Rewriting the Roster: Domantas Sabonis

As it has seemed to go in almost every off-season under Vivek Ranadive’s reign, the Sacramento Kings find themselves in a precarious position heading into draft night. With no first round pick, no clear direction, and little upside for the current Kings group, Scott Perry is going to have to clean up the mess left for him. Too many core pieces overlap, while too many defensive liabilities remain unaddressed, and the overall fit of the roster raises more questions than answers. Add on expensive, overpaid players and a severe dearth of young talent, and the only reasonable conclusion is massive changes to the Kings this summer.

Ahead of draft night, the guys have gotten together to present a star-centered fix around Sacramento’s most high-profile name: Domantas Sabonis.

Depending on how draft night goes and how the roster shakes out, Zach LaVine, Malik Monk, and DeMar DeRozan will be up for grabs in future installments. Each entry explores a different path forward, with each writer offering a different trade proposal, and justifications, for each player.

First up: Domantas Sabonis.

(Editor’s Note: This article was in the can prior to yesterday’s CJ McCollum for Jordan Poole swap, so just close your eyes and imagine a world where that didn’t happen, a world where time is valuable, where we don’t scrap whole articles because of a small thing like, oh, reality.)

Trade Proposal #1 (Tim)

Kings receive: CJ McCollum, Herb Jones, #7 overall pick
Pelicans receive: Domantas Sabonis, Devin Carter

Kings viewpoint: Let’s get the awkward part of this trade out of the way first: CJ McCollum. At first glance, it seems as though the Kings are only exacerbating their issue of shooting guards, but there are a couple of factors at play that make this sort of trade palatable in my mind. First, McCollum is a massive ($31 million) expiring contract, and he’s still a pretty good player. Hopefully, the Kings would be able to shift him to a more ready contender down the line for an additional asset, but even if not, he’s only here for a year. At worst, CJ is competent salary filler. Also, McCollum has spent plenty of his career playing point guard. In fact, in his four years in New Orleans, he’s spent just about 50% of his time as a primary ball-handler with the Pelicans. There would still be some roster awkwardness, but hopefully the Kings would be making additional moves to continue to rebalance the roster.

Outside of McCollum, the two prizes to be plucked are Herb Jones and the 7th overall selection. Jones represents exactly what Kings fans have been begging for, for about the last two decades: a multi-positional defensive monster who can also knock down the three-ball (37% for his career). That’s exactly the sort of wing who could wreak havoc on the defensive end of the court next to Keegan Murray. And with the mid-lotto pick, the Kings could target their point guard of the future – Jeremiah Fears. He’s by no means a guaranteed All-NBA player, but solving for the next 10 years of point guard duties is much more difficult than finding a starting-level center to replace Sabonis.

In this trade, the Kings get younger, better defensively, and attain an asset in McCollum that can be utilized in several different ways. This offers Scott Perry the chance to be “competitive”, at least in his selling point to Vivek, while resetting this messy roster. And Devin Carter doesn’t look very good, so there’s that too.

Pelicans viewpoint: For the Pelicans, this trade represents one more swing at the fences before blowing things up. Sabonis would offer New Orleans another All-Star level player next to Zion Williamson, while also buying time for Dejounte Murray to return and push the Pelicans into the playoffs. The foursome of Murray-Murphy-Williamson-Sabonis could make some noise in the West, and the sacrifice of a mid-lotto pick, a solid rotational player, and an overpaid shooting guard doesn’t seem too steep.

Trade Proposal #2 (Will)

Kings receive: Isaiah Hartenstein, Nikola Topic, ’25 Draft Pick #15, ’27 1st Rd Pick via Denver
Team receives: Domantas Sabonis

Kings viewpoint: The Kings are getting out of the Sabonis business. It might not be before this draft, it might not be before the season starts and it might not even be before the trade deadline, but Sabonis was acquired to play second fiddle to a star Sacramento no longer has, the whole team is reorienting themselves around the vision of Scott Perry’s Sacramento Kings squad and if he truly has any say in the matter, there will come a day where Sabonis stops fitting those plans. And, frankly, if Perry has no say, there will come a day where Sacramento stops fitting Sabonis’ plans.

We spoke about this a little bit on the last episode of the Kings Herald Show, with Jerry Reynolds pointing out that OKC might be a sneaky suitor for Domas, and given my forbidden love for that team, I too felt the same. So here we go: Sacramento pulls the band-aid off of the Rebeam Team Error, uh, I mean Era, and the Scott Perry Era begins in earnest, getting younger, getting longer and getting assets to boot. Topic, for those of you who weren’t paying attention to the NBA Draft this time last year, was widely considered one of the best point guard prospects coming into the draft prior to tearing his ACL. He’s 6’6, has fantastic vision, good ball handling, great at finishing at the rim and has good shooting touch, and while not a great defender is young enough (only 19 now) to still be molded by Doug Christie and staff into a serviceable tip of the spear.

