With just a little under one month of the regular season gone by, Sacramento Kings rookie sensation Darius Acuff Jr. has been taking the league by storm. Although the Kings haven’t gotten off to a good start, Acuff has been sensational in his NBA debut and is a frontrunner for the Rookie of the Year Award. In fact, former NBA guard Jeff Teague believes that Acuff has a little Allen Iverson in him and should be built around like Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic.

“I think he’s cold. I think next year, third year … he’ll be a top three point guard in the league,” Teague said during a recent segment of ‘520 in the Morning.’ “I told y’all he’s gonna be Rookie of the Year. They need to build the team around him like Iverson. He got to get a whole bunch of defenders, he got to get the Luka squads.”

The No. 7 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft by the Kings, Darius Acuff has stepped into the starting lineup from the get-go and is looking very much like the team’s new franchise point guard.

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He’s appeared in all 10 games for the Kings as a rookie thus far, at a league-leading 37.1 minutes per game. The former Arkansas star is leading all rookies in scoring at 25.9 points, to go along with 3.8 rebounds and 7.4 assists. He is leading all rookies in assists as well while putting up splits of 41.3 percent shooting from the field, 31.9 percent shooting from the 3-point line and 84.8 percent shooting from the free-throw line.