Well folks, another Sacramento Kings season is in the books. *Heavy sigh* Let’s go over the last week or so, shall we?
- The Kings had an outside shot to make the play-in tournament and pretend that the season was a success with just a few games remaining. All they had to do was win out and hope that the Spurs lost the rest of their games. San Antonio blew a lead to the New York Knicks, and Sacramento was leading the Memphis Grizzlies late in the 4th quarter, but the Kings allowed the Grizzlies to end the game on a 12-0 run, ending their very slim play-in hopes. Oh, and the Spurs didn’t win again.
- Marvin Bagley got hurt again and missed the final four games of the season. I honestly can’t remember what he injured this time. After three seasons in the league, Bagley has now missed 48% of his career games.
- From a lottery perspective, Sacramento did a great job over their final few games, as they entered into a three-way tie with the Chicago Bulls (who won on the final night of the season) and the New Orleans Pelicans for the 8th, 9th, and 10th, spots in the NBA lottery. The tiebreaker “coin flip” will be held next week.
- After two seasons of utterly failing to make any progress and after five seasons of losing the vast majority of his games, Luke Walton was retained by Kings General Manager Monte McNair for at least next season. Walton has two years remaining on his deal, perhaps one year longer than this giraffe’s patience with this organization.
Now get to asking (and venting) (and complaining), so we can get to answering (and complaining)!
Why did we start a website to cover the Sacramento Kings? Doesn’t this violate the 8th Amendment for no cruel or unusual punishment?
And what does that say about your paying customers? 🙂
There’s a Dutch saying that shared grief is half the grief. That’s what TKH is to me.
We could have written about literally anything. And we stuck with this.
Is something stopping the site from branching out to other sports? Serious question.
Mostly time and availabilty, but that’s certainly not out of the question down the line.
The 8th Amendment states “…cruel and unusual punishment.”
Following a perenially bad team is a voluntary act, and while following and reading about the Kings is certainly considered to be cruel, said act is committed knowing the team is perenially bad.
Therefore, the “cruel and unusual” test fails.
Case is remanded to Chainmail for further discussion.
Objection. Some of the stuff we have to deal with is both cruel and most certainly unusual.
To wit:
https://twitter.com/SeanCunningham/status/1391579404367663105?s=20
I rest my case.
That said, people that don’t talk with their hands at all are weird:
Si, d’accordo!
As a Vlade fan, I’m glad to see that he still has a positive relationship with the organization. As a Kings fan, I’m slightly concerned that he still has a positive relationship with the organization…
We are all one big family of masochists.
Do people think the Kings front office will offer the max early bird to Holmes? I do not see why they would considering I do not think Holmes is on the “same timeline” as Fox and Haliburton which the McNair stated was important when he was hired.
This is where I re-up my record of not believing in timelines more than a year or two out. If your “timeline” is longer than that, you don’t have a timeline.
All the crap Monte said when he was hired has been thrown out the window. I don’t blame him for not giving many interviews, it just makes him look bad when he doesn’t follow through.
Which specific thing are you referring to that he hasn’t followed through on?
From his intro press conference: “McNair mentioned flexibility and being in position to make the right move at the right time.”
Today, we have less salary cap space and less draft picks than the day of this press conference.
And the roster is considerably improved, with assets added. I’m not saying that suddenly this is a highly-competitive team, but if you’re bemoaning the loss of some second round picks while Davis & Wright were added, I really don’t know what to tell you. Each of those guys is considerably more valuable than most of the reaches you’ll make after the first round.
I’d like to keep Holmes, but when your team is shit, and has committed to a shit head coach, whether or not Holmes (or anyone else) is here barely matters.
Minimally improved, in my opinion.
I don’t get this take. He’s literally been in the position less than a year and somehow he’s failed to follow through because we have less cap (cuz he upgraded the depth chart) and less draft picks (yikes, those valuable 2nd round Vlade specials have gone from 120 to 115.) How’s this evidence of a lack of flexibility? Is he supposed to snap his fingers and magic more talent into this team? Have tried realistic expectations…?
