The Kings have finally made their first official move of free agency, and it’s not what you might have been expecting. While Dennis Schröder is almost certainly set to be a Sacramento King (now in a rumored sign-and-trade for Malik Monk), and Russell Westbrook might join as well, the first actual move Scott Perry’s regime has made is sending backup Center Jonas Valanciunas to the Denver Nuggets for Dario Saric. The deal was first reported by Shams Charania.
Valanciunas was acquired by the Kings at the trade deadline for two future second round picks and Sidy Cissoko. He played 32 games for the Kings, primarily as a backup Center to fellow Lithuanian Domantas Sabonis and averaged 8.7 points, 7.0 rebounds and 1.8 assists in just 16.9 minutes a game. Saric on the other hand played just 16 games all season last year with Denver and not even because of injuries, but just because he wasn’t in the rotation. For his career, Saric has averaged 10.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.9 assists while shooting 36% from three.
On the surface, this appears to be mostly a cost cutting move for the Kings as Valanciunas is owed $20.4 million over the next two seasons while Saric is on the final year of his deal at just $5.4 million. That’s fine in a vacuum, especially if Scott Perry is prepping to clean house in the foreseeable future. But adding guys like Schröder and Westbrook seem to indicate otherwise and that the Kings are still looking to be competitive. If so, that means they’ll likely need to look at getting another backup for Sabonis, or rookie Maxime Raynaud is slated for a much bigger role early on in his career than initially anticipated. It also could have simply been about clearing money for some other deal that the team is looking to make. Maybe Monk isn’t on his way to Detroit anymore and the Kings opted to save some money another way. We’ll just have to wait and see.
See? Stuff of some sort is happening!
Just re-organizing the deck chairs once again!
this isn’t even re-organizing, this is more like trading your deck chairs for milk crates
Milk crates with broken plastic, spider webs, and a rancid dairy smell.
I wouldn’t mind the Dario Saric of old. Not sure that I’m excited about old Dario Saric.
He fills the Trey Lyles slot on the roster, I guess. And maybe Raynaud is more NBA ready than I thought – I figured he was a Stockton guy this season. Or maybe they’re going to add a backup C off the clearance rack.
I wouldn’t mind keeping Lyles if at all possible. Smart player who routinely outperforms his athleticism with his quick processing.
And, he don’t take shit from no one.
Scouting report says that Raynaud has slow feet. I wouldn’t except him to defend that well for awhile.
Rick Sanchez said that he has a fluffy vagina.
is this move really just to allow us to pay Schroder the full MLE? i’d have to imagine by cutting costs with both deals we’d be using that extra cap space to make other deals right? ideally for assets…not overpaid players
I said this in the Schroder signing thread, but I doubt either Russ or Schroder win us many games, so we can still “tank” while signing them
Yup I think so – cost cutting move to allow Kings to bring in Schroder without having to shed other salary and keep Monk.
So basically bring in Schroder and give up JV instead of Monk.
Or they give up Monk anyways and this is pure cost cutting.
3 year $45 million. A guy who couldn’t shoot 40% from 2 and is getting starter minutes. Can the NBA just end the Kings franchise already?
well, remember, schroder not winning us games allows us to tank still while potentially trading him at some point. I’m ok with this so long as we keep monk or trade him for assets
Assets for Schroeder, equals another bad contract in return . Book it .
The franchise doesn’t seem capable of making smart or correct decisions when they are not trying to tank. What evidence suggests they would make intelligent and prudent decisions when do try to tank?
As an aside: I believe that since my Kings fandom started in the late 90’s – the biggest thing the organization lacks is adequate player development. I don’t know how it is achieved. Until they figure it out; there’s not much hope in a tank. Just find the most fun players and enjoy the circus.
I agree this franchise has a terrible track record, and i’m not that optimistic they’ll turn schroder into a good return either if they trade him. However, I don’t think his contract is all that bad overall. So long as his contract is tradeable and we get something back, I guess it’s not that bad. But perhaps a better front office would do better. What would you prefer them to have done? sign a cheaper point guard just to fill in the role a la Russ?
The contract now is something I don’t support. Dennis Schroder however is a crafty, slick player who is fearless and not afraid of the big moment. Both in the NBA and in International basketball he has performed well in the biggest moments. At 32, I’m not sure when his skills will decline but don’t disparage this guy as a basketball player. Not the right move for the Kings unless there is some team options in the contract I’m not aware of.
