NBA free agency kicks off tomorrow, with signings allowed to be made official on August 6th. With free agency comes rumors. The Kings haven’t been the subject of any bombshell rumors, so we’ll just roundup all the small news and notes into one place for you.
Tristan Thompson trade not finalized yet
Keith Smith reports that the three-team trade sending Delon Wright to Atlanta and Tristan Thompson to Sacramento hasn’t been finalized yet.
The Boston-Atlanta-Sacramento three-team trade has yet to go official. Hearing this morning that there have been some discussions on expanding the trade or tweaking the deal some. Teams remain on course to complete the trade today, before the league year changes over.
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) August 1, 2021
It sounds like the trade will still go through today, but the final version of the trade could still end up with some differences from what’s been reported so far.
Kings still interested in Nerlens Noel
HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto reports that the Kings are still interested in Nerlens Noel, but reiterates that Noel would be a backup plan if the Kings cannot keep Richaun Holmes.
The Raptors, Knicks, and Pistons are also expected to be interested.
What I find noteworthy about this is that it seems to confirm that Tristan Thompson wasn’t brought in to be a Richaun Holmes replacement.
It continues to be reported that the Kings have a good shot at keeping Holmes. The Charlotte Hornets, viewed as one of the biggest suitors for Holmes, traded for Mason Plumlee on draft night. That trade used a good chunk of Charlotte’s cap space. The Hornets also drafted center Kai Jones.
Lakers still interested in Buddy Hield
ESPN’s Zach Lowe reports the Los Angeles Lakers would still like to find a way to expand the Russell Westbrook trade to also bring Buddy Hield to LA.
There is some beautiful-mind framework in which the Lakers might still sign-and-trade Schroder and acquire Hield. It’s just hard to find it. The Wizards and Kings don’t want Schroder, sources said. The Lakers would need a fourth team that does, with assets the Kings want.
Lowe also discussed this on the Lowe Post podcast, and it feels very unlikely. Nonetheless, it’s worth keeping an eye on. The Westbrook trade reportedly won’t be completed until August 6th, so there’s time for the Lakers to try to find a willing 4th team.
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We will continue to keep an eye out for any other Kings rumors and will update as necessary.
Yeah, I’m thrilled. No cap space. Tristan Thompson on the way. No inkling that Monte has any real strategy.
How do you figure there’s no strategy?
seems like a clear strategy to get tougher with defensive minded players
Weather or not it works we don’t know yet. But it seems to me like that’s the plan
Please explain to me how Tristan Thompson is “defensive minded,” because I don’t understand it.
I was more talking about the draft picks
thompson is ideally the 3rd big off the bench and won’t get a ton of minutes.
3rd big at $9.7M? That just don’t make no sense.
A washed up Tristan Thompson shouldn’t be playing three minutes a game for the Kings, much less being a key factor in the strategy to get “defensive minded players”
What gets me about the trade is the timing. Why were the Kings so quick to make a trade of Wright for TT? There is no rush and big men ot TT’s skillset are a dime a dozen. Case in point…I would have much rather taken a flyer on UFA Collins for half the price of TT.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1421932608565436417
I think that’s my main issue (the fact that TT is just not very good at this point is secondary) – there was no reason to make this deal this early in the off-season.
Dime a dozen on TTs skillset? And your example is Zach Collings who may not play another single minute in the NBA. I’m not saying TT is awesome but he a clear upgrade as a back up center bringing toughness and rebounding and physicality, no Hassan is not comparable to TT whatsoever. We fill an obvious hole at back up center and clear a logjam at guard not sure why we are viewing this as a definite loss of trade.
It’s a loss to me simply because Wright’s a better talent and asset, and finding a TT isn’t that difficult in the NBA.
And hell, the team may have been able to do this deal down the road.
It was a multi-team deal. There’s no way they could have done this down the road.
Which, of course, isn’t a problem.
I’m with this…I guess I feel maybe the trade is a slight loss value wise compared to Delon, but not as dramatically as it would seem by the board in general.
The question for me asks is he one of the best 40-50 centers in the league? I think yes. His playoff team was +1 per 100 last year with him on the court (Theis +2) and that was him playing against lots of other teams starters. He doesn’t defend the rim well, but he can body people a bit one on one, rebound and he is actually one of the better screen setters for big men (per screen assts per min). If he is coming into to play back up 16-18 minutes a game, I don’t find a big fault with it talent wise.
