The Sacramento Kings announced Sunday it has completed the trade with the Denver Nuggets, swapping Jonas Valanciunas for Dario Šarić.
Considering the career arcs of these two players, from the Kings perspective this deal appears to be largely financial.
Šarić hasn’t averaged more than 20 minutes per game since 2019-20 and has career averages of 10.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.9 assists over his eight seasons in the NBA. The 6’10” power forward has averaged 44% from the field and 36% from three over his career. Last season with the Nuggets, he only played in 16 games and had career lows in points and rebounds. He was the 12th pick by the Orlando Magic in 2014.
Valanciunas is still a starter-level NBA center with career averages of 13.1 points and 9.3 rebounds. As a backup to Domantas Sabonis after last season’s trade deadline, he averaged 8.7 points and 7 rebounds in Sacramento.
Šarić is owed $5.4 million next season. Valanciunas is owed $10.3 million next season and $10 million the season after. So, there is around $15 million in savings with this deal.
This leaves questions about the backup center position behind Sabonis next season, unless the Kings are ready to give Maxime Raynaud a run at that. (And based on his performance so far in the Summer League, that might just be the case.) Raynaud is a rookie though and will need to adjust to the strength and speed of NBA players.
This trade was, of course, reported over a month ago. There has been some controversy over Valancianas reportedly exploring his overseas options, particularly with Panathinaikos. The Nuggets have insisted Valanciuans will honor his NBA contract. For now, it seems like things have settled, but it will be interesting to see what happens with Jonas. Like he was for Sabonis, he is an ideal backup for Nikola Jokic.
I can’t wait for the introductory press conference where Perry explains how Saric fits his ideal model for the Kings!
That’s easy.
“Dario is competitive, tough, team oriented, disciplined, accountable, and professional. That’s what we need. Talent and on-court production are secondary matters.”
“Something that stands out to me regarding Saric is that with his game, on defense, he’s a volunteer, not a hostage. We need guys that put in the work in that regard.”
You say that in satire, but it actually might be a good point for an end of the roster guy..
The thing is that you traded your very servicable high-quality back-up center for the end of the roster guy straight-up!
That’s the wild part to me. The Kings gave up the vastly superior JV for a washed Saric and didn’t even get a 2nd round pick out of it. I don’t care if the Kings saved $5M this season. JV was an asset that the Kings themselves gave up two 2nd round picks for!
For me, it just has to be part of something greater to make it justifiable.
In the context of Viking Val’s desire to head closer to home, this is especially perplexing.
Much like Sasha Vezenkov – if the guy wants to void his contract (and abandon his ability to re-join the NBA) – then you save $20M instead of $15M. If you just have to have roster filler, then you pick up a Drew Eubanks for $2.5M (or whomever) instead of Dario Saric. (Sign Boogie Ellis as a back up PG, who looked very decent for Phoenix at VSL)
You’ve got an in with his good buddy Domas, so it is odd that this inside scoop was not utilized well.
I just read a while ago the JV is still not 100% joining Denver. He’s in Europe right now with his national team and was asked about it and his response was definitely not rock solid.
So if he does in fact walk from his contract, the Kings would now twice have egg on their face for making a trade involving a guy who was leaving for Europe anyway.
Sending JV to the Nugs was solely a move to free up cap space to go after their main target this offseason. Somehow this team manages to stay at the fringes of the top of the league’s salaries without actually crossing over the 1st tax apron. Or relevance. Its the only thing consistent about this team under Vivek’s stewardship.
If I’m not mistaken, offseason moves have to happen in a certain order to comply with the CBA. As an example a team cannot sign a free agent to space that they don’t currently have. They’d need to open up the space before an officially announced deal, correct? Sure, deals can be reported via the media, but nothing is official until the team announces.
The reason I ask this is because the Kings officially announced the Schröder deal before the current trade for Saric. So, did the Kings even need to make this salary dump in order to sign Schröder? If not, then what hell kind of trade is this?