I do however always enjoy watching Schroder play.
Agree, he’s not a bad player by any means. It might feel that way because he’s been traded 800 times just this last year, but he is still pretty good and is wanted by teams. The question is, is his contract too much of an overpay? can it be traded easily down the road?
I feel like I will love this move. Or hate it. Or be indifferent to it. One of those.
I feel like you probably won’t love it.
Mitch Hedberg’d
Schroeder 3/45m. Full MLE with annual raises. Monk was not involved. Just a straight signing.
So much for the placeholder chatter. What an awful deal for a middling, older player who should be a bench player on a decent team.
Also known as the Perry Special based on he previous Kings stint.
Sell the Team Vivek!
Apparently the 3rd year is partially guaranteed. Seems like they are trying to line up some cap space in 2 years when LaVine, DDR, and now Schroeder contracts end…?
Who gives a shit about how partial the f-ing guarantee is? They gave him 15 million a year! What the hell for? To have his bird rights for when he’s 35 years old?
(sorry, my anger isn’t aimed at you.)
Detroit wanted to keep him, I believe, and had about $14m annual that they could spend on him (I think).
Would I have outbid that? Nope. But the roster (amazingly) has no point guards (in spite of drafting them year after year after year), so here we are.
That said, Ty Jerome to Memphis on a 3/$28m while the Kings pay 3/$45m for Schroder (or even 2/$28m) is a bit nauseating.
I don’t think they wanted to keep him. Maybe they changed their mind after Beasly’s problems?
They have Jaden Ivey coming back off injury . Doubt they wanted to keep Schroeder for much value .
If you look at last season’s splits, Schroder was closing a lot of games – he was Cade’s backup as a point guard and played side-by-side with him more than a bit down the stretch of games late in the season. Ivey is a completely different player than Schroder, a pure off guard. Schroder had a Fox-adjacent assist percentage last year. Ivey had a DeRozan-adjacent assist percentage last year.
Not trying to prop up Schroder here – he is what he is. But he was a key core rotation player for Detroit down the stretch last year, and they would have liked to have had him back.
Jeez, man. I was just laying out some details. Maybe time to walk away from the phone for a bit.
Well stated. Awful deal.
I’m hearing that the 3rd year might be a partial guarantee. Yay?
If that’s the case, the team’s options after the second year are essentially the same as in the original 2/$28 that was thrown around.
And…it’s a very movable contract.
Yeah, objectively speaking, I would see Schroder at 2/28 as being a slight overpay for a backup PG. That is, if Fox were still here and the Kings spent that money on Schroder, I’d think that it was a little pricy but I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
This is the life of shopping the 30-45 rank bin of PGs. We’ve been here before. Hopefully Schroder can meld with Domas and stop the tanking of Sabonis’ value, which has been a concern since Fox left.
Oh Geez, the tanking of Sabonis’ value. He played how long without Fox? I’m sure the league can figure these things out.
I was down to see JV & Sabonis on the court together (JV @ Center, Sabonis @ PF).
Curious to see what comes of this. I’m happy if Raynaud sees some decent time & we develop him, but hoping we’re getting another big.
Also, Heat are no longer looking to add DDR.
I really hope we find a trade partner that nets us SOMEONE of value.
If we look at Ellis as the starting SG and LaVine as the starting SF (don’t love him, but can’t move him)…then we should be looking at both DDR & Monk trades to get us at least one young player that’s actually GOOD!
Schroder PG
Keon SG
Lavine SF
Keegan PF
Sabonis C
welcome to your “every starter is 3” too short” lineup.
So if I understand correctly, Val was worth 2 2nds and Cissoko in February 2025, but is now negative value? That’s some stellar asset management!
Schroder: Three years, $45 mil.
Would have much rather spent that on Keon. But hey, he’ll only be 32 at the start of the season.
I feel you, but unless his handles took a big jump up over the summer, Ellis still can’t give you reliable minutes at the point. Someone has to do it.
And I think that Ellis will get his due from Sacramento, over the winter if I had to guess.
I ask again; why does someone have to run the point? Why is that so crucial? For what purpose exactly?
I didn’t realize that you had previously posed the question.
Unless you have multiple other players capable of being reliable playmakers, you rely on your point. Sabonis is certainly excellent in that area, but in watching the Kings play after Fox bounced, I can’t really imagine why you’d view point guards as superfluous.
