The Sacramento Kings have signed 6’8’’ forward Precious Achiuwa.
Free agent Precious Achiuwa has agreed on a deal with the Sacramento Kings, sources tell ESPN. Achiuwa enters his sixth NBA season and gives the Kings immediate rebounding and defensive versatility. pic.twitter.com/8jhqnemZkM
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 4, 2025
Achiuwa, who was the 20th pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, is currently a free agent having played last season with the New York Knicks. During that year, he averaged 6.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 1 assist in 20.5 minutes over 57 games.
The Miami Heat waived him on Oct. 18 prior to the regular season beginning. He averaged 4.8 points and 5 rebounds in preseason. Over his five-year career, he has struggled with shooting. His career average from three is 30% and 60% from the free throw line, though he has never taken a lot of attempts per game in each of those categories.
The Kings have a glaring need for help in the forward/center spots with Keegan Murray out with a thumb injury and no one exactly lighting it up behind Domantas Sabonis.
The 26-year-old Achiuwa brings length, energy and physicality. He is known as a defender who can rebound and play small-ball center, while also defending wings and some guards. On a team that wants to play defense with not a ton of defensive players, the move makes some sense.
The Kings had make room for him on the roster so they have cut Isaac Jones.
The Kings are expected to waive second-year center Isaac Jones to make roster space to sign Achiuwa, sources said. https://t.co/Rl2tiUUh1w
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 4, 2025
Wow I did not know IJ is 25 yo. I thought he was like 20 lol. All the best IJ wherever you end up
Aaaaaaaand, it’s a done deal. Isaac Jones cut for Precious. I mean, I get it. Precious is the better ball player than Jones, but he’s not enough to move the needle on wins and losses. It is not like it is going to matter when the Golden Guys are getting 35 minutes per night.
I wonder if this speedy signing, while the Kings were coming back from a road trip, has to do with Sabonis showing sings of injury last night. Did the Kings even give Precious a workout?
I will add, I’m starting to come around to Eubanks. He’s brining more to the court than I had expected.
Meanwhile, McDermott is just rotting on the bench making over $3M and Saric is not far behind. Good stuff, Perry!
He brings a good defensive presence, and that’s something the Kings really needed. Precious doesn’t need the ball in his hands to make an impact — he plays hard, defends multiple positions, and hits the glass.
I think he can be paired with Sabonis in spurts, as long as there are enough shooters on the floor. Lineups featuring Clifford, Monk, and LaVine can make that work because they keep the spacing balanced. I’d be a little nervous about running Sabonis and Precious alongside DeRozan and Westbrook — you’d need at least two solid outside shooters in that mix to keep the spacing from getting too tight.
Still, Precious adds real versatility. He can run pick-and-rolls with Sabonis, or stay active off the ball, crashing the offensive glass and keeping possessions alive. Defensively, he can guard bigger 3s, 4s, and even small-ball 5s, giving Doug Christie some flexibility and different looks to work with.
I could even see him getting minutes next to Maxime Raynaud down the line. Raynaud can operate from the high post or stretch out to the perimeter, so the two could complement each other nicely in short stretches. It’s all about getting creative with lineups.
Overall, this is a nice upgrade over Isaac Jones — Precious brings energy, rebounding, and defensive toughness. It’s a move that makes the Kings deeper, more balanced, and better equipped to adjust to different matchups.
Would have preferred cutting Saric or McD, but whatever. Like IJ’s energy, but he’s never going to be more than an end of the bench guy.
I’m hoping my Precious can turn some of the defensive pain of this team invisible.
He really needs to win a ring for meme purposes.
But coming to the Kings is the NBA equivalent of sliding on a ring that makes you invisible.
A 6’8 center?
It’s almost as if they’re trolling us.
Agreed on Eubanks. He’s a decent bench player.
Hadn’t heard the Golden Guys name yet. Nice.
Fuck it I want to see more BrookBanks Lob City lol
Good signing. But why ‘cut’ Isaac Jones when there are guys behind him on the bench who will never see anything but garbage time? Surely a two-way player could go back to Stockton.
