After they fell to the Pelicans in the play-in and missed the playoffs, there will be questions regarding whether or not the current build of the Kings has plateaued, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks. On one hand, a team that brought back the same starting five from last season went from the No. 3 seed to out of the playoffs. On the other, the Kings finished just two wins shy of their total from last year despite late-season injuries to Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk.
An already strong Western Conference is projected to get even stronger next year with almost every team in the conference set up to compete. Monk is the team’s most crucial free agent, but the Kings can’t offer the Sixth Man of the Year candidate more than four years and $78MM. Teams with cap space could outbid the Kings, and even if they are able to re-sign him, his $17.4MM projected first-year salary would send Sacramento into the luxury tax.
Outside of Monk, Sacramento’s potential to improve comes from the No. 13/14 pick (pending tiebreaker), Keegan Murray‘s growth, trades, and various cap exceptions. The Kings have four first-round picks and nine players earning between $2.1MM and $18MM to use in potential trades, but Marks notes that outside of the Domantas Sabonis deal, general manager Monte McNair has been relatively conservative on the trade market.
De’Aaron Fox, who has two years left on his contract, is an extension candidate this offseason, Marks notes. The Kings can currently add three more seasons at up to $165MM to his contract. If he’s named All-NBA this year, Fox would be eligible for a four-year, $267.5MM extension. If he doesn’t sign an extension by Oct. 21, he can become eligible for a four-year, $229MM deal next offseason — if he’s named All-NBA next year, he’d be eligible for a five-year, $346MM super-max deal.
We have more on the Kings:
- Monk averaged a career-best 15.4 points and 5.1 assists per game this year for the Kings, but they’re limited by the money they can offer him, The Sacramento Bee’s Chris Biderman writes. “Obviously, I think he was extremely big for us,” Fox said. “People that watched us play know that he should be Sixth Man of the Year. But at the end of the day, this is a business, and I feel like what he gave to us in his two years that he has been here, I feel like he showed his value, what he can do for a team.“
- While Fox didn’t sound overly confident that Monk would re-sign with the Kings, he said he would try to convince his former Kentucky backcourt partner to return, per The Athletic’s Anthony Slater. “For sure,” Fox said. “But money talks. You can’t play this game forever. We have such a short window to play basketball. Not everyone is going to be Bron or CP, play 19, 20 years. You have to be able to get paid whenever you can. That’s what Vince Carter told me. He played 21, 22 years. I’d love to have him back, but I don’t know what the future holds.“
- The play-in loss to the Pelicans was emblematic of Sacramento’s season as a whole, Biderman writes in a separate story. Three nights after scoring 32 against the Warriors, Murray had just 11 against New Orleans. Keon Ellis, who did a great job defending Stephen Curry, went scoreless against the Pels and was a minus-20. All season, the Kings showed they could hang with the best of the West with a 17-11 record against the top seven teams in the conference (including a 3-1 record against Denver). However, they went 0-6 against New Orleans this season and lost games to the likes of Washington, Portland and Detroit throughout the regular season. “I feel like we had really good wins and we had really bad losses,” Murray said. “So it was really a mountain-and-valley season for us. That’s something that the top teams in the West, they’re just consistent throughout the whole season.“
Kings need a better bench.
13/14 they should be targeting Donovan Clingan, Kyle Filipowski, Yves Mossi, Zach Edey, Kel’el Ware to back up Sabonis
Kings need to get better production out of back up PG, possibly Tyus Jones in FA. Might be time to move on from Davion Mitchell.
I’d also bring in Tobias Harris and shift Barnes to the bench to be leader of the 2nd unit
Pg: Fox, Jones
Sg: Huerter, FA (maybe draft Ajay Mitchell in 2nd round or Trey Alexander).
Sf: Harris, Barnes
Pf: Murray, Lyles
C: Sabonis, draft pick.
Good luck with that. No FA coming to Sac and there’s zero chance we make an impactful trade without including Murray.
So an Early statement that they plan on doing nothing again, like last year.
Can they really get better without trading away Murray? No, I don’t think they can. The best we can do with keeping Murray is trading for another HB type player. Old, down numbers, high salary. Our only capital would be mid-1st round picks. That doesn’t move the needle enough to improve the Kings. This team has peaked, with our best shot being the draft. FA’s aren’t coming to Sacramento. There is zero advantage for an impactful player to do that. High taxes without the benefits of LA or SF. Small market, a plateaued team in the toughest division in the NBA. Hope and wishes won’t net us anything in the open market.
The truth is the Kings are a decent team which have had very good injury luck the last couple of years, so their record isn’t nearly as good as it seems. Standing pat would be a big mistake.
