeon-Garner 🏁 (@StephenPG3) January 20, 2026

As you can see from the play above from Allen, there are major benefits to being able to create offense for others, even if you’re not the primary playmaker on the team. Allen has Devin Booker, DiVincenzo has Anthony Edwards, and Alexander-Walker has Jalen Johnson to take on the majority of the creation duties, but they all need to take the lead at times.

Two stats that all of these players have in common are an assist percentage over 16% and a turnover percentage under 12%, which I believe are two important benchmarks for Nique to hit.

Closing the loop

The primary takeaway is that unless you’re a number one option, or an elite defender and elite shooter, like Klay Thompson in his prime, off guards need to be able to toggle on and off ball. This is exactly why it is so valuable for Clifford to get so many on-ball reps while the Kings don’t need to worry about winning games.

Like all the players I listed, Clifford will likely need a primary option next to him to be at his best, but it’s rare that teams are successful without players who can take some of the burden off of their number one options.

Nique is sitting at a 10% assist percentage and a 15% turnover percentage currently, and both will need to improve if he’s going to reach his full potential. One could argue that he’s just now getting his chance to show what he can do, and if he continues to improve his lead guard skills, fitting him in next to another guard who is more of a scorer than facilitator will be much easier.

Luckily for him and the Kings, he should have plenty of opportunity to grow over the last half of this season, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do with the increased opportunity.

Can he become a point guard?

The more likely scenario

Closing the loop

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