I think this is fair, with a caveat – by all indications, the Kings FO decided to chase the play-in, rather than try to move assets like Barnes and Holmes at the deadline.
If true, that’s evidence of potential flexibility he eschewed for a pipe dream.
In listening to Ham interview on the morning show, I can’t help but wonder if the Holmes is to expensive to resign narrative is coming soon
Could be. Heard from other sources he could possibly get a 4 year/ $80 million contract. If some team actually offers that kind of money to Holmes. Pretty sure the Kings would let Holmes walk this summer.
And rightly so as that is a big overpay for Holmes.
But they should have judged the market and traded him at the deadline if that is the case.
Yep, the decision to retain him this offseason should have been made in March. Not July. But who knows, maybe it was.
Yep. There’s just flat out no excuse for letting him leave now.
I don’t know. The Kings have a pretty strong track record of signing fringe starters to $20MM/yr contracts recently.
Yep and I hope that streak would end. We may find out on draft nigh if the Kings draft a BIG (Alperen Sengun!) then that would mean the end of Holmes in Sacramento.
I like Sengun but he is not ready to contribute right away. It took Holmes 3 years to contribute.
How about Josh Giddey? another Haliburton-
None of the other bigs are worth 8-10 slot.
Take BPA like Haliburton last year or one of the two mentioned.
Yeah, Ham makes it sound like he is gone.
If Holmes does indeed walk, McNair is officially failing as a GM, IMO. That would be Bogi and Holmes gone for nothing in less than a calendar year. I don’t care what folks think, but the additions of Metu, Jones, Wright, and the rights to Davis does not equal Bogi and Holmes, even if they come cheaper.
I’m torn. If Holmes walks (bad), it likely to be for a contract I wouldn’t want the Kings to be paying him (good!). But if that’s the case, then the team probably should have moved him at the deadline (bad).
Exactly, and that last part would lead me to believe that McNair either doesn’t know what he is doing, or he doesn’t have a plan.
Keeping him to chase the play-in, and losing him for nothing, would be a huge miss. He could have likely garnered a first or good young player.
I don’t think he would have gotten that much for Holmes, but throwing away an asset because you couldn’t think far enough ahead to figure out if you could afford him is a very bad look.
How many firsts can the Kings get for Fox?
I have not been impressed with Fox of late…would definitely be open to this. Lets load up on firsts, get rid of salary and do a real tank next season. In addition, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the team that was playing at the end of the season compared to the team that was playing the rest of the season, I could take a season of that if the team committed to a tank.
(Fox has hot start, and goes ballistic after the all-star break.)
(Fox is out due to Covid protocols)
“That guy sure has been unimpressive lately.”
My issue with Fox is not with him as a player, but just remember that next season we will be utilizing his skills for a third year under Luke Walton’s direction.
How long before he wants out anyway? And not because he doesn’t “like” Walton – clearly he does – but what happens when he spends his 5th off-season watching the playoffs at home? When does the losing break him down?
With his pretty strong endorsement of Walton, he has put the onus on himself, IMO.
If this team doesn’t succeed under Walton, Fox has little ground for complaints.
That may be true, but that doesn’t mean that another year of losing won’t start to weigh on him more regardless of the cause!
Yeah, could be.
It’s one of the reasons I’m on the trade Fox in a heartbeat for a good return-train.
There should be exactly zero players on a bad team like the Kings that are off-limits in a trade. But it’s really hard for me to imagine the team that’s going to give up enough for Fox to make me happy about it. We’ll see how the lottery plays out. Maybe somebody would rise to the top if they were a team with a top pick to offer. But I’m not sure they would.
This crowd would of killed you during the DMC days like they did Karl…
I was a vocal proponent of trading Cousins in 2016. Though I didn’t really start hanging out with this merry band of lunatics until 2017.
