The Kings Herald Show returns with Jerry Reynolds, Will Griffith, and Tony Xypteras to review the 2025 NBA Draft, and how the selections of Nique Clifford and Maxime Raynaud fit into everything else Scott Perry has done this summer, including the signings of Dennis Schroder, Drew Eubanks and maybe, just maybe, Jonathan Kuminga.
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Another great show. It entertained me on my walk this morning.
I just want the Little Chap to be told/convinced that taking a year or two to try and develop young players, and not worry about the win totals, is the way this roster needs to go.
I do think Schroder will give some structure to the offense, which is needed when getting YOUNG players developed. Just a mix of directions and talent that ultimately doesn’t make much sense.
I’ve never been big on listening to podcast, etc., unfortunately I’ve gotten away from walking in the morning and I just started it again because I had been getting up and scrolling and getting involved in social media and my day starts off grumpy which is really stupid. I think it would make sense to start listening to Podcasts on the walk. Not sure why I felt compelled to share
Not sure whether podcasts about the state of the Kangz are the right choice, then.
Although Jerry talking about Hassan Whiteside made me chuckle and Tony not holding back on the Schroder acquisition had me nodding.
Great point at least it’s only one day a week, maybe I’ll find a podcast that’s non-political and about being happy. Heck maybe some people can recommend a few I like sports obviously, I’d prefer to stay away from anything political these days, I’m fine with financial stuff, ideas on business, self improvement, etc. I’m sure this group has a bunch of different ideas or if one is just general talk and it’s ok if it occasionally gets political as long as it’s doesn’t lean to the left too far or lean to the right too far.
The Zach Lowe Show is an NBA podcast a couple times a week that is excellent.
Only the Kings could go from the young exciting Beam team to an old playin battling squad in a couple of seasons . Amazing !
Aged like warm milk.
Curdled
Luke Walton: “I’ll need to look at the film.”
no whey
DDR would hit more 3s if he Lact-tos
Ha!
With just the Schröder trade, it looks like Sacramento is just going to rennet back with the same roster.
Light The Cream.
Not only old, but small. They seriously might be the smallest team in the league right now.
So far he has not shown any age decline. It will happen sometime but not yet. His defense is adequate and he will put effort into it. I also don’t think his contract will be a long term deterrent to a rebuild that will eventually be needed. So just enjoy him for a year or two. He’s a clever confident player and if he keeps his skill level up we can move him at the following years trade deadline for a little draft capital. He’s a great backup for a championship contender needing help down the stretch.
What should happen next is this
That is what concerns me we need two more players that are 6’8” to 6’11” and can play both spots
It’s truly crazy how quickly that LTB season roster disintegrated to whatever the current roster is. Back to being the laughingstock of the NBA.
The old terms still apply:
Hapless, woeful, forlorn, hard-luck, cellar dwelling
They’ll probably be fighting for the play-in at best next season and will once again miss out on getting a good draft pick. Worst spot you could be in for a team “trying” to get better for the long term.
That’s probably the most depressing thing. Went from exciting to watch with upside to mid-market NPC in two seasons. Needs to be studied.
We are collectively studying it on a nearly daily basis, no?
True. We all have PHDs in basketball hell
a doctorate in doom, a masters in misery, a fellowship in failure, and Honors in hoop hell.
A pedigree in puke
least we didn’t get burdened with student loans… but the degree doesn’t help us stay employed
Beam team to Reamed team…Vivek squeezed the juice out of that team!
What’s amazing is I always thought the beam era would last 2-3 years and that has tracked. But I thought we’d at least be locked into mediocrity because of Fox and Sabonis. Somehow we made it out worse (not bad but not mediocre)
This one should be a doozy, will have to listen to it this weekend while running errands.
The organization has made the playoffs 8% of the time under Ranadive. 8%. The organization was at 36% (Sacramento era) prior to him “saving” the team. 53% of NBA teams make the playoffs (not the play-in) every year.
It is mind boggling just how ineffectual this org. has been. I mean, like on the historically bad short list. And I’m not sure that there is an end in sight.
Never thought I’d miss the Maloofs as much as I do.