As to the value, sure maybe you could have gotten someone comparable for 4-5 million. But Tristan Thompson is on the team now which for a team like the Kings does have value and they don’t have to lure anybody. Wha’ts a 4-5 mill player for other teams may be a 6-7 for the Kings. Hard to say what the extra 3-4 mill in savings would get the Kings in free agency. If operating over cap they have exceptions for that range of player. It’s also an expiring deal.
Sure I think maybe the 2nd round pick should have been coming the Kings way in this, but that seems like a small thing. If people want to grade this a slight negative value trade, I’ll agree. But I think Tristan Thompson is an upgrade over Damian Jones (or other min type guy), which is what the Kings were staring at.
Now if they don’t get Holmes back and TT is the starter, then yeah the Kings are in big trouble and if this was the plan to replace Holmes then poor planning, Booooo Monte etc. Find out soon enough.
If you’re threshold is a top-40 or 50 Center in the league, there are better targets out there. I mean, Willie Cauley-Stein was the 31st ranked C by RPM last season. Guys in that range probably aren’t hard to acquire.
And I noted his pace adjusted numbers during the playoffs below. Boston was terrible with him on the floor against Brooklyn (per the NBA.com stats).
KYLE O’QUINNNNNNNN!!!!
Where is RORDOG these days anyway?
But yeah, there are plenty of guys that can be had for close to league minimum that can do what Thompson does.
Luckily Kings probably won’t have to worry about him getting burned by the Nets in the playoffs…or probably any team : )
But I get your point. Like I said, probably wouldn’t have been a deal I would have done, but it just seems like a small thing and not some kind of absolute moronic thing to do. Some disagree obviously.
Monte will probably be more judged (fairly) on the big decisions. Draft picks, signing of 8 figure a year free agents, retention of those type of players etc. Holmes and retaining him makes this move feel a little less significant.
It’s not moronic, necessarily. Just way premature. I think going after a guy like TT is something you do later in the offseason, when nothing else pans out.
Think I’d rather have Wright as a potential asset to use in a bigger deal down the road or as a third team facilitator once free agency starts.
I would agree. Less extreme version of some of the takes on here.
The Kings just had a 7 footer on the vet minimum that would duplicate the numbers and results that TT puts up with equal minutes. The difference is TT costs $9.7M
He’s also an expiring contract
Zach Collins isn’t near the same quality of player as tt
At a 3rd of the price he is.
Not saying this is untrue, but if the goal is to win games, you want the better player. Now, if having TT makes the team unable to re-sign/trade for/sign another player (i.e. Holmes) because they’re a few million short on cap space, that’s another story.
Boston has an expiring TPE that is factoring into this deal, so it has to be done before tomorrow from Boston’s perspective.
Not saying the Kings couldn’t find similar value for Wright if they wait, but if this is the deal they’re looking to make, they have to do it now.
At this point, only strategy that I can see from Monte is that he is setting up for a soft tank in 2021-2022, a hard tank in 2022-2023, a Fox flip for assets at some point, and pray, pray, pray he can get Victor Wembanyama in 2023.
I’m kidding, of course, no way Vivek’s ego would allow such sort of thing.
Nope. The King’s FO has not embraced a tank since the glory years which has really set this franchise back.
Since Vivek took over, we have not seen the tank embraced, nor last seen when it was abudantly clear it was the best avenue to take.
The King’s are still shooting for the playoffs per all NBA insiders.
The Kings tanking is a pipe dream.
Yup, that’s why I said I was kidding.
I’m resigned to fact that the Kings are never making the playoffs while Vivek is managing owner.
The only plan is that there is no plan.
OKC and Houston will almost certainly be worse than the Kings next year, but it also feels like one or both will make the postseason again before we ever do.
Sorry for the negativity, but that TT/Wright trade was the cherry on top of the sh*t sundae.
if there was EVER a time to tank, it was last year
Monte, it’s not too late to get something else for Delon!
Can we tweak that deal by not including Tristan Thompson in it?
Could the Lakers even absorb Buddy’s salary? The only real attraction in the original trade was the first and salary savings, and those are both gone to the Wizards.
I don’t know how ( or if ) it could work but I would like us to sign our RFA, TD, the LAL sign their RFA, THT, then we swap TD for THT. TD would address their shooting needs more than THT, while THT is more capable of guarding the wing than TD.