IJ’s contract was converted to a standard contract toward the end of last season, so he can’t automatically be sent back to Stockton. I’m not sure if he can be re-signed in Stockton if he clears waivers.
I think it had to do with the size of the contracts. I believe they will package Saric’s $5.4M contract with (fill in the blank) to piece together a trade before the deadline. IJ’s smaller contract is not as valuable when combining contracts.
Disappointing they couldn’t jettison one of the guards. The roster is still unbalanced. Like the signing, though.
The time has come for TKH to write an article about how the color analyst talks over game action which seems to have gotten worse this year, and how people just don’t want to listen/watch the product.
Since I have League Pass, I am going to start listening to other teams broadcasts for comparison. My guess is that the Kings broadcast team is close to the bottom of the barrel.
Draper and Jones are not for me, and Kayte is in a whole different league of terrible.
I always listen to the other team’s broadcast because i want to hear what their takr is on the Kangz. The hardest to listen to are the Warriors, Lakers, Celtics, and 76ers broadcast team. Homers to the next level.
It’s been a while since I had league pass, but Knicks Walt Frazier and Spurs Sean Elliott were two of my least favorite along with your list. The bingo guy for the Clips was annoying, but I think he’s retired.
LOL…I was going to add BOS and CHA if you didn’t mention them.
Yes, Warriors, Lakers, Celtics, ’76ers are bad.
I have never listened to any broadcast quite as absurd as the Warriors (in any sport).
There was a game I saw where one of the broadcast clowns completely ignored what the opposing team was doing the whole game any time they had the ball and instead recounted obscure stories from when Curry and Thompson were children. It was freaking bizarre. It was like he was recounting tall tales.
The other team (can’t remember who) would be dribbling down the court and this clown would be saying, “Ya’ know, when Stephon Curry was in Little League, he hit a homerun farther than any Little Leaguer in history.”
“Ya’ know, when Klay Thompson was 12 years old, he climbed a tree to rescue a cat. The tree was 400 feet tall.”
When I was a kid, before the Kings came to town, my brother and I rooted for the Warriors (I’m and old guy). So I still had warm feelings for that team and it was fun to watch the Curry-Thompson teams for a bit.
But those announcers just made me hate that damn team.
It seems she never takes a vacation, always there… everyday.. again and again…
College student intern broadcasters are more professional. As bad as it has been to watch, listening is much much worse.
It is difficult to watch bad basketball and be forced to mute the game . Another Vivek gift .
Please don’t. I realize I may be in the minority here, but I think there’s more than enough attention paid to this in the comments.
No offense. There’s plenty to dislike about this organization, and I have my own (long) list of gripes. I personally wouldn’t mind seeing all three broadcasters replaced, noting that Doug actually made me cringe during games, so he was way worse for me. I just don’t think the site needs to start writing hit pieces on one broadcaster who hasn’t actually done anything wrong.
So a team needs size and length in the frontcourt cuts a guy with size and length that plays in the frontcourt. McDermott doesn’t play. Saric has been useless and probably won’t play anymore. IJ had his issues, but I felt he never really got a solid run at making an impact. I hope he latches on to an organization that will help him develop and have a decent career.
As for Precious, he was with the Heat, Raptors, and Knicks (all better than the Kings) and he wasn’t good enough for those teams. So obviously he ends up with the Kings as a potential rotation player that will rely on. It just makes so much sense.
Spo did say that he wanted to keep Precious, but in the end, the fit was not ideal.
Because the Heat are defending 94 feet and want to be the fittest team in the league?
Why did we waive Jones instead of McDermott?
I guess the good new is that we never have to worry about Vivek getting caught in a Ballmeresque attempt of paying players under the table.
Doug keeps the average age of the roster higher.
Or because player Doug and coach Doug like to play this game.
I’ll submit the glass half full reasoning.
Dec. 15th can’t come soon enough and player like McDermott may have more value across the league as a filler to a larger deal. He’s a proven NBA player and does have a skillset that is desired…shooting.
As to cheapness, the would have to pay either player anyway if they were cut as both deals are guaranteed.