Someone around here has the screen name almost miss the maloofs. Maybe time to upgrade it? Bap bap bap.
Yeah, at least when the Maloofs had money they weren’t bad.
The one thing that I will always remember about the f*ck brothers is when they torpedoed Measures Q & R because they didn’t like their cut of the deal. The icing on the cake was the Carl’s Jr. $6k combo meal ad.
Their only redeeming quality was that when they had money, they pretty much left Petrie alone.
That last sentence is the only good thing. They were trying to move the team the entire time they owned it.
All true and yet, they are inarguably the best owners in Sacramento Kings history! What did we all do to deserve this?
The main takeaway for me is that all you have to do to succeed as an NBA owner is to hire good people and get out of the way.
I continue to argue that much of the credit assigned to the Maloofs really belongs to the Jim Thomas/Eli Broad ownership group, who hired both Geoff Petrie and Rick Adelman. The Maloofs were smart enough not to break up that duo until their money troubles kept them from paying Adelman what he was worth.
Even the mathematicians have concluded that the Kangz are absolutely fooooked.
Ranadive would have to make the playoffs for each of the next 13 years just to get to league average. The Kings have 11 appearances in their Sacramento history, and as a franchise would have to make each of the next 22 years to get to league average.
Math for the win(ce)!
I said to myself – self, who is/was has/had an even worse playoff appearance record than the Sacramento Kings?
Answer: No one.
Donald Sterling, (yes, that one) owned the Los Angeles Clippers from 1981 to 2014.
During the 33 years Sterling owned the team (through 2013-14), they lost 50 or more games 22 times, 60 or more games eight times, and 70 games once.
Over their first 27 seasons in Los Angeles, they only qualified for the playoffs four times and won a single playoff series. (that’s 14%). They did an upswing his final few years.
Since Steve Ballmer has owned the Clippers, they’ve not had a losing record.
Ownership matters.
Ok – since we are trashing the team, here’s another ignominious statistic: The Sacramento Kings have the most losses of any franchise in NBA history. (The Celtics’ 3,695 wins are also a regular season record; meanwhile, the Sacramento Kings have recorded the most losses, with 3,299.
See, they’re good at something!
The bulb in the beam will outlive us all.
Wel we are the best at being the worst!! That’s something isn’t it?
8%. That’s incredible.
I used to say it in jest, but I now 100% believe that is Vivek’s goal. It costs money to compete in the NBA and Vivek, being a relatively poor team owner, will never do it. Being bad means admitting failure and the need to start over, which he will never do because he’s a narcissist.
This got me thinking about the Schröder signing. They did it via a S&T, which they didn’t have to do. So why do it? It’s because it hard caps the team. The team can’t spend more even if they wanted to. How convenient for a cheap ass owner. I know this all sounds conspiratorial but time and time again when this team had an opportunity to spend more to compete, they don’t. To double down on this point, the Kings could have let Keon hit restricted free agency this summer, AND signed Schröder without a S&T. They would have had the right to match any offer for Keon, but that would have put them in the tax.
Only 6 teams have not crossed the tax line in the Vivek era and that’s about to be 5 with Orlando going over this season. Of course the Kings are one of those teams.
This all brings me to Keegan and Keon. I fear neither are going to get an extension this year because in doing so, the Kings will be in the tax by 2026-27. I don’t believe any other team is going to take the contracts of DDR or Monk for free, so if the Kings are to pay Keegan or Keon anymore than they are right now, Vivek would need to pay the tax. It’s not going to happen.
The Kings now have 13 players on the roster, and are just $1.7M under the tax. This offseason should be far from over, but we shall see.
Can you explain (or sum up) how a team becomes hard capped, like DDR made the Kings last season?
How a team becomes hard capped at the first apron:
I’ll also add, they are currently $4.9M below that apron.
So let’s say the Kuminga thing happens. The Kings can waive TD for nothing, which shaves off $2.5M. If they send out Saric and Carter, they total up to about $10.5M. So $13M goes out, and roughly $5M below the apron means they can only pay Kuminga $18M…unless there are other moving parts. The kicker is, they would still need to add 3 more rostered players.