Expand the deal? How about throw in Marvin and get back Cam Reddish? Weren’t they wanting to move him for a 1st rounder two days ago .
Part of their interest in moving Reddish was to stagger their extensions. Hence why they looked to move him draft night. They want someone with 3 or 4 more years on the rookie scale I expect. Bagley would overlap Trae’s new deal.
Right, Collins is RFA. He wants a MAX after turning down 90M extension. Collins is good but he’s not a max player.
Trae gets his max next summer, that is when Marvin is up too. I can see ATL having slight interest in Marvin if another team was going to give Collins the max and they did want to pay and could not work out a S&T with the acquiring team.
Then also ATL would have to think they could re-sign Marvin for far less than cost of Collins, presuming he salvaged his career next season.
The teams allegedly interested in Collins are DAL, MIN, SAS and MIA. I bet he gets a max deal from one of these teams to try to lure him away clean or get a S&T.
Thats true, but if they divert from Collins I would assume they would look for more proven possibly cheaper options. That said I would be very surprised if they legitimately let Collins walk. Even in a sign and trade.
There has been drama prior with him and the Hawks in extension talks, but they just had possibly their best season in the 21st century. I don’t think they have much wiggle room to get cutesy with this. He’ll be overpaid sure, but it will be the rookie max, so will Trae. Seismic but not quite as large as the 3rd deal max. And subsequent moves a year or two are plausible.
Maybe someone else sets the market with an offer sheet, but I expect they retain.
Collins is not a max player though, and ATL best season in forever was due to Trae Young and the coaching change. They have players and prospects on their roster to do a lot of what Collins can do.
Would you rather have Collins at 30M per year or Bagley at 10M (new deal of say 2/20), say Bagley turns himself into a player, long odds though they may be? There was a time Collins and Bagley were spoken of in the same breath as prospects.
If Collins was irreplaceable, it would be a no-brainer. You’d have to retain him, and overpay. With Hunter and Okongwu in the pipeline, you have guys who can step up. They should prioritize Huerter long term too, he’s another keeper.
I would feel better about giving Collins the max if he had more of a scoring repertoire and he didn’t have chicken legs.
Expand the deal so we end up with Collins or Reddish with Buddy included
If this was any other team then the Lakers I kind of expect the connection with Hield would be considered dead. Considering Schroader would have to ok a move, and otherwise is simply a free agent regardless, what incentive is there for any team to aid the Lakers in a sign and trade when they can sign him outright. I might be missing something but It’s basically giving them space for an addition for no reason.
There was a rumor that Washington was considering moving Bertans. What about Schroeder to WAS, Buddy to LA, and Bertans to SAC?
Bertan’s contract is WAY worse than Buddy’s, he’s owed at least $56MM over the next 4 years, possibly $65MM over 4 years if you don’t terminate the final year.
Buddy is owed $38Mm over the next 2 years.
They are the same age and IMO, Buddy is the better of the two players as he brings some rebounding and passing with him. Bertan’s position of SF/PF would probably provide slightly more spacing simply due to the defender assigned to Bertans being pulled from the basket as opposed to a G pulled from the basket to guard Buddy. Neither are good defensively.
I’d want major compensation for taking on an additional $18MM-27MM in future salaries.
One more downvote for the road. Bertans’ contract is awful.
Still have a ways to go this offseason
Im very curious about the Wizards generally. The Siakam rumor is intriguing, and so is the stated goals to move Bertans. Not sure if those intentions are trying to overlap, but Bertans value generally is both interesting for the positional versatility and scary for the money. Curious the kind of deals he would fetch. Regardless the Westbrook deal is good business by them.
The Wiz all of a sudden have a ton of competent role players around Beal.
I guess the plan is to run an offense centered around Beal and hope some of their young guys pop. Maybe something akin to what Atl has done with Trae.
Siakam for Hield and Bagley works, but you’d probably have to throw in a couple of protected firsts to get it done.
i think it’s a fair deal without draft comp.
toronto is the type of org that can turn Bagley into a solid player, they are kind of SA North.
Tor is looking to stay competitive and Buddy helps with that with his shooting. And Siakam’s deal is starting to look like an albatross.