We coulda used you back in the day, ya bastard!
You didn’t miss much in the way of conversation, lemme tell ya…..
Bill Fitch was Larry Birds first coach and Bird stood up for him and while the rest of the roster wanted him gone. He got fired.
I don’t have a huge issue with him saying nice things about Walton to be honest
There isn’t really any benefit in Fox being anything but complimentary of Walton in the press.
Well, those are legitimate issues, but Gregory didn’t really get into them.
I know.
Not directly on point, just a spin off thought/conversation!
For clarity’s sake, my Fox comment was based on his recent quotes about Walton.
Listen to him gushing over his HC that led the team to 2 – 9 game losing streaks and the 2nd worst defense in NBA history, and tell me you trust him with the keys to the franchise: https://twitter.com/mr_jasonjones
The endorsement has been somewhat surprising, but hopefully watching another year of his career get pissed away as Fox approaches his prime serves as a reality check.
There’s still too much in the wind as far as offseason moves to know what kind of roster will be in place in the fall, but this team has shown it can lose a ton of games under Walton. Maybe a lackluster start will be enough for Fox to assent to dumping the coach.
Tanking has a strategy has had only minimal success- Philly but that took years and multiple misses to get Embiid and Simmons.
A tank or two year and some luck is best but Kings may have passed that when they got Fox and Bagley. Has luck run out?
or is there a homerun at 8-10? Every draft seems to have a star lurking in the mid first round. Michell, Klank, Bam, George, Leonard, Greek, Middleton etc.
The Spurs and the Cavs did pretty well with the tank. Each got a hall of famer and a title(s) for their #1 pick.
4
It is my understanding that Richaun Holmes cannot be signed here for what he would (theoretically) rate out on the open FA market. Is this so? If so, is there anything the Kings could do money-wise to help land him back in Sac?
If I’m getting it correctly (I’m being schooled on this by RORDOG & Guru), they can sign him for up to about $10.5MM per season IF they use their Early Bird exception. But if they just sign him into cap space (which they may need to create depending on the number) they can go all the way to the max.
But, as usual, I could be WAY off on that.
With early bird, they can pay $10.5 million in the first season then give up to an $840K raise each year after that for three years. Total contract max and years is $47.04 million and four years.
I also could be off on that.
I think that’s just if they use the Early Bird exception though, right? If they don’t use an exception and have the space under the cap, they can pay him whatever they want up to the full max, right?
Yes, that is early bird. I think I may have edited my comment to indicate that after your comment I am responding to now. If they have space, they can pay him up to the limits of that space. I think the deadline trades made the usage of space more difficult but don’t know much about that.
They added about, what, $6MM in Delon Wright. Otherwise, it depends on how Davis’s RFA plays out.
They could buy-out Bagley, but they won’t because they are too poor and they fail to see that Bagley has no place on this team beyond his rookie contract.
He is a cancer to the team while he is here and he will leave the first opportunity he gets anyway, so the only things Bagley brings are negative.
If TKH were all involved in a Hunger Games situation, who would win and why?
I’ve never loved a question more from the mailbag.
Tim would die first, but that’s because he would be killed before we were even dropped in.
I’m absolutely finishing top-3
Commenters included?
Same question, but using Battle Royale instead of Hunger Games.
I’m going to go hide in a Trailblazers jersey.
My question is this: Why?
Feel free to apply it to anything you’d like.
Answer:
Because German immigrants came to Texas around the mid-1800’s and settled in Central Texas in towns like Fredericksburg, Gruene, and New Braunfels–better known as the German Belt. Bringing their language, culture, and musical traditions, they made contact with the Mexican Americans. They eventually moved further south to South Texas and Northern Mexico to work the fields and the construction of railroad lines and brought with them the accordion to play their waltzes and polkas.
….If your question was:
Why are there accordions in songs you hear on Mexican radio stations.
https://www.pbs.org/accordiondreams/amazing/historyindex.html
With my family’s strong German roots, I was intrigued to learn this two years ago while visiting my wife’s family in New Braunfels.