As to McDermott, I have no fucking clue why he was re-signed to this roster. It’s not like he has the Udonis Haslem and Miami Heat level of “family” so you re-sign him until he retires. Maybe IJ was the pick because his contract was given my Monte and Perry is the one who re-signed McDermott? Cutting the later is admission of a mistake.
Once again, making short sighted moves to correct previous moves from the prior BBall OPS people. It just keep happening, year after year, GM after GM. No cohesion, no direction, no winning. Sacramento is literally Basketball Hell.
There’s one common denominator keeping us in Basketball Hell year after year, GM after GM…
What we need a feature article on (after the one on Kayte) is the real problem sports-wise in this town. Vivek. But TKH has absolutely done their work on that front. We need national attention on this to move the needle. I know we’re just little ol’ Sacramento and nobody cares about us, but it seems like it would be a juicy story if a Pablo-type did the digging and connected all the sordid stories that are there under Vivek’s ownership.
And the size of the market didn’t seem to stop the national media from paying attention to other perennial losers over the years. As of the 24-25 Nielsen ratings, we’re the #20 media market. Places like New Orleans (#50) with their ‘Aints, Cincy (#37) with the Bengals pre-Burrow, Pittsburgh (#27) with the Pirates, or even Charlotte (#21) with the Hornets seem to get more attention than we do. East Coast bias? The fact that three out of the four above are either NFL teams or run by Jordan made them more print-worthy? Guess we’ll never know.
Sucks to think we’re drowning out here and nobody cares, though. Pretty hopeless feeling and why I’m actively rooting the tank for the first time in my 40 years of Kings fandom. As many, many others have mentioned here, you folks make this whole deal much easier to take year after year, GM after GM. Thank You.
Two common denominators- COO Matina Kolokotronis has been around since the mid 90s and had a big part in bringing Vlade in to GM.
Good point! And common denominator between the two–zero basketball experience, though they’re making basketball personnel decisions, seemingly without the insight of NBA knowledgeable advisors.
Or the wrong NBA advisors:
Chris Mullin, Vlade Divac and Joe Dumars are a murderer’s row of BAD people to listen to for how to run a team.
I don’t understand how Dumars still gets hired in the league. He has to have worn off any and all of the shine in building the Detroit championship team from 20 years ago. What the hell is he doing in New Orleans?
Well, Gayle Benson (Pelicans owner) *IS* the widow of Tom Benson of ‘Aints fame!
That was my guess for why both McDermott and Saric were kept over Jones. Who knows how sensitive Perry is. We’ll learn, I suppose. Or maybe we already are. Also, never underestimate the value to Vivek of name recognition. In terms of signing players, trading for players, or even keeping/cutting players like today, we’ll probably have very strong predictive powers if we just assume Vivek will want to have the bigger name player on the Kings and get rid of the ‘no-name.’ Seems to be his system. McDermott and Saric certainly are not NBA stars, but they’re more recognizable than Jones. Value to the team and future upside? Meh, not a Vivek priority because if they actually hit on one of these fliers, they may have to pay them a bigger contract at some point down the road. He CANNOT risk that! That’s where I think the Cheap! Cheap! Cheap! comes into the equation for this team.
If in fact Perry wants to put his stamp on the team, it may mean he’s willing to move guys that were not “his.” We already know Monk was dangled. We also know Perry has made some uncomplimentary remarks about LaVine in the past. He did extend Keegan, so that is on him.
That leaves Sabonis, LaVine, DDR, Monk, Ellis and Carter as non-Perry guys. I wonder if he moves some of them before a guy like Schröder, Nique…or even Westbrook. LaVine seems to be a Vivek guy, so maybe he is off the list.
I wouldn’t be surprised if DeRozan is also a Vivek guy. Maybe why he hasn’t been moved yet though he seems to be top of the tradable pieces list as far as all us observers are concerned? Would not shock me one bit to see Sabonis, Monk, Ellis, or Carter in different uniforms this winter.
My spidey sense tells me Monk is going to be the first to go.
Actually really hoping this does happen. Would solve one major problem for us in terms of Vivek, although Ballmer seems to be skating.