The kings official Twitter hasn’t welcomed Tristan Thompson so I think there is a good chance he won’t actually be here come season opening. But it could just be the waiting period till all trades are finalized
Yeah the official Twitter won’t acknowledge anything until the trade is official due to league tampering rules.
What is the holdup?
Seems the the three teams are still tweaking the trade before making it official. And while I do hope we get added compensation I don’t agree with the premise that Tristan is washed, he had an injury riddled season but he showed up during the playoffs, plays with the physicality that we’ve been lacking, even if he gives us 15, 20 minutes of bruising and rebounding it’s something we didn’t have last year, he is a clear upgrade from Hassan and it’s not even close, not mention he is a capable passer and IQ wise in another world when comparing to Whiteside.
Boston was 44 points better per 100 possessions with Thompson on the bench during the playoffs. No, that’s not a typo.
He single handily kept them in the 1st game against the Nets running the floor and offensive rebounding playing physical. Again I’m not claiming I want him to start or get meaningful minutes he won’t be in our closing lineups, but as a back up 15-20 minutes a game not as a starter like he was with Boston, he can be valuable and much more so then Whiteside was. TT likes to run the floor and offensive rebound and bang, we need bruisers up front to allow our closing lineup a chance.
/checks stats
That first game of the playoffs, the Celts were 44.2 points per 100 better with Thompson on the bench.
Game 2: 43.8 points per 100 better with him on the bench
Game 3: 76.8 points per 100 better with him on the bench
Game 4: 26.0 points per 100 better with him on the bench
Game 5: 39.3 points per 100 better with him on the bench
Needless to say, Brooklyn enjoyed having Tristan Thompson on the floor during the first round.
And again, during the regular season he was the 69th rated Center in the league by RPM. 42nd last season and 56th the season before.
He’s just not a good NBA player at this point.
thank you, can we put this idea that TT is even a below-average player to bed. He’s Whiteside level of awful for an extra $8MM.
To be completely fair, I suppose it’s possible that TT could fill some short-term minutes as a rotational center on a bad basketball team. But he’s been a negative player on the floor for both good and bad basketball teams the last few seasons.
Does this “leadership and toughness” he brings mean anything tangible? I’d be really surprised if it did, and think there’s potential for him to be a negative in the locker room as well.
I guess its possible. If that is what they think, then I just don’t agree with the FO that it benefits the team in the short-term or long-term.
D. Jones played his way onto the team last year showing he could use some extra minutes to see if he improves. With Holmes and D. Jones, we had a good starting C and a 3rd big with some untapped potential, just needed to find the right backup C. Noel would be a good backup leaving the Kings with a Holmes/Noel/Jones rotation.
This trade bothers me so much simply because it is indefensible.
Delon could have been used in other trades where it returned something of actual value to the Kings, and the Kings didn’t need to pay $1.2MM more for another team to take the better player off our hands, there should’ve been assets coming back to the Kings for taking TT off the Celtic’s books.
So frustrated.
This. Someone should have punched Valanciunas when he injured Metu, and I’m very sure Thompson would have done it, but it’s not going to win you any more games.
Counterpoint: If TT was on the floor for the Kings at the time, would Valanciunas have injured Metu in the first place? Toughness and “edge” may not be tangible, but they can absolutely affect the course of a game.
Probably? I mean, are we saying that JV did this intentionally, knowing nobody would beat him up afterwards?
I think it was a bad basketball play that was made via a very quick decision. I doubt TT being on the floor would have changed the math in JV’s head.
There’s no doubt in my mind that JV did that intentionally. And it wouldn’t surprise me that did so with impunity. I was pissed when everybody stood around and did nothing.
Sounds like “learn how to win”, “playoff experience”, and “culture”.
We win the fight though.
Not a single GM would take whiteside over TT this year not one. We may not see a single GM take on Whiteside period. Not even for a bench warm body, meanwhile TT started for a playoff team last year.
I believe you are forgetting his contract. I’d wager there are quite a few GMs that would take Whiteside on the vet’s minimum over TT and his $9.7M.
I’d wager most GMs would look elsewhere from either of these guys.
You just explained why (well at least one reason) they dealt him. I still haven’t read an actual good, basketball reason Thompson is here.
Because there isn’t any.
Not really claiming he was great nor that he should be a starting center, just saying he had some good moments, and as far as Whiteside being a similar player well we are gonna have to agree to disagree we will see if Whiteside gets another min deal with anyone this year.