Thanks for that. It seems like they need to send out 1 player and get 2 or 3 back to fill out the roster and not go over the tax. I wonder if other moves are waiting in the wings for this Kuminga stuff to be figured out.
Does DDR get moved if Kuminga is acquired, as an example. I just hope more roster turnover happens before they head in to training camp.
From what I understand the Saric and JV trade has not been finalized, so something is still in the works. The only way for Saric to be traded for Kuminga is if it’s a 3 team deal with Denver because Saric can’t be combined in a trade once it’s official with the Nuggets. I wonder if the holdup is JV and his possible unwillingness to play in the NBA next season. Should JV ask for a buyout, the trade may not happen and the Kuminga angle may be toast. I just don’t know what else would be holding things up.
I saw somewhere that if Saric fits in to a TPE when traded by the Kings, he can be traded because the salaries aren’t being aggregated for matching purposes. I think that was on Fanspo’s trade machine (???).
So far, Perry has only officially done the Schroder and Eubanks deals. Such a weird offseason around the league.
Hmmm, I hadn’t heard that. Maybe there is some rule that a player traded into a TPE can be aggregated later? I don’t know.
My only question is why would Saric be in a TPE? Aren’t those normally used when a team takes on more salary than they are sending out? Like when a team trades a pick for a player that fits into their TPE.
In looking at Fanspo, the only TPE that would fit Saric is Huerter’s but that was reportedly used in the Schroder deal. The Duarte TPE (which would have worked) expired 2 days ago.
Saric would fit in to a Warriors TPE if that trade happened. At least that’s how I read it on the site.
Ahhhh, ok. He would fit into their Kyle Anderson TPE.
I think that was an underlying consideration in moving Fox. I can’t see this owner ever paying true max contract (true being the player’s 3rd NBA contract).
I think only near max level extension given by Vivek is the Sabonis extension, and that was only after the Kings first playoff appearance of Vivek’s tenure. Vivek would have been vilified had they let Sabonis hit UFA.
They moved DMC before his extension, Fox was the same, and I have a fuzzy recollection that they chose not to match the IT contract with the Suns because it would put them over the tax (I could be wrong on that).
Heh, and IT only ended up signing a deal for an average of $6ish million a year.
They let IT go on a 4 year $27M (starting at $7.2M) to PHX and instead signed Darren Collison to a 3 year $16M deal (starting at $4.8M). That tells me all I need to know in terms of finances.
Yes, a lot of white noise was generated to obscure this
I think we should count of Keon and Keegan being gone.
It’s really going to piss me off when one, or both, of those guys are included in a S&T for Kuminga.
Honestly think the Kings should take a look at Jalen Bridges on a two‑way and see if he can develop into a solid backup 3/4.
Bridges is a 6′8″, ~225 lb wing/forward who played on a two‑way this year, split between the NBA (limited minutes) and the G‑League. He has the frame and skill set you want in a modern role player — think somewhere in the mold of a Dorian Finney‑Smith or Torrey Craig if things break right.
Why he’s worth a shot:
Areas to improve:
2024–25 G‑League line:
14.3 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 1.6 APG, 1.3 SPG, 0.7 BPG — 42% FG, 39% 3P, 79% FT
He’s already flashed what he can do in a smaller role — defend, rebound, space the floor — and he still has upside at just 24. On a two‑way, you basically just invest in his development with very little risk.
If nothing else he gives you depth on the wing behind Keegan and Harrison, and if he develops into even 80% of a DFS‑type player you just found a rotation piece for nothing. Makes a lot of sense to me.
His stats are very similar to Isaiah Crawford’s G League stats:
13.3 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 2.3 APG, 1.3 SPG, 1.1 BPG—53.7%FG, 44%3P, 79%FT
Yes I think Crawford is smaller and would be limited to a 3 only as he is 6’6 and Bridges is 6’8 but I didn’t dig too deep into actual size and wingspan so they may be the same type of player
Bridges seems to be an inch or so taller, but NBADraft.net shows Crawford as a few pounds heavier with a longer wingspan.
with or