I think Rik is saying that this team has no future, and a play-in upside at best, so why spend 45M on Schroder now? Why not wait for better? But he can correct me if I am wrong.
Without offering an opinion about it one way or another, we live in a time where a rotation player making $15 million per season isn’t automatically an overpay.
And Hess makes a good point about shoring up Sabonis’ value to the rest of the league. I doubt anyone who knows anything about basketball thinks that Sabonis isn’t an elite player, even if you only look at rebounds. If teams won’t pay the freight to get a player of his caliber, then he can stay.
Yeah, I agree with this. 15m/year isn’t that big an overpay in this market, I think. And if schroder helps sabonis’ value by helping him play well, it could be very worth it. We can also trade Schroder without too much issue
Correct. And some other reasons, which include the fact that we have 3 players that are not heavily reliant on point guard play.
My answer is to help re-boot Sabonis’ value. He was a different player when there was a point guard at the helm. And sadly, maximizing his trade value is now key.
I think his value had more to do with the style of play and not having two ISO-heavy ex Bulls players alongside him.
His synergy with Fox was so-so, but the both played in a flowing system that benefited both (before DDR got here). In my view, his synergy with Monk was actually quite well, as long as the offense was flowing and the spacing was right.
If we don’t fix the offense to fit Domas, which will be hard to do with DDR and LaVine still there, a PG will do very little to re-boot his value, IMO.
You got it. You’ve solved the mystery. We got Schroder, to improve Sabonis’ trade value. We got the rest of the league fooled. I mean, really.
Ellis is supposedly part of the long-term plans BUT they still don’t make him a priority so that they can make sure they can sign someone who isn’t in the long-term plans; makes no sense. The decision making process still seems to be stuck on stupid.
I just want to see competence but I don’t see it in these moves. I have very low expectations for the Kings FO and they can’t even meet the lowest of low bars.
It’s not a terrible contract. Essentially 2 years and therefore moveable if need be.
just glad Monk isn’t included.
It’s a bad contract.
3-30 Mil should have been the most. 2-15 would’ve been a good signing.
Agreed haha
Indifferent about Monk being included. Since I’m for a tear down, anything that drops payroll or provides draft capital is a plus for me. Having said that, it appears they think they are taking a shot at being playoff competitive so if that’s the case, keep Monk because he is net positive for improving the win column. I think Monk has value on the market but Detroit may be the only team he fits with at the moment.
Is one to assume Kings Legend Cash Considerations is coming back to the team in this deal?
Fk the Kangz.
I absolutely love what the Nuggets are doing this offseason.
I thought defense was a priority for Perry. Apparently not.
With what other teams are doing to to improve, I don’t get what the Kings are trying to do. Still aiming for the play-in?
And failing at that lofty goal.
Wow. Myles Turner to the Bucks! Oh, yeah, this is a Kings site. Wow! Dario Saric! He’s super rested. Played 16 games last year.
I believe the tank is on. Both these trades make the team worse. Overpaying a guy who was with 3 teams last year. Typical. It of the end game is Top 5 ok
I’d guess that some moves remain unmade right now, but I don’t think the notion that the Kings may be tiptoeing toward a tank is far-fetched. Losing a ton of games this season isn’t going to bother me, especially if the younger guys can get their sea legs.
Really need to move Monk and DDR for something of value. Preferably a starter/rotation 4-5
Saric and Schroder both were former employees of the Golden State Warriors. I see what you’re up to Vivek. Very sneaky.
I like getting a point guard who is also committed to defense. So fine with the signing. Three years is a year too long but… Meanwhile, we love Monk and he makes watching the Kings fun so I hope he stays. Saric can almost do was LaRabia did (who ran off to the Lakers). They must think that Raynaud is going to not just be OK, but be able to log 20 minutes a game. He “jump shot” is weird looking but it’s effective. Mostly, I am excited about Nique. That guy is coming into the league with better one of one moves that Lyles or Murray and maybe even DaRozen (except of the latter’s deadly 14-20 foot turnarounds.)
This sucks. Valanciunas brought alot of energy and ability off the bench as a very capable backup center. Kings are rearranging the deck chairs. Losing enthusiasm quickly.
The Big ‘Ciuna had balls…definitely wouldn’t fit on Queens
Saric hasn’t been good for at least 6 years. I’m more excited about Eubanks. A stack of cold wet pancakes excites me more than Eubanks.
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