We’re deep in the summer doldrums now, but Kings basketball is now just a month away. Still, there’s been some tidbits regarding the Kings recently so let’s play a little catch up.
Darius Acuff and fellow young Kings at Rico Hines runs
Former Kings assistant Rico Hines has long been famous for his offseason summer pick-up games that he hosts at UCLA. This year, it seems like half of the Kings roster has been in attendance. Darius Acuff Jr. is obviously the biggest draw, but Nique Clifford, Emanuel Sharp, Alex Karaban, Dylan Cardwell, Jonathan Mogbo and Adam Flagler are all also in attendance. It’s nice to see the young Kings already working out and playing together, building up some chemistry for the upcoming season. Here’s over 30 minutes of highlights from the run. Acuff in particular looks pretty smooth.
Jalen Duren situation still unresolved
Free Agency is mostly over and done with, but one of the earliest question marks has yet to be resolved with Jalen Duren still refusing to sign Detroit’s offer. The two sides continue to be far apart, but Duren has little leverage aside from threatening to sign the qualifying offer and waiting for next season when teams (like the Kings) will have actual space to sign him outright. Anthony Slater recently mentioned on the Hoop Collective with Brian Windhorst that Kings GM Scott Perry has Duren’s name “marked in highlighter” for the 2027 offseason if he does opt to go that route. However, I have my doubts that Duren will turn down what is likely going to be a $175 million payday. Just look at the Jonathan Kuminga situation to see how this can go very, very poorly. Kuminga was reportedly offered a 3 year, $75 million extension from the Warriors last summer, only to turn it down and sign a two-year $48.5 million deal with a player option, which he exercised only to find that interest had dwindled this year. He ended up signing another one-and-one deal this summer with the Timberwolves, but for just $12.4 million total. No matter how his agent spins it, that decision probably cost Kuminga at least $45 million.
Sabonis angling to leave?
Also in that same podcast, Brian Windhorst mentions how Domantas Sabonis changes agents this summer to Aaron Mintz at CAA. Mintz and CAA have just recently facilitated the exits of Trae Young and Walker Kessler from their respective teams, so Windhorst speculates that Sabonis could be trying to do the same thing. For what it’s worth, I don’t doubt the Kings would be very willing to move Sabonis elsewhere if they could, it would just have to make sense and the problem is that there aren’t a ton of teams that want Sabonis at his current price. That’s why a potential deal with the Raptors broke down last season, and why the Pistons don’t want to accept Sabonis in return for Duren in a sign-and-trade. Sabonis is a very good player, but he’s also a player with very specific weaknesses that need to be accounted for. Now that his contract only has two years left on it, perhaps a deal will seem more palatable to someone. Sabonis also only played 19 games last season due to injury, so he’ll have a chance to rehabilitate his value this season if he can stay on the court and play at the high level we are used to seeing from him.
Ben Simmons to Sac?
The Kings still have two empty roster spots, and now that they have opted to stretch DeMar DeRozan’s $10 million cap hit over three years, they have some room under the tax to operate to get their final pieces. We’ve previously heard about the Kings looking at adding another veteran guard, but one of them might be a player who hasn’t played in nearly two years: Ben Simmons. Simmons took the year off last year to become a professional fisherman, won a championship at that, and now wants to make an NBA return. Scott Perry and the Kings were in attendance at a Simmons workout recently, and now rumors say that he has been spotted in Sacramento recently.
Simmons doesn’t have the same allure as he once did, and is now 30 years old but he still intrigues me much more than the other names I’ve heard mentioned (Cam Payne, Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton). We all know that Simmons can’t shoot, but what he has always been able to do is pass and defend, and he’s also huge at 6’10, meaning the Kings who are always short on wings could slot him as a secondary playmaker with guys like Acuff, Zach Lavine and Malik Monk. His fit makes sense here, and he wouldn’t have the same type of pressure that he had early on in his career. Even if it’s just a stopgap solution for guard/wing depth, it’s a swing I’d make over adding another retread.
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