Topic is the closest you can come to a Haliburton-esque trade here without assuming the other team is stupid or doesn’t understand what they have. He will be able to lead an NBA offense sooner rather than later, has great size for the position, and while not cheap, should still be acquirable for the price Sacramento is paying.

Hartenstein at 27 years old, is more than serviceable as a starting center. He’s younger, more mobile than Valenciunas, is a true 7-footer with real strength, averages double digit boards and can give you 10-15 points on a given night offensively. Is he going to dish for 10 assists? No. Will he be flirting with 18-20 boards multiple times a season? No. But, while the Kings are still figuring out who they want to be in this league and what kind of shot blocking, rim running center they might way, he’ll give you starter quality minutes. And, hey, if he’s not what the Kings want at the end of next season, his $28.5 mil will be infinitely tradeable as an expiring contract.

Of the two picks, the first is the only one worth really going into detail on. It’s widely believed that the Kings are trying to get into first round, specifically around the #20 pick and this gets there and then some. Players like Asa Newell, Thomas Sorber, Nique Clifford, Danny Wolf, Noa Essengue all fall into that general area and all would be welcome in their own ways. I’ll pitch you on my favorite Danny Wolf quickly: he’s 6’11, has incredible ball handling and passing for his size and really feels like the Kings could replace Domas immediately with a similar, maybe more flexible player… though they’d swap out some rebounding for three point shooting.

I can already hear the call for more, more, more to milk the riches of OKC, but I’m trying to be realistic, especially taking into consideration the recent haul for guys like KD, and the lack of desperation from a team that just won the Larry O’Brien trophy. Sure, we can haggle over adding the #24 pick, or hope for Aaron Wiggins or Jaylin Williams to get tossed in, but overall, I think we address a good amount of the main concerns the Kings have here: the young, franchise point guard with length and impeccable passing, a replacement starting center, future assets to get younger or to trade, and at least in my vision, a power forward who can move Keegan back to the three, who also provides passing and offense in a way that compliments both the three and the five without giving up size. All this while only giving up a player who no longer fits the team or the timeline of the new management team in Sacramento (who also may or may not be the best center this franchise has ever had). At the same time, this isn’t a fix-it-all solution: While, Topic/Ellis/LaVine/Murray/Hartenstein might sound like more hostages than volunteers in Scott Perry’s words, Topic/Keon/Keegan/#15 and hell, throw in Devin Carter are the start of something new, and different, and a few more decisions down the road from being a vision worth gazing upon, but a better, more hopeful vision than what we saw by the end of last year.

Thunder viewpoint: The now reigning champion Thunder immediately get more dangerous while only adding $8.6 dollars to their cap space and without sending out critical young players on their roster. Topic is a luxury – a player who was drafted to be traded, whether after he shows out as a James Harden level unaffordable Sixth Man, or as a less controversial Josh Giddey, he’s being sent out at some point and good golly, what a player to get back in return.

This is the perfect spot for Sabonis: everything that worked with Fox and the Ox will work with MVP SGA, save for now, he has Chet Holmgren running the floor next to him in the front court, helping from the weakside and block shots in a way that Keegan Murray and Trey Lyles never could. His role is simplified and amplified: grab as many boards as you can, use those five fouls to the best of your ability, score whenever its opportune. He’ll average 14 points a game on an insane true shooting percentage, still be able to get 6+ assists with the team of shooter OKC employs,  knock down a timely three once in awhile, grab 15+ rebounds and get more good press than he ever could imagine in Sacramento and he’ll do it for 10 more years surround by as talent ladened a team as the Thunder have.

This is what OKC will start to do as these young guys start reaching the end of their rookie deals, consolidate draft picks and young guys for higher end talents and OKC can do this deal without getting rid of anyone they’ll ever truly miss. Topic hasn’t played a game for them and they’re just off a championship run. They’ll survive. Hartenstein averaged 8.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.3 stocks over the course of the playoffs. He was a key role player, but, Domas, a Domas without the pressure to be 1a or 1b or 2a or 2b? He’s doing that in his sleep. The picks? Do you think Sam Presti is missing #15 and Denver’s pick two seasons from now when he still has a treasure chest of picks waiting for him to use?

Overall, OKC does this to zig when other’s thing they’ll zag. They improve immensely before the rings are even passed out and the champagne is out of their systems and do some without major impact to their cap, their picks reserve or their young talent.