Monte McNair’s years-long pursuit of former Milwaukee Bucks guard Donte DiVincenzo found its conclusion at the trade deadline this season. I’ll spare you the convoluted details of the big 4-team trade that landed DiVincenzo in Sacramento and simplify it with this: the Kings essentially traded Marvin Bagley for DiVincenzo, Trey Lyles, and Josh Jackson.
It felt like a decent return on the failed Marvin Bagley experience considering all the baggage surrounding Marvin’s relationship with the organization by that point, and after watching DiVincenzo (and Lyles) play for the Kings post-deadline, my position on the move remains the same. I thought it was one of McNair’s better trades since Vivek Ranadive brought him in to run basketball ops.
DiVincenzo suffered a torn ligament in his left ankle in the first round of the playoffs in 2020-21, and the subsequent surgery and rehab from that injury kept Donte out of the Bucks lineup for a majority of the 2021-22 season. When he arrived to Sacramento at the deadline, he had only appeared in 17 games for the Bucks, and wasn’t shooting the ball nearly as well as he had been before the injury. It was pretty clear that he was still getting comfortable playing professional basketball again after all the time away.
Donte’s rough stretch with the Bucks continued in Sacramento for the first few weeks of his run here, but by March and April, you finally started to see the player Monte McNair had been trying to acquire for over a year.
The Big Ragu finished his season with the Kings averaging 10.3 points, 3.6 assists, and 1.5 steals while shooting .362 from the field, and .368 from three in in 26.6 MPG. His production got better and better as the season wore on. It wasn’t all great (shot selection could certainly improve) but I thought DiVincenzo was good enough under less-than-ideal circumstances that I’d like to see him stick around and see what he looks like on this team in a full healthy season.
DiVincenzo’s time in Sacramento was not without a little bit of drama, too. According to Kings Insider for ESPN 1320 James Ham, Donte was unhappy with his role coming off the bench for the Kings down the stretch, and his team felt like the Kings were intentionally limiting his minutes and role to decrease the salary required to keep him in restricted free agency this summer.
On one hand, Donte and his team have a point. He was outplaying Justin Holiday, and in a pure meritocracy, he should have been starting. At the same, Alvin Gentry was limited in backup PG options with De’Aaron Fox out of the lineup, so the Kings have a decent excuse there.
And even if DiVincenzo is right, I don’t know that starting would’ve had a major impact on the offers he’ll receive this summer. Restricted free agents are hard to steal from opposing teams, and the likelihood of a team parking limited cap space on a DiVincenzo offer sheet while the Kings decide if they want to match, doesn’t seem terribly likely.
Could a team offer DiVincenzo the full MLE? I guess so. The non-taxpayer mid-level exception for the 2021-22 season was $9.536 million. But that feels like the most a team would offer Donte no matter if he was starting, or coming off the bench considering how few teams have real cap space this summer. And I’d also expect the Kings to match that anyway, but I suppose we’ll see how it all plays out over the coming months.
At his best, DiVincenzo is a nice 3+D guard that can handle the ball in a pinch. He’s a valuable role player for just about any team so long as his shot is falling, and I both expect and hope he’s back on the roster next season. I don’t think we’ve seen the best DiVincenzo can offer just yet, and his energy and effort defensively is something nobody outside of Davion Mitchell has been able to exceed.
For a little homework in the comments, what’s the most you’d be comfortable paying DiVincenzo to stay in Sacramento?
I’d be willing to pay DD the full MLE but I doubt it’ll come to that. I think somewhere around 4yr/28 mil should get the job done.
I’ll admit I’m much bigger on Donte than some other folks I’ve seen. His defensive intensity, playmaking ability, rebounding, off-ball scoring, and BBIQ make him viable as Fox’s No. 2 in the backcourt. There’s not a whole lot of downside to his game other than some bad threes every once in a while. He’s still young and if he could hit 36-38% from deep I believe he’s a starting caliber player, but maybe people see him destined for a backup role forever.
I think the starter/backup just depends on the players around him. I like the idea of pairing guards who can pressure the ball with Sabonis. Maybe that is an opportunity to offset the rotations of Fox and Sabonis a little bit.
DDV received more mpg here than he did in Milwaukee, and the most mpg before/since the year he started for the Bucks (2020-21). So as it pertains to his complaint about playing time, I get it, but I don’t get it.
I think that he’s a great bench piece, and even a potential starter for a roster with better starters. But I don’t think that he is the starting sniper for a team featuring De’Aaron Fox and/or Davion Mitchell at PG.
To add to that, he averaged more minutes per game than Justin Holiday. I wish DDV had gotten more opportunity as a starter, because I think it would have been valuable to see different looks and different opportunities for all the players as the season wound down, but it’s not like DDV didn’t get to play.
While I definitely agree with the both of you, I think the priority was to pair Fox and Sabonis and get a sense for how players who fit vague archetypes of what you’re looking for around them looked like. That, unfortunately, did not include starting DiVicenzo as that would have been another adjustment to make on top of the challenging adjustment of trading for a big who plays the way Domantas Sabonis does.