If TT was a free agent, you think he’d be getting a minimum deal right now? That’s just about timing.
Seriously man, TT is just flat awful. He is worse than Whiteside and way more expensive.
Besides, Whiteside isn’t who TT is replacing based on the supposed interest in both Holmes and Noel, he would be replacing D. Jones who has shown he is better on both ends of the floor than TT, is much younger and less expensive.
What the hell is the point of bringing TT on board?
Nba experience matters and size does as well, no he is not a starter anymore but can become a valuable bench piece. Betting on development on d Jones would be nice if our plan wasn’t to end our non playoff streak. We must be watching different players because Whiteside may not get another contract and TT bball IQ is in another galaxy when compared to Whiteside.
You’re aware that TT is a well known commodity in the league? Nobody here is unaware of the guy, but it does feel like you’re overstating his value to a team.
Whiteside may not get another deal, but not sure either guy is making much of an impact going forward.
I would be pretty surprised if Thompson lasts more than a year or two longer than Whiteside as an NBA player.
I’m not evaluating the next 2 or 3 years of TT nor claiming your unaware of the guy, just evaluating this coming year as an expiring contract and what he brings to our bench vs what we haven’t had. As the trade stands we lost the trade but balanced our roster adding size and physicality and a skillset we didnt have last year thats all. We draft BPA and balance our roster via trades and free agency and that’s refreshing.
We were last in defense rebounds last year. That has to be part of the thinking. Lets compare these guys defensive rebound rates. I am not making a case for or against because I have not looked up the rates yet:
Defensive Rebound Rate:
Holmes 22.7%
Metu 18.7%
Jones 18.5%
HB: 17.2%
Whiteside: 31.8 %
Marvin: 21.5%
TT: 23.5%
Queta (College): 27.0%
Note: I am less concerned with offensive rebound rate, since defensive rebounding is how you end a defensive possession successfully, and we were the worst at it.
Interpretation: SAC got 71.3% of defensive rebounds, 2nd worst in NBA, that was with Whiteside gobbling up 31.8% of his chances. Whiteside is not returning to a team terrible clearing the defensive boards.
TT had a slightly higher rebound rate than Holmes, better than Bagley, a softie but quick leaper, but appreciably better than Metu and Jones.
If you lose Holmes and trade Bagley, your two defensive rebounders are categorically poor (18%), a tick better than HB. TT is a stop gap to provide board help until Queta shows he can play spot minutes or / and another trade manifest to improve our overall prowess on the boards.
Delon is the better player than TT. No one is going to argue that. But he was 5th or 6th on the depth chart if you consider TD the better player (I do), more capable of playing off the ball as a SG; this is also with the presumption Buddy is gone.
Guard Depth Chart:
1- Fox
2- Ty
3-Davion
4-TD (RFA)
5-Buddy (pending trade)
6-Delon
If we cannot find a new home for Buddy, Delon is 6th on the depth chart. So Delon had almost NO avenue to seeing the court next year and TT becomes our best defensive rebounder upon his acquistion.
You could say well we are going to trade Buddy and TD, then that opens up minutes for Delon as the 4th guard. But that would be bad asset management and roster construction to value Delon over TD, since the latter player is more of a SG, younger, and more talented.
I am not even a fan of the acquisition of TT but I see the logic to it and see the criticism as over-the-top, the Doomers trying to deflect from our epic draft.
McGenius was audacious (and right) to take Mitchell. It was BPA all the way then put the onus and pressure on himself to reconfigure the roster in short order. It takes confidence and boldness to do what this GM did and to think he had moves up his sleeves henceforth to address other issues that need to be addressed.
I disagree that Mitchell was BPA, but I still really like him as a player. I hope Mitchell balls out – although I have concerns that he ever lives up to this draft position simply due to his size and lack of being able to guard anyone beyond a PG. I mean, our small-ball lineup last year was Fox/Hali/Buddy/Barnes/Holmes which was already small and had difficulty rebounding. I can’t see how Mitchell/Fox/Hali/Barnes/Holmes doesn’t have the same problems (although I do agree that it would be a better defensive team on the perimeter with Mitchell keeping opposing guards from easily entering the paint like Buddy did).