What’s the point?
De’Aaron Fox.
Hypothetically, if Fox, Haliburton, Barnes, Holmes made up 4 of your starting 5, what level of player would the 5th starter need to be for you to confidently predict a playoff spot? Give an example of who that player would be. NOTE: Thanks to the ability to slide Barnes and Holmes up and down the spectrum, the play could theoretically be SF, PF, or C type.
LeBron.
…unless Walton is your head coach. Then you’d still miss the playoffs, as Luke’s time coaching in LA has shown.
For me, this team needs a dynamic wing badly.
Agreed. Who would that be in your estimation. Say, the worst version of that archetype that would make the Kings a good bet for the playoffs. Not contention. Just making the playoffs.
Mikal Bridges?
Mikal is an excellent 3-and-D wing and I was very high on him in that draft. He definitely brings that elite wing defender element we’re badly missing. I’m not sure I would say he’s enough to push the Kings into “good bet for the playoffs” territory. But he’d certainly be a great addition.
Probably a tough get now, unfortunately.
Oh, I don’t think there’s any way the Kings get him. He’s too perfect for them and they’re seeing a ton of success. I mean, what would the Suns possibly want that the Kings have?
Probably more difficult to pull that off given you’re in the same division, too.
If the Grizz don’t pick up his option, Justise Winslow could be a sneaky get on the cheap.
The issue with Winslow is that he has to be “on the cheap” enough to not hurt you if he only gets into 15-20 games. Honestly, I think we’re talking about something in the $1.5-$3MM range at this point.
Which I would be on board with, especially if he can possibly stay healthy. They guy just turned 25, plays both ways and is a willing passer.
Absolutely. I’d take a chance on him on that kind of deal. I just wouldn’t want to be the team that gives him $5-10MM.
Well, I’d love a Michael Porter Jr archetype if I had my choice. We need 1a/1b scorer with Fox.
I know this doesn’t sit well with TKH but I don’t think Holmes is the center I want if I’m leading the team. Love the guy but he doesn’t defend big centers well, stretch the floor or shot block. I wish they’d traded him. I wish they’d trade for Bamba.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I think Holmes is fine. He’s a fringe starter to me. Which means he’s perfectly acceptable as a starter as long as you can put the right people around him. The Kings, IMO, don’t currently have those people.
Myles Turner.
He definitely brings a lot that the Kings need. Theoretically, he’s the type of C that could help you live with Bagley’s shortcomings at the PF.
Scottie Barnes. But if Walton is still here, nothing.
He’s probably my pick outside the top 5. But I wouldn’t expect him to have an especially positive impact in year 1.
Barnes will go 6 or 7 or even 5. Kings cannot get 5,6 or 7.
Do Kings want a US 2 guard- Moody, Johnson or Booknight? or a big Sengun? or another Haliburton (Giddey)? or a reach for a SF- Wagner? or Davion Mitchell?
Go need vs. BPA?
Question: I know people have asked this a lot, but what is seriously the long term plan for Monte? All of the moves he has made this year have me confused as to what the plan is.
Then why don’t you look at the results?
We had one of the worst benches in the league, and now a pretty good second unit has taken shape. Can you not divine any benefit in the near or long term as a result of that?
I’m not as sold on the second unit as some others. Wright is a nice player, but Davis, Metu, Jones and the rest are all wildcards.
As things stand now, Bagley is a second unit guy, unless Holmes leaves and isn’t replaced.
It’s hard to have this conversation right now though. Maybe when McNair’s offseason is complete, that bench will be shored up.
I think Davis will end up being a really good pick-up.
It won’t be for a lack of effort on Davis’ part (or lack of shot attempts).
If he signs again next season…he could be a one and done.
True, good point
This:
Agreed. Not sold on this crew at all, outside of Wright being a rotation bench player.
Now do wins.