Yep. There were 26 rostered Kings players this season. DDV was 7th in mpg, behind only Fox, Hali, Barnes, Sabonis, Hield and Mitchell.
A. I totally believe this.
B. It is penny wise-pound foolish.
C. It seems that Monte is from the Morey GM-mold, perceiving players too much as assets, and too little as people with feelings. Several players have indicated that Monte didn’t handle situations in a very nice manner, including Bogi, Tyrese, Kyle Guy and now Donte. Players talk and notice these things, i would imagine.
We should definitely go back to a GM who was friends with players, and made decisions with his heart instead of his brain. A guy like that would certainly hire the best head coach.
Yes, because black or white are the only two options, right Andy?
This is not very difficult; take business decisions, but treat people with respect. By all means, cut Kyle Guy, but have the decency to let him know before he finds out on social media. Or call him straight afterwards and tell him you’re sorry it got leaked before you could tell him.
This organization doesn’t have a lot going for it, so then at least do the things that are easy to control in the best possible way.
I’m a believer in DiVincenzo since his Villanova days, and would be willing to match an MLE offer to keep him around. You discussed his shot selection, and it absolutely needs work, but the thing with DD is that he just seems to make things happen. He’s so active, he rebounds like a madman, and defends like he means it. I think that he’s got the talent to be a starter, but at this stage, I love the idea of him coming of the bench for 30+ minutes. Ideally, you can get him for 3-4 years at an average of about $8 million per year, and maybe offer him a player option for the final year. I dunno.
The draft may impact DD’s situation, too. If a knockdown SG is available in free agency, adding shooting is always helpful. And if the ping-pong balls don’t bounce the Kings up, it wouldn’t be crazy if Shaedon Sharpe looks like BPA if the prime power forward candidates are already gone. Maybe at 6’6″ you can slot Sharpe at the wing. Again, I dunno.
I am also a believer in DDV. Like you said, he is so active, and the Kings lack dynamic and athletic players. I am guessing the odds are pretty fair that he can be a good to very good value to contract playing with a passing big like Sabonis.
Big Ragu to go, please. Terence Davis is the better 2-guard/wing option.
There is a scenario (not the best one) where we see a starting lineup including Fox at PG, Davis at SG and Dante at SF. It has potential to be good but not so sure (pretty damn sure) it’s not making the playoffs potential.
what I do know is that Monte must trade Barnes this summer. Who he gets in that trade return should be good enough to start at 1 of 3 positions. SG, SF or PF. Add on to that the rookie lottery pick and there’s some hope for significant improvement.
Period
Put me in the camp that if either Davis or Donte are starting for the Kings next year, the Kings will not be a playoff team. If they are both starting we might as well start looking at next year’s lottery picks now.
30 wins here we come . Number 17 a lock with that talent .
Yikes.
Both are more depth guys than main starters to me, and both are mistake prone.
This is utter and complete horseshit from Dante’s camp. They are just trying to raise his value after turning down a 3/30 offer from Milwaukee and make it sound like they are after bigger money. So, if you turn down a 10MM AAV…..you’re going to be upset over a 1.3 million difference in QO money…..that if you are the agent (let alone the Kings) you don’t want your client to sign? QO’s are designed to get players and teams to come to the table and negotiate new contracts, not be signed.
Just as a reminder for how qualifying offers work, in case you do not know, QO’s both are a one year salary where that player has a no trade restriction (not a deal breaker but not ideal) and if you end up trading that player while on a QO that player loses his Bird rights (big time deal breaker) in the process. This is why agents and teams avoid the actual QO whenever and however possible. I mean, I don’t even remember the last time a player signed one in recent history (5 years) and the last player I do remember signing one was Greg Oden in the 2011 off-season. And for the life of me, I don’t really understand why Portland offered that either.
For those needing a TL;DR version, signing a QO means the player and team are done with each other and it’s just a matter of when, not if, that player signs or gets traded elsewhere. There’s a reason teams and agents avoid them whenever possible, and usually when it even gets to that point a team just pulls the QO making that player an UFA at that point.
Will any of this happen with Dante DiVicenzo? I doubt it. He’s a NBA player, he has NBA teams interested, teams have at the very least a baseline idea of his value, as do the Kings, and most of the teams likely have one real tool to sign him (Non Taxpayer Mid Level Exception – NT MLE). The Kings don’t need to carve out cap room to resign Dante anyway; that’s a major advantage of trading for him at the deadline. After all, they now have Dante’s full Bird rights which means they could sign him to a 5 year max deal if they wanted (they won’t).