I need to quibble with your assertion that Delon is 6th on the depth chart as a G. At worst, he was 3rd behind Fox & Hali…the majority of the time he was 2nd behind Fox. Hali is not our PG, he’s our SG who happens to run the offense in the half-court regardless of who is playing PG. Hield & TD split minutes at the SG/SF positions, they weren’t competing for time with Delon at PG.
Due to the selection of Mitchell, Wright had to be moved in order for Mitchell to get minutes (Mitchell would’ve been the 3rd PG, behind Fox and Wright), but we didn’t need to pay money to get a worse player. We could’ve trade Wright for future draft assets or part of a larger trade.
So our GM brings in 35 players pre-draft, not even including Davion, but he did not do his due diligence to maximize the return on Delon?
Is this your informed assertion? Our GM did not try hard enough, he lacked the proper work ethic to get fair value? I don’t think so.
How many teams are wanting to use up 9M of their cap space to absorb Delon, as good a player as he is. There are capped teams who have no room, and uncapped teams wanting to use their free dollars on free agents, and teams capped and uncapped with guards they rank higher than Delon.
This marketplace accurately described, not your fairtale version, is how we were able to get Delon for a terrible PG in Cory Joseph, who DET just waived.
And your assessment of our guards is wrong.
Ty is a PG more than a SG. We agree on this.
Fox is a great scorer, but he needs the ball in his hands to score or be a decoy as a scorer, he is more of a PG than SG.
Davion breaks down defenders, draws on dishes. You want the ball in his hands he is more of a PG than SG.
Delon runs offenses. He is a PG more than off the ball SG.
So Delon is 4th , 1-2-3-4 count em (!) on the depth chart. Where are his minutes coming from? Nowhere thats where!
Then you have Buddy on his way out and TD who we need to keep as a complementary combo guard but more comfortable off the ball as a SG.
Thats the breakdown of our guard line which leads to the clear and obvious conclusion Delon had NO place on the team.
Yeah I would LOVE if we got something better than TT for Delon. But I would not be so presumptuous and misguded as to contend our GM did not do his damndest to maximize the return.
McGenius is all about value trades, he is NOT intentionally settling for pennies on the dollar because he had a martini lunch to get to.
Just to be clear, McGreenius did “his damndest to maximize the return” in one whole post-draft day?
Yes, my assertion is that Monte failed to maximize Delon’s value. I didn’t mention his work ethic because it doesn’t have anything to do with our discussion, it obviously wasn’t a lack of trying (since he did more than just try), it was a lack of patience.
Monte made this trade to free up minutes for Mitchell to get on the court (again, he would have been 3rd behind Fox and Wright, don’t kid yourself here, he is still a rookie). The glut at PG was a problem Monte created for himself by taking on another PG, but lets give him the benefit of the doubt that Mitchell was BPA and that Wright needed to be moved to open up those minutes for Mitchell. He didn’t have to give up the best asset in the entire trade and then pay another team for doing so.
It is my contention that Delon Wright had more talent and value than what Monte got in return. Its true that the market sets the price but you don’t have to accept the first offer that comes your way.
Fair enough. For the record, I’m a huge fan of the Mitchell pick and Monte’s drafting so far. But dude needs to learn how to close a deal, among other things. And maybe not publicly hitch his truck to the worst coach in the league. I’m still rooting for him and would love to call him McGenius too, but man there’s a lot to be proven there.
Joseph and two second round picks, as someone helpfully reminded me the other day.
Then as far as I’m concerned it begins and ends here. The Kings lost the trade.
Kings traded a guard who was 5th in depth chart for a Center who as it stands is 1st in our depth chart. If u wanna make this black and white assessment then we just got better. Obviously for our sake, he becomes 2nd. So yes we got the worse player yet got better at the same time by doing so. I know its hard to digest but two things could be correct in certain circumstances. We are better today with TT then we were yesterday with Wright.
Disagree.
Isn’t that the exact opposite logic of drafting the BPA?
I agree with you to the extent if Jones outplays TT in practice and pre-season he should get the minutes over TT.
The problem is this coach will not necessarily award the minutes to the young player over the expired veteran if the young player outplays the veteran. The problem with this trade is if it enables the worst instincts of this coach.
The way you can potentially success with a coach with bad discernment and misguided bias is to take away the bad alternatives, as when Joseph and Bjelica were dumped.
Now if TT still has something in the tank and outplays Jones, he should be on the court to do dirty work and get boards. The problem is if and when TT plays like crap, which is possible to probable, the coach fails to recognize the crapiness and stubbornly refuses to go another direction.