Given that said bench had been playing starters minutes for most of the last month, I’m not really sure what you feel you’ve proven here. Did you expect them to run over opponents while Fox, Haliburton, Barnes and Bagley were all out?
They beat some pretty bad teams, and a couple of decent ones. There was some consistent good play among the group, and that works coming off the bench.
All in the garbage time of the season. Isn’t this Charlie Brown and the football stuff?
I guess I don’t see how Wright, Davis (if he stays), Bagley, Metu, Jones and our first rounder are anything near a decent bench for a good NBA team.
McNair still has much to do in that regard, IMO.
I’d Iike to see the Kings have a dynamic starting 5 and be elite on one end of the court before I really worry about the bench personally.
I’m probably alone in that though.
I think that’s good process. 🙂
I’m so thrilled you agree Perry. I was beginning to worry about your value system.
I think it’s definitely the right way to go in terms of really investing in the bench. But looking for quality players/values down the roster than can either help your team or be good trade fodder should be a constant.
I agree. But you have to walk before you run and I think Monte isn’t exactly spending big money on the bench anyway. And has looked for value everywhere available to him.
Agreed. Now we just have to see if/when the big move comes along that has a chance to really move the needle. I don’t really have an issue with it not happening to this point, but I think sometime in the next 1.5 years he’s going to have to take a bigger leap if he hopes to build a winner within the span of his contract.
I think he needs to do it this summer unless he gets catastrophically unlucky in EVERYTHING.
But maybe it’s possible standing pat with the roster works if there’s internal improvement across the board. That so rarely happens, though. I’m not even sure if I can remember an example of that outside of maybe a team like the Warriors in 2012-13.
Standing pat is a failure in my mind. There’s zero chance this team jumps from a 35 win pace to playoffs with this trash coach.
Then why start the season with a bad bench, back track on the creating financial flexibility vision Monte was preaching during media day, and then bolster your bench at the trade deadline to compete for the play in? I am pointing out that the plan seems to change based upon circumstance instead of following a vision. This type of planning/vision is the type of thing that leaves a team in ever spinning mediocrity.
So are you saying that regardless of circumstances, a plan should remain in stone, and should never be altered? That’s bonehead shit. You can argue about the results of making adjustments, but to suggest that rigidity of vision is a virtue under all conditions? Nah.
You need to stick to a Monte take: You either say “slow down, Monte needs time” or “yes, he should be changing his entire plan only 8 months after he was hired”. Which is it?
I don’t think anything he’s done has been significant enough to suggest a change in direction. He’s done a little minor, relatively insignificant tinkering around the edges. Personally, I think he’s going to have to make some significantly bolder moves at some point. Hopefully soonish IMO. But personally, I don’t think there are many conclusions to draw at the moment aside from the idea that Monte isn’t in a huge hurry to make major changes.
Said this about firing Walton but ill say it over again here: Change for changes sake is rarely the way to go. And I think that goes double for turning over the roster.
I think there’s a difference between “change for change’s sake” and “making sure quality people are in important positions”. I’d put Joerger and Malone in the former category, and Walton in the latter.
Losing Walton would be change for long term improvement’s sake.
That’s certainly the case. The issue being whether a move is “change for change’s sake” or “proactivity” is rarely clear at the time and usually only judged in hindsight. Just like “stability” and “stagnation.” The two are usually differentiated more by the outcome than the process.
Regardless, I’m very interested to see what Monte does over the next year regarding both Walton and the roster.
If your coach and roster are bad, you have plenty of reason to change. I think both are true of the current team.
Is there precedent out there for removing an owner of a professional sports team?
I only know about Sterling of the Clippers, but that was for blatant racism, not incompetence.
So you’re saying we need to bug Vivek’s house, listen in on all his phone calls, and hope for the best (worst)?
Carmichael Dave said this morning Sacramento is the only place in the country where fans could remove the owner. Either that RV has surface-to-arena missiles or some of you carry infinity stones.