Lining up for the Westbrook/Simmons vet minimum signing?
It had better be something, because if this is it, what a pathetic franchise.
Perry: It’s perfectly understandable that not everyone possesses the perspective or insight required to recognize the subtle brilliance of the path you’ve chosen, but you can hardly expect everyone to keep up with your unique sense of direction.
(Writing Perryisms is something AI is actually useful for!)
I have a bad feeling it’s the “what a pathetic franchise” option. Legitimately, maybe the worst run franchise is the big four North American sports leagues.
This. But… even if it “is something”… it’s still a pathetic franchise. I mean, it has been for a very (VERY) long time.
Listening to the Ham et al Podcast, they did say that they have 5 guards on the roster, with one real PG and a few others who are PG adjacent ie Monk and others who can help Sabonis. Hams point was the only way you’d think they sign Westbrook is if they trade Monk for example. Its an interesting point, and then watch the Kings do the opposite
Fail to see how this helps the team short or long term.
Easy. He fits the timeline and identity. Old and below average from 3.
Saric is perfect for current timeline . 2 years away from 2 years away .
We can trade him alongside a 2nd round pick right before he requests a buy-out to return to Europe!
Because it doesn’t help the team. Because the short term plan for the team is to make sure it’s profitable for ownership and the long term plan doesn’t actually exist.
There is not a plan to ever actually build a competitor.
So we’re going into the season with one serviceable forward. Unless you want to consider DeRozan a forward, then we are going into the season with an undersized ball dominant small forward and an undersized power forward. Winning!!
Quewtion: Can Markelle Fultz be our backup point guard?
Jack, I truly admire your ability to stare at the flaming dumpster fire that is this franchise and think to yourself “is any of this incinerated garbage worth anything?”
You always want to try to play the hand dealt to us Kings fans, even when many of us have already walked away from the table. I tip my cap to you for that.
I haven’t really seen Saric play at all. His per minute and advanced stats were better than I expected especially on the defensive end. He seems like he could play 20 minutes of non-negative basketball
He hasn’t averaged 20+ minutes per game in any season since 2019-20.
Ok…17 minutes then assuming my math for his season with GSW is correct. I will take 17 minutes at PF given the current roster. It looks like he misses a lot of games though
Gotta create and maintain that financial flexibility for all of those deals you almost but not quite make.
This may be not my understanding, but it would appear that Keon is the most valuable asset the Kings have for acquiring draft picks at this time.
What about Keegan?
I am considering cap vs potential contribution. I am not as knowledgeable as you. You may be correct.
I would think the Keon’s value actually dropped since he is now a UFA next summer.
I love the naive optimism of newer fans who see deals like this and go this totally means that something big has to be coming. While the rest of us who have suffered through years and years of torment are like, no, no it doesn’t have to mean that at all.
Also, because I know you really really want to know:
alt + 0138 for the S with caron
Šaric. The alt + keyboard does not have the lowercase c with accent acute.
The only worse stain on the current front office than this trade (as it currently stands) would be if we now go after (as rumored) Kuzma. None of this makes a lick of sense.
If it is really Perry’s intention to have Saric fill the void left by Lyles, as the primary backup 4 and small ball 5, then I really have to question his basketball mind.
Maybe he’ll just take Jae Crowder’s spot on the bench.
I think it was a cap saving move to fill our the rest of the roster. Moving JV also, potentially creates space for Max to play more. I think the front office thinks Max can play solid minutes thus season.
The team just doesn’t have a clear direction this season, so I don’t really know. Maybe JV played too slow for their liking? If anything, it probably helps get more losses this season and more ping pong balls. The Stealth Tank cometh!
Ooooohhhh….. maybe this is it. Maybe we are just going to tank this season. Clear space, tank it, and go for something meaningful the next year? I actually might be kind of ok if that was really the plan. I’ll take anything besides being a fringe play-in team for all of eternity.
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