There would be nothing to worry about if this coach was not a doofus. The pending moves are going to give him better alternatives but it take a non-doofus to make the right choice.
Ideally TT is a cheerleader and mentor to our younger bigs, not a rotational player. That would be the most likely outcome with a different coach. With this one, I don’t know.
If TT is not as washed up as it seems based on his last few years, then hopefully he brings something to the team, I just don’t expect it to be anything other than a bad move.
A $9.7M dollar cheerleader?
Buddy for two Lakers firsts.
Don’t think the Lakers can currently deal a first until 2027.
2027 is just in time for the Kings to finally make the 10th seed.
I appreciate your optimism!
I’d take the ‘27 and ‘29. Who knows where they’ll be then.
They’ll have a couple superstars, most likely.
No cap room for Buddy !
The mavs just traded away a guard in josh Richardson for a big man in Moses brown. Monte should be on the phone rn trying to get Zingus for buddy
The regime has said they are trying to create and maintain financial flexibility. Why would they go get an injury riddled big on a horrid contract?
why bring in an injury riddled TT on a horrid contract that only hurts your flexibility?
TT for $10 mil expiring is horrid?
I may be missing something, I am not sure where you are coming from in regards to the $10MM expiring?
deepshot wasn’t commenting on TT. He was commenting on the idea that the FO would trade Buddy for Porzingus (another injury riddled big on a horrid contract). I wasn’t disagreeing with deepshot, I was pointing out how the FO is not following their own plan.
I brought up TT as evidence to counter the reality of the FO’s supposed goal of creating financial flexibility. Nearly every move made so far has added salary and expended some form of asset value for nothing in return.
With the Kings wasting a lottery pick on a 22 year old backup PG and having no cap space for free agency (not to mention the fact that no one ever signs here), is the plan really to go into the season with no real improvements made to the roster?
What exactly is the plan here?
The plan is to donas vivek says and just see what happens.
I think they should have dealt the pick, but the alternative was to waste it on a backup SG move him to SF and pray that it pans out better than the SF Buddy experiment.
Would love to have Bertrans for Buddy. I know this would not go well with kings fans, but if we could trade Fox and Barnes for Jaylen Brown(24 yo) and Nesmith then I’d be happy. Resign Homes.
I’d trade Fox for Brown straight up right now. Mitchell is going to be a top three player in this draft and the alpha of this team. He and Hali are the real backcourt of the future. If nothing else, Monte can draft.
Malik Monk is unrestricted. Was hoping Kings would go after him, but with the Davion pick, not happening.
Draft Sengun and sign Monk would have been much more appealing.
Kawhi is unrestricted, maybe the smartest guy in the room can work his supposed magic and ink Kawhi.
Can Tristan Thompson be bought out? And can that open up cap space?
They could buy him out but it wouldn’t create cap space, so there wouldn’t be a point in buying him out
Could they stretch him?
Honestly I don’t know. The stretch was a weird one-time thing and I don’t know if the Kings are still able to use it or not. There were a bunch of odd rules and I am definitely not the CBA expert.
Yeah, about the only thing I remember is that the length of the stretch was double the number of years plus one. But no idea if his type of deal would be eligible.
Can’t imagine that they would stretch Thompson. If they were looking for space, it seems like they could have traded Wright into someone’s space, at least partially.
I don’t see what an analytics driven front office sees in Thompson, but that’s why I cut grass for a living.
Yeah, they could just stretch Wright, if it was about clearing cap. They seem to actually want TT.
They stretch players all the time. I would suspect they won’t stretch Thompson because there’s little advantage in stretching him now without a need for that 6 million in space it would create.
Hopefully Monte has the same success closing the Thompson-Wright deal as he’s had with all his other deals.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been hoping all morning.
That would be an unexpected surprise.
This comment has me rolling.
The only thing that would make TT sticking around palatable is if he goes vegan, celibate, loses twenty pounds, and is obsessed with performing for his next contract and escape from basketball hell.
Although if the team doesn’t turn out fun to watch, TT getting back with the Kardashian and then getting caught with Vivek’s daughter would have to do for entertainment.
All part of Viveks master plan….
You know what, I’d be in for Schroder, just to use him to cup check all the people we don’t like.
You could resign Cuz to do that for a helluva lot less money.
Badge Legend