What’s the minimum you need from Monte to call this off-season a success?
top 4 lottery luck would be success!
Then you’d have to trust the front office to draft someone good at that pick.
Damn. Hadn’t thought that far ahead!
Of course, getting lucky in the lottery isn’t really something you’d use to judge the GM. He has no control over that.
Kings local media pushing back hard on the fan disappointment in retaining Luke Walton is giving me a very Through the Looking Glass type of mental confusion!
Why do we get the company line so often in this town from the vast majority of our local media?
I’d thought I’d seen it all, but the last 24 hours have taken it up quite a notch.
I had to read this a few times – does that mean the media is asking tough questions?
Exactly the opposite, I think.
No. It means that the media rarely analyzes or scrutinizes the information provided to them by the team (officially and through “sources”).
And worse than that, they actively push back on the folks (fans) who do offer any critical analysis of the decisions/moves/information provided by the org.
Ah, I figured that was the case, but thought maybe we had entered up-is-down world temporarily.
Media is afraid of the Kings and team access. In regards to sports, they are the big dogs in this town
Which members of the media have defended retaining Luke?
curious as the only Kings related info I get is on tkh.
Ham. Breton. CD. Ross. Katye. Draper. Jones. Go on twitter. Listen to the interviews of Ham, Breton, etc. on KHTK.
I mean, who hasn’t? Maybe Barling?
KC on ESPN 1320
It’s a one-horse town for sports, and that horse is the Sacramento Kings. You toe the company line, or you’re on the outside looking in.
The horse’s name is Gluey, if anyone wanted to know.
I honestly don’t see why anybody is so scared about losing “access” that they pull their punches and don’t call it like it is re: Kangz. Who cares about access? TKH has better content and a more loyal following than any junk that airs on KHTK, and it has almost literally zero “access.” There is a huge pent-up demand in Sacramento for Kings reporting that doesn’t grovel at the franchise’s dirty feet. So you don’t get interviews with Walton and McNair anymore? Big deal. Small price to pay for genuine quality content.
Speaking of KHTK, I was listening at 3 PM the other day when Jason and Doug’s show started. I decided to see how long I could listen to Doug before having to turn off the radio to preserve my own sanity. Result: 3 seconds.
That’s monk-level patience.
Do you know this to be the case? – “Luke Walton was retained by Kings General Manager Monte McNair…” I’m with you if Monte does a presser and says Luke is my guy, I have no interest in hiring my own coach. But it seems, for all we know, that Monte could be kicking chairs and pulling his hair out over Vivek, right?
Or Monte is bending over backwards for Vivek b/c the writing was on the wall that his time in Houston was done and Vivek offered him a primo job.
Or Monte thinks Luke is a good coach. Not sure which of these scenarios is the worst.
Yeah, either Monte has no control over his decisions as GM or he doesn’t make good decisions as GM. It’s a no-win situation for us.
I’ll just copy-paste this at every opportunity.
Monte signed off on it. It is for all intent and purposes his decision. Monte has the title of GM, he cashes the sizable checks of a GM.
He cannot do that and then deny it is his call or hide behind the owner. If Monte chooses to accept ownership interference, that is on him.
Monte has basically given Walton a sign of approval for this past season, a season where tanking would have made a ton of sense. And the objective, the low bar of reaching the play-ins, was not reached. Unless you want to buy in to that gap year excuse, which is the biggest copout there is.
Monte has chosen to tie his faith to Walton, and he is on the clock.
So by not quitting, he signed off on it? I’m with you, the honeymoon is over. But I’m not sold he signed off on it, either. He might just be spineless.
Potatoe- potato
Doesn’t this also mean if he updates the roster then he can fire Walton next season
I expect him to update the roster. I hope he will also upgrade it.
What is a happy basketball fan and what does one look like?
Asking for a friend.
