JULY 7: The Kings have officially renegotiated and extended Sabonis’ contract, the team confirmed in a press release.
JULY 1: The Kings are renegotiating Domantas Sabonis‘ 2023/24 salary and signing him to a long-term contract extension, agents Greg Lawrence and Jason Ranne tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
Sacramento will use $8.6MM in cap room to give Sabonis a raise on this year’s salary – from $22MM to $30.6MM – and will tack on four new years to his expiring contract. According to Wojnarowski, the deal will be worth $217MM over five total seasons, including $195MM in new money.
There won’t be any team or player options in the new contract, tweets Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee.
After being acquired in a blockbuster trade involving Tyrese Haliburton at the 2022 deadline, Sabonis thrived in his first full season in Sacramento, averaging 19.1 points, 7.3 assists, and a league-leading 12.3 rebounds in 34.6 minutes per game across 79 contests despite sustaining an avulsion fracture to his thumb in December.
In addition to earning the third All-Star nod of his career, the 27-year-old made an All-NBA squad for the first time, claiming the center spot on the Third Team. Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox led the Kings to a 48-win season and their first playoff berth since 2006.
Contract renegotiations are rare in the NBA and can only be completed when a team has cap space and intends to increase a player’s salary rather than reducing it. The Kings created additional spending flexibility on draft night by agreeing to send Richaun Holmes to Dallas in a salary-dump trade.
There was some speculation that Sacramento may be preparing to make a run at a top-tier free agent with that extra cap space, but Sacramento has instead focused on its own players, extending Harrison Barnes earlier in the week and agreeing to new deals with Trey Lyles and now Sabonis.
The Kings’ one notable deal with a player who wasn’t on the 2022/23 roster is a three-year, $20MM commitment to EuroLeague MVP Sasha Vezenkov. Vezenkov, who is expected to slot into Sacramento’s room exception, wasn’t technically a free agent since the club held his draft rights.
As Bobby Marks of ESPN notes (via Twitter), without a renegotiated 2023/24 salary, Sabonis would have been eligible for a maximum-salary extension of $138MM over four years. That may not have been enough to prevent him from testing the market in 2024, since he would’ve been eligible for a significantly higher salary – and an extra year – at that point.
Interestingly, the only other NBA player to get a renegotiation and extension since 2017 is Sabonis’ former frontcourt partner in Indiana, Myles Turner, Marks observes (via Twitter). Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson is also expected to join that group.
All that money for an unathletic, 7ft tall guy with one hand that misses point-blank layups at the rim. Congrats.
Ok Draymond
Yeah you’re not right. Sabonis is a great compliment to Fox, as their win total showed. The Kings are getting the correct complement of players needed to become a factor in the playoffs
Did you think you were on worsttakeoftheyear.com instead of hoops rumours?!? Lol
You do realize he was 3rd team All-NBA? Jokic was 2nd team and Embiid was the 1st Team center.
Hey, I know another 7FT tall unathletic guy who was pretty good. He just so happens to be Sabonis Sr., who is in the HOF by the way.
You mean the league leader in rebounds who broke his finger in the 2nd month of the season? Great take dude
He ain’t worth that much. Sabonis doesn’t show up in the playoffs
Domantas Sabonis is a very solid Center!!! He’s definitely worth it because since he’s came from the Indiana Pacers to the Sacramento Kings he’s given this franchise hope and was one of the main reasons they ended their 16 year drought of not making the playoffs. Then they pushed the defending champions to seven games. He could’ve played better in the playoffs but he had a major injury and was being guarded by Kevon Looney and Draymond Green. He deserves to get the contract on that alone because he means so much to the organization and franchise. I do think they rode that wave of making the playoffs pretty hard. No noticeable transactions really made this offseason. Now they can be better with the continuity they trying to build. They got rid of Richaun Holmes and that was smart but they should’ve upgraded the backup Center position more than just bringing back Alex Len. Alex Len might play even better if he has a stable position off the bench. Domantas Sabonis logging 34 minutes so Alex Len can get the other 14 minutes and produce to the best of his abilities. I honestly think they should try and find something and somebody out there better than that.
Sigh.. got to love the hoops rumor experts who didn’t watch the kings at all until probably game 3 of the series . The kings offense ahem ( highest rated ever ) cough.. worked when someone not named FOX actually hit a wide open shot here and there from Sabonis kicking it out! Red velvet and HB couldn’t hit Di*k thus it wasn’t too hard to focus on Domas. Honestly I think Lyles actually was the only worry about retaining. Idk we shall see but the experts in here may want to go back to rooting for Boston , either LA, and now phoenix and claiming they have always been ride or die . Uh huh .. ( don’t come at me with the I’m a blazer or pelican fan either .. ) just as yuck.
That’s great but there’s more to basketball than scoring. If he’s being paid $200M he needs to be tougher. Better defense and better rebounding.
He led the league in rebounding
He did not. And in the playoffs he was 5th. 20th in blocks. Not exactly $200M big man numbers.
reflect on reality
2023 rebound leaders;
Sabonis – 973 rebounds in 79 games – 12.3 av.
Vucevic – 903 in 82 games – 11.0 av.
Jokic – 817 in 69 games – 11.8 av.
Narcissus loved his own reflection, staring at it for the remainder of his life.
Look it up. While you’re at it check out assist leaders among Centers. Only the Joker finished higher. besides his 20 points per game, he’s a solid defender who shows up every night. Oh…and they won 18 more games than the year prior when he shows up and they have their first season above .500 in 17 years.
This guy said the league leader in rebounds needs to be better at rebounding. This is what I’m talking about. Just stop talking about the Kings and stick to your ESPN talking points
SAC cleared cap space for this (and Sasha), and it was a very good move by them. His 2k rating doesn’t matter. Mindless concepts like overpay don’t matter either. What does matter is their team’s style of play is built around his skill set (and they went from bottom 5 to the 3rd seed with it), and they have a particular need to keep him in the fold. What they did here was the best way to insure that.
Great deal for SAC!
Before Domas, before Vlade, before Arvydas there was Sam Lacey. It’s a trip how the Kings franchise has only ever had success when playing with a 5 that’s an extremely willing/capable passer… link to m.youtube.com
Good deal