Another positive for the Achiuwa signing and I say this both directly and tongue in cheek –
besides Mike Brown, most recently The Big Sneeze (Achiuwa) had stellar coaching by both Eric Spoelstra and Tom Thibodeau two of the games top Head Coaches. True, he was not invited to remain with either squad, but at least he has been thoroughly instructed on “How to play the right way” – the current League wide motto.
If he doesn’t abide by that, then maybe he’s as good as he will be, or perhaps we look at Kings coaches
So, at the end of the day as a result of cutting Ike Jones we still have the same number of “big” front court players. ???
I watched the game last night. Other than Ellis, Murray and a little of Schroder we don’t defend at all. I love Sabonis as a great guy that works his tail off, plays hurt and gets killed at lot from contact but he still does not play good defense especially interior defense. IMO we need a guy(young) up and coming that can rebound block shots and play interior defense. Most of you will say this is the reason Sabonis can’t or won’t play defense is the lack of defense from our guards and wings. This is true but Domas still doesn’t play interior defense and when he comes out all the other players just drive right past him. Automatic 2.
IMO as good as he is at rebounding and assists the Kings will never win or even be a contender to a championship. He is now 29 and not getting any younger. IMO this is the time to look for trades that would bring in a young hard-nosed defender and rebounder(like a Duren) to help all the offensive players. You should right now not later get a good return of a young player or 2 and draft picks.
I agree with you Jack, but Vivek won’t allow it. He needs a cheap middling team with widely known players and hopes they can overachieve every once in a while. He is a clear example of an owner that does not run the team to win but simply to generate income.
If they happen to win, he’ll take credit…if they don’t, he’ll fire the coach, hire a new coach, fire the GM, then hire a new GM who doesn’t like the new coach.
Another dumb Kangz move. Releasing a guy who does the things you need for a worse less-athletic version of the same player.
Achiuwa is tough but he’s not a good defender. It’s just what people say about him because he’s not a bad player and he’s tough, but he’s just a fringe NBA level talent. I saw way more from IJ in a small sample size than I’ve seen during Achiuwa’s entire career.
I’m not even mad that they signed Achiuwa, as he offers some size, it’s that they released IJ to do it. We need more forwards who can rebound and defend, just swapping one-for-one does nothing for balancing the roster. They should’ve released Saric and its not even a question, but Vivek sucks and he’s broke so here we are.
Seriously poor team building from one of the worst run franchises in the NBA.
Bulls dump Golden Guys Lavine and DeRozan and are freed up to be a good team again. Kangz hording all the mediocre ‘stars’
About the Ja Morant trade IMO I wouldn’t do that trade at all. Too much injuries and baggage plus it would take at least players to keep the trade values equal plus at least 3 draft picks one of them being next years pick. If you want to get a top notch point guard IMO LaMelo Ball is a better fit plus he wouldn’t cost as much.
Yeah, Ja Morant is like krytonite for me.
I’d fear he’d turn in to Demarcus Cousins Part II.
Hard pass.
I’d rather make a play for Santi Aldama or Trey Murphy or Jaquez or Markkanen.
O the 4 mentioned above I would take Trey Murphy.
Ugh why’d it have to be IJ? Hopefully he can come back somehow… Saric is still the one I want gone.
Saw the reported “interest” in Ja. Of course. Undersized, no defense, not a good shooter, huge contract, multiple handgun videos leading to suspension, detrimental conduct suspension, BUT Vivek has heard of him. Sounds like the perfect addition.
Ja is a perfect fit to Vivek’s view of team building !
I could 100% see them mortgaging the future of the franchise to basically reverse the De’Aaron Fox deal, plus injuries and minus (a lot) of character. They’re not getting to the second round even if you add Ja for nothing.
Wish they had cut or bought out McBuckets or Saric instead of Jones . Oh.well, team will be better or not .
Happy for the signing but very disappointed to see I Jones waived. Jones never really got enough minutes this season to get himself adjusted to being on the court despite earning the time from his performance last year. Kings managements’ #1 problem is not knowing how to evaluate talent, especially their own.
Cut a 6’8 guy to add a 6’8 guy to “bolster” depth at PF spot…make it make sense lol
What a weird set of lineups. Kuminga 45 point “ revenge” game?
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