This inspired me to check MB3’s missed regular season games as compared with the longevity GOAT, LeBron James. Regular season games missed:
LBJ: 119 games (18 year career)
MB3: 108 games (3 year career)
source: basketballreference.com and addition in my head, prone to mistakes
I once heard an analyst on ESPN say “Health is a skill.” Marvin Bagley is completely unskilled in this critical area.
I have Vlade Divac missing 79 games in his first 15 seasons. He missed a bunch in his last season and retired, but that’s impressive. (GMing is not impressive.)
#sacramentoproud ?
Oh, hell no…
#sacramentoembarrassed
I vaguely remember chatter about bringing a WNBA team back to Sacramento when Vivek took over. What’s the latest news on that front? Do you think there is still any chance this happens (do we dare subject another team to basketball hell)? I want championship basketball back (never forget 2005).
The WNBA is a joke both from a viewing and financial standooint.
No need for a return of the Monarchs.
#OnBrand
Why has there been so little discussion of Kyle Guy’s windmill dunk attempt the other night? This was the most exciting thing to happen in the last 10 games of the season.
https://nba.nbcsports.com/2021/05/17/kings-guard-kyle-guy-winds-up-for-monstrous-tomahawk-dunk-and-misses-video/
Screw it, just play your 4v5 next year, Vivek. You’ve got all your yes men in place to make it happen. At least it would be exciting, Seriously, would anyone on here be less happy, even if they went 0-82?
How difficult is Luke Walton’s job?
Very hard, but still not quite as hard as he makes it look.
Relative to what? Relative to other NBA head coaching positions, I’d say it’s pretty easy. Expectations are low and the media and fans are pretty soft on the franchise.
In most markets, reporters would have bulldogged that sexual assault settlement.
We’ve talked a lot about how the Kings can keep Holmes this summer and have discussed the limitations for the Kings in that regard, but can we also talk about Terrance Davis’ contract status? Currently is it even possible for the Kings to keep both of them and still have room in free agency? From my understanding there is a cap to Holmes, but the Kings would have to match any offer Davis may get as he is a RFA.
Thanks to Holmes Early Bird and Davis’ RFA, they could theoretically not be constrained by the cap in signing them, right?
I believe they are unconstrained by only Davis. Holmes on the other hand is capped with the full MLE, unless they clear salary elsewhere to re-sign him into space. That’s a taller order.
It may also come down to timing. What if Davis is offered a deal day one of free agency?. They Kings then have just days to match or let him walk. That could potentially hurt the Kings even more if Holmes doesn’t want to take the full MLE. Then, even moving someone like Buddy or Bagley may not clear enough space to sign Holmes into space.
…at least that is how I understand it.
I believe the full MLE will be $9.5MM in the coming season. That is based on this article that shows a projected 2021-22 cap of $112MM, a 2.62% increase from 2020-21 cap.
Early Bird should be slightly more at 10.5MM. Raises can also be 8% with early bird while they are only 5% max with NTMLE, if that matters some.
OT: Go get Vanterpool, Monte.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1394759864543481858
Nope. Gotta give Luke Walton chance No. 3 to be a HC in this league! Because of reasons!
Question:
Is Tyrese Haliburton going to need to be the true emotional/spiritual/mental leader of this team? De’Aaron Fox was asked about the 0-9 losing streaks today, and his response boiled down to “Well, yeah, but hey, if they were 2-7 steaks, it wouldn’t be so bad!” This is a pathetic response that you’d expect from a Walton-esque coach or a Vlade-esque GM, not a competitive leader. Fox is incredibly talented, but has he imbibed too much Kangz Koolaid after being here for 4 years? Is Haliburton the new captain of this ship?
IMO, Haliburton is clearly a better leader than Fox. Not that I think Fox is a negative in that regard. Just not a big positive.
There is a lot of vitrol about the decision to hold onto Luke Walton for another year. Tell us why this is actually a great move and the right decision for the franchise. Gives us a nice list of pro’s (No con’s those are already covered too much) to keeping Walton on board.
Badge Legend