It was pretty clear by the end of the first half that if the Kings were going to have a chance in that game Fox needed 40. This was a game that showed how valuable Malik is to this team. Keegan and Keon did what they have all year. You never know what to expect. Thats a big problem.
Duo of Huerter and HB are due to make a combined 35 million next year. Can’t have it. Both have takin major steps backwards. I understand the vet leadership of Barnes but his contract crippled last offseason before it could really start and will do the same this year.
McNair has a big boy decision in front of him. Keegans value has dipped. Ellis’s value is maybe a heavily protected first if a team is desperate enough. Vezenkov looks like Forest Gump out there.
It may unfortunately be the dawn of the Zach LaVine era in Sacramento… scary thought.
They have a defensive problem. Lavine does not help that at all. Huerter should be moved and should have. They could have tried to acquire Kuzma in the offseason but brought Barnes back. They need a more vet bench.
Resigning Barnes on a 3 year contract was a HUGE mistake.
Watch the Queens overpay for Monk and then him regress in 2-3 years. Face it they reached their mountaintop, ain’t getting any easier from here.
They got comfortable last year and made no moves. If you put out the same team the film is going to be out on how to handle you. They didn’t need to make a huge move, but add something sneaky like another bench guy or role guy.
I really thought they would try to get Siakam or OG but they were too scared to let go of additional picks. They could have figured a way without including Murray.
I think there a very small possibility for them to try acquire Klay Thompson.
1. Mike Brown the Kings coach is a former GSW assistant who the players loved
2. It looks as if GSW need a rebuild and Klay is out of contract and might be moved in which case I’m assuming he also wouldn’t want to move far as he loves the Bay Area and the West Coast.
3. Sacramento don’t really have the cap space but they could easily flip a Harrison Barnes/Kevin Hueter in order to make some room. There’s a very small possibility GsW could even be open to a sign and trade …
Klay would come in and play at the SG spot, hopefully add some spacing, is a really good cutter and can hopefully defend a little better. He’d also offer plenty of experience to this younger team and could help them get over this little hump.
Aside from that I think they need to be better building out the depth chart. They need a quality back up big, could do with more 3 and D forwards and lack a real facilitator/playmaker off the bench if they can’t resign Monk.
I’d be looking into, Christian Wood, Jalen Smith and Mason Plumblee as the bigs.
JaeSean Tate, Cedi Osman, and TJ Warren as forwards.
If you could get 2 guys from each you’d be in a lot better position I think.
Super easy flip !
Still no cap even w the “ flip “ tho :( …. Maybe a flip then a flip , we shall call it a double flip for now
*Hr offers great articles to become more familiar with how the cap actually works in the directory if your interested
Please god no. Its like all the guys saying Draymond was a perfect fit last offseason. Just no.
SAC can’t defend, and they can’t because of their personnel and style of play, which are near perfectly aligned with each other to that end. They doubled down on both last off season. No idea where they go from here. But the path to being a contender starts with rethinking their style.
Where is that person who was arguing about how Fox should have been an All Star over Curry and how he led the Kings to a better record? Lol Warriors got the last laugh. Kings made the playoffs for the first time in 18 yrs and got beat by the Warriors.
Kings thought defeating Warriors in the play-in equalled a championship lol.
Kings got beat by a Zion-less Pelicans team. Kings are still a garbage lottery team.
Kings acted like they’d won the Superbowl. Lolz. Small market, small minds.
Saying the Warriors got the last laugh is hilarious. The mental gymnastics needed to reach that conclusion would give any normal person an aneurysm
Kings still failed to make the playoffs either way.
All that for nothing. Warriors still defeated them when it mattered, last year in the playoffs.
At least they have that over the loser Kings.
Every Team that has made the Playoffs and have gone deep in the playoff were over the Luxury Tax, the one’s that weren’t are Not in the Playoffs or have been eliminated. Obviously, if you plan on going anywhere in the Playoffs you can’t be afraid to open up the Pocket Book and do what you need to do. If Not maybe they should sale the team to someone who is willing to play ball. Our GM is a joke -or- the owner has told him Not to spend any money. Either way someone needs to go.
We had a chance at Kuzma, passed him up, just to name one. GM NcNothing Done, states, “He preferred Continuity over making any deals”. Really ?? You only do that when you already have a Championship Caliber Team, which the Kings are N O T !! They need a third star, a backup PG, to start with. No Playoff team has ever gone to the Championship w/o at least 3 Star Players on it.
ceiling reached. sacramento queens
This team makes you so upset lmao. Glad you got all the tears out after Tuesday