I don’t know whether or not Dante succeeded or not, but I do know his ankle surgery cost him the starting criteria for the QO (or a higher extension offer from Milwaukee) and that’s the real culprit here. The Kings could have started Dante with De’Aaron Fox, but I think that would have been a mistake because you were trying to pair Fox and Domantas Sabonis together. And that, of course, is a much higher priority than getting Dante his starting criteria QO number. And Dante’s total minutes that he got in Sac over the course of 82 would have qualified him on that front as well. It’s not like, as Tony notes in the piece, the Kings didn’t play him or value him. They just didn’t hand him a pointless thereotical 1.3 million dollars that makes no real ostensible difference in reality. Whoopty fucking doo. Complaining about that strikes me more as hoping they could scare Vivek Ranadive into offering more, but Ranadive won’t do that. He never has. It’s just a hail mary desperation ploy that sounds important and in reality is just how the business side of the NBA works.
If nothing else, Monte McNair has proven that he will not be pushed into making bad money deals for players. IMO, that’s one strength of his. And it will likely show up in the Donte DiVicenzo negotiations this summer.
This is the crux of the issue. I personally think the 3/30 deal is the likely max offer the Kings offer with their starting offer being around 4/32 with no options of any kind. That’ll move into a 4/40 offer with a player option for the 4th year likely negotiated from the team option the Kings likely offer initially in their counter proposoal (the Kings seem to be smart enough to use that as a negotiating tool since McNair has come around as they did the same thing with Richaun Holmes last season).
4 years/40MM with a player opt out in the 4th season is my final verdict.
I’d be fine with 10 million a year for 2-5 years. That’s fair for everyone.
😳
100% agreement with your assessment about the noise from DiVincenzo’s agent (and it was his agent). It’s basic shit-stirring 101.
And a nice explainer, thanks for that.
Fox a max player ? Not in my opinion or it appears the leagues . Overpay by 40+ million .
What DDV will garner on the free market is anyone’s guess, but here are a list of similar type players and what they recently signed for:
Bogi: $72M for 4 years, or $18M per year average
Kevin Huerter: $65M for 4 years, or an average of $16M per year
Josh Hart: $38M for 3 years, or an average of $12.5M
Reggie Bullock: $30M for 3 year, or an average of $10M
Alex Caruso: $37M for 4 years, or an average $9.25M
I’m not saying all these guys are like DDV, but I feel they play similar roles as combo guard and are fringe starters or 6th men on their teams.
From that, I’d guess that DDV fetches somewhere around $10-$12M. Is he worth that? I guess that is up to Monte. I personally feel that Monte traded for DDV to bring him back, but what concerns me now is DDV’s supposed feelings on returning. If he makes it clear that he wants out, does Monte still bring him back or reluctantly S&T him. The absolute worst possible situation would be letting him walk for nothing.
I also feel the other elephant(s) in the room are Terrance Davis and Justin Holiday. I find those two and DDV as somewhat redundant. This will be even more so if McNair chooses to draft another guard with his lottery pick. Would Monte want to tie up half of the salary cap in guards? There would be a ton of space eaten up by Fox, Mitchell, DDV. TD, Holiday and the #7 pick.
I feel Davis and Holiday offer contrasting skillsets from DD in the way that Davis is more offensive-minded whereas Holiday is an absolute dumpster fire.
True that, but maybe “skillsets” is bit misleading. I’ll add that all three of them are best suited as bench players, but I don’t see how all three of them play unless the new coach wants a 12 man rotation. Someone will be the odd man out, so why have all three on the team?
Yep. To wit, I like Damian Jones as a backup to Sabonis, but unless you deal Holmes (and perhaps even Len), the investment would make little to no sense.
I’d say give Davis and DD the bulk of minutes and Holiday can get buried on the bench until someone gets hurt
I’d say $10 million is the max, he’s in that Bullock Caruso range imo.
DDV is one of those tough evals for me.
I like him because he is a try-hard-all-the-time dude.
But I also think he gets overrated at times because he is such a try-hard dude.
He is a good NBA player, and he is also exactly one of those guys that the Kings and Kings fans think/ask/expect him to do more than he can do.
I think it’s more than trying hard. He makes freakish plays. his ranginess when rebounding and playing defense is off the charts. And if Sabonis is on the court, he would probably not be asked to be the primary or secondary initiator. Just make plays.
He shot 36.8% from 3 on about 5 attempts per game with the Kings. I would hope that being further removed from the ankle injury that the number will hold, and his athleticism will fully return. That will help him on the defensive end, which is what the Kings really need. I could see him and Davion being tough matchups for opposing 2nd units on a nightly basis.
Not sure what the dollar amount for him will be though. I say keep him around for the right value and look to upgrade the Wing/SF, 3/4 or whatever the spot in the league is called these days.
DD could be a slightly better version of Caruso if he’s willing to be that guy as I think that mold of a player would best utilize his skill set.
He’s a good bench piece and potential starter under certain situations.
I think that DiVincenzo doesn’t want to be here. Quite a shock after playing for the Bucks. How the Kings deal with that, I don’t know.
Shadeon Sharpe and Malaki Branham just entered their names in the draft. Those two plus Daniels and Keegan Murray can make a pretty nice top 7 or 8 players in this draft.
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