- No World Cup team has registered a better point differential through three games than Canada (+111). The work Kings associate head coach Jordi Fernandez is doing with the Canadian national team is further strengthening his case to become an NBA head coach, which is expected to happen sooner or later, according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.
The Kings are interested in signing veteran center JaVale McGee once he clears waivers, Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report and NBA on TNT tweets.
The Mavericks officially waived McGee on Monday and he’ll become an unrestricted free agent on Thursday.
Sacramento has 13 players on guaranteed contracts and two more frontcourt players — Neemias Queta and Nerlens Noel — on partially guaranteed deals. The Kings also have Alex Len behind Domantas Sabonis in the center spot with Trey Lyles another possibility in small-ball lineups.
McGee could join the battle for backup minutes behind Sabonis. He’d be on his ninth NBA team since entering the league in 2008.
McGee signed a three-year, $17MM+ contract with Dallas last offseason, but only spent seven games in the starting lineup and subsequently fell out of the rotation altogether. The 35-year-old averaged 4.4 points and 2.5 rebounds in a career-low 8.5 minutes per game across 42 appearances during his second stint as a Maverick.
The Kings decided to tweak the roster rather than make major changes this offseason after finally reaching the postseason in the spring. They acquired Chris Duarte in a trade and re-signed Harrison Barnes and Trey Lyles. They also signed EuroLeague star Sasha Vezenkov.
Kings coach Mike Brown is excited to have his core group back and is eager to see how they respond to the newfound respect they’ve gained after snapping the franchise’s long playoff drought.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how we can handle the pressure,” the Kings coach said. “It’s flipped now. We’re no longer hunting people; people are hunting us. And there are expectations, so how do we handle that? I believe our guys are ready for it, and with the fans that we have here and the juice they brought last year – let’s go. Let’s get it. I’m excited for Sasha, I’m excited for Chris Duarte, I’m excited about our young guys. It’s good to have the new guys, but I’m more excited about having our guys to be able to run it back and give them the opportunity to grow as a nucleus than anything else.”
Longtime rival point guards Stephen Curry and Chris Paul are looking forward to their new status as teammates on a contending Warriors team this year, writes Jonathan Givony of ESPN.
“It’s a beautiful thing about basketball, you can’t write these narratives,” Curry said. “To go full circle, we’ve had a lot of battles over the years. He’s in Year 18, I’m going into Year 15, it’s amazing we have an opportunity to play together, and hopefully win at the highest level. He’s super competitive, and so am I.”
“I’m excited about Steph, Draymond [Green], Klay [Thompson], all the different guys, Wigs [Andrew Wiggins],” Paul said. “I’m excited for us to get together and see what it looks like. It’s just crazy how life works. But when it comes to basketball, I’m probably closest to my happiest. I’m obviously happiest when I’m with my family, but basketball is my safe haven; it’s been that way for a long time.”
Paul, a 12-time All-Star, was sent from the Suns to the Wizards as part of the Bradley Beal trade earlier this summer. The Warriors then traded for the 38-year-old as the centerpiece of its deal to offload Jordan Poole and some other young players.
There’s more out of California:
- The new-look Warriors will have to fight to stand out in a crowded Western Conference as they pursue another ring. Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area unpacks 10 key regular season bouts that he believes will serve as a critical proving ground for Golden State.
- After finishing with the West’s third seed while returning to the playoffs for the first time in 17 years, the revitalized Kings be featured prominently on national TV this season. According to James Ham of ESPN 1320 (Twitter link), the club will play six regular season contests on TNT, five on ESPN and 11 on NBA TV. Ham adds (via Twitter) that 16 of those 22 national bouts will be played in Sacramento.
- Kings All-Star big man Domantas Sabonis is looking forward to the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament, as he told Kyle Irving of The Sporting News. “It’s another chance to win something,” Sabonis said. “In international basketball, these cups in the middle of the season are big. They mean something. And then history happens and it’s important. “I feel like this year, if people aren’t on board at the moment, once that first champion wins, everyone is going to be like, ‘Oh, I want that next year.’ It’s only going to get better and better.”
As we noted earlier this week when we took a closer look at the 30 trades that have been completed so far during the NBA offseason, second-round picks have become a more popular form of currency than ever, with 54 second-rounders (50 unprotected) included in summer deals.
It’s perhaps no surprise then that nearly every NBA team has either traded away its 2024 second-round pick or could lose it or swap it if certain conditions are met.
The Magic and Kings are currently the only two NBA teams that fully control their own second-round picks in 2024.
The Sixers also haven’t traded away their own ’24 second-rounder, but will have to forfeit it as a result of an NBA investigation into free agency gun-jumping last year.
Of those two clubs that have unconditional control of their second-round picks in next year’s draft, Orlando is the only one that has never traded that 2024 second-rounder at any time. Sacramento sent its ’24 second-round selection to Detroit in a 2021 deal for Delon Wright, then reacquired it a year later in the trade that sent Marvin Bagley III to the Pistons.
Of the NBA’s 27 other teams outside of Detroit, Sacramento, and Philadelphia, a total of 22 will definitely send their second-round picks to another team next June, having traded them without protections or swap rights.
The Nets will, in all likelihood, join that group. They’d keep their own second-round pick if it ends up between Nos. 56 and 59, but if it’s in the top 55, it will be sent to Houston.
The Heat and Spurs, meanwhile, have traded away their 2024 second-round picks with protection. Miami will keep its second-rounder if it’s in the top 50, but would otherwise have to send it to Atlanta or New York. San Antonio will hang onto its ’24 second-rounder if it’s in the top 49, but would otherwise have to send it to Phoenix or Boston.
Given the expectations for those two teams in 2023/24, the Spurs appear far more likely than the Heat to hang onto their own pick.
Finally, the Pelicans and Pacers have given up swap rights to their second-round picks, but will still control a second-rounder, even if it’s not their own. New Orleans will receive the least favorable of its own ’24 second-rounder and Chicago’s pick. Indiana will end up with the least favorable of its own selection, Cleveland’s second-rounder, Utah’s second-rounder.
We’ll publish a full post this afternoon breaking down all the details on 2024’s traded second-round picks.
According to Arale Weisberg of Israeli outlet Walla Sport (Twitter link), Spanish powerhouse FC Barcelona is keeping tabs on free agent wing Terence Davis, who spent the past two-and-a-half seasons with the Kings (hat tip to Dario Skerletic of Sportando).
In 64 regular season games (13.1 MPG) with Sacramento in 2022/23, Davis averaged 6.7 PPG and 2.2 RPG on .423/.366/.791 shooting. In total, the 26-year-old has appeared in 227 games over four seasons with the Raptors and Kings.
A handful of NBA teams were rumored to be interested in Davis once free agency got underway on June 30, but he has yet to find another club. The Kings renounced his rights in order to maximize their cap space this summer.
As Skerletic notes, Barcelona — which recently signed Jabari Parker — would likely have to give Davis a contract in the range of Parker’s deal to entice him to come to Europe. Parker will reportedly receive a one-year, $2MM contract that includes an NBA opt-out clause.
Here’s more from around the basketball world:
- Earlier this week, Seth Partnow of The Athletic released his first two player tier rankings ahead of the 2023/24 season. Roughly ranking the top-125 players in the league, tier five consisted of 45 players, while tier four contained 41. His latest installment — tier three — includes 21 players, such as Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen, and Kings guard De’Aaron Fox. Partnow’s top two tiers will feature 18 total players.
- Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype takes an early look at the potential 2025 free agent class, with Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo ranked No. 1 overall. Wizards guard Landry Shamet rounds out Gozlan’s top-65 list.
- Former Indiana forward Race Thompson, who went undrafted earlier this summer, recently revealed that he sustained a right tibia plateau fracture a couple months ago, as Kyler Staley of Hoosier Illustrated relays. Thompson had reached an agreement to play for the Knicks in Summer League action, but obviously the injury prevented that from happening.
Exploring possible destinations for some of the top remaining free agents, Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report suggests that many people around the league think that P.J. Washington – the only standard restricted free agent still on the board – will eventually accept his qualifying offer from the Hornets. Pincus also confirms that the Lakers have conveyed interest in big man Christian Wood.
In considering a potential landing spot for Kelly Oubre, who averaged more than 20 points per game last season, Pincus notes that Memphis makes some sense. While it’s not clear if the Grizzlies have actually expressed interest in Oubre, Pincus points out that they haven’t really replaced Dillon Brooks at forward and have some young players – such as Ziaire Williams or Josh Christopher – who might appeal to the Hornets in a sign-and-trade scenario.
Here are a few more odds and ends from the league:
- Seth Partnow of The Athletic has published the first two installments of his player tier rankings for the 2023/24 season. Breaking down the top 125 players of the league into five tiers, Partnow lists 45 players in tier five – including Warriors sharpshooter Klay Thompson and Raptors forward Scottie Barnes – and 41 more in tier four, such as Kings center Domantas Sabonis, Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram, and Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns. Partnow’s top three tiers will consist of 39 players and will presumably be posted later this week.
- Now that hoarding cap room into the regular season is no longer a viable strategy, Rob Mahoney of The Ringer wonders how the new Collective Bargaining Agreement will change the way that rebuilding teams approach future offseasons.
- With no sign that the Damian Lillard or James Harden situations will be resolved anytime soon, John Hollinger of The Athletic questions whether the NBA’s player empowerment era has reached its ceiling. During the last several years, stars who ask for trades have sought increasingly specific destinations despite having less and less leverage, Hollinger observes, adding that the outcomes for Lillard and Harden could create new benchmarks for future star trade requests.
A training camp roster battle is on tap between Kings big men Neemias Queta and Nerlens Noel, according to James Ham of The Kings Beat.
- The Kings signed Neemias Queta to a two-year, $4.2MM contract, according to Michael Scotto of Hoops Hype (Twitter link). The first year is partially guaranteed and the second season salary is non-guaranteed. Queta, who played with Sacramento on a two-way contract last season, signed a standard contract earlier this week. According to Ricardo Brito Reis (Twitter link), Queta’s $2,019,706 salary for next season includes a $250K guarantee. It’s guaranteed for $500K if he’s on the Opening Day roster and becomes fully guaranteed on Jan. 10. His 2024/25 salary of $2,196,970 becomes guaranteed for $1,098,485 on July 10 and fully guaranteed on Jan. 10, 2025.
- Kings guard De’Aaron Fox is coming off his best NBA season, and teammate Davion Mitchell believes he’s ready to become an MVP candidate, per Tristi Rodriguez of NBC Sports Bay Area. Mitchell touted Fox’s credentials during a recent appearance on the “Deuce and Mo” podcast. “He’s talking more. He’s being a leader,” Mitchell said. “We already know what he can do on the floor, he’s playing defense more, he’s guarding the best players, he’s doing that type of stuff. And when you got a player like that at that level, playing a lot of minutes, a young player, I think we’re going to be tough to beat. He’s shooting the ball really well, little things like that that he’s added to his game that makes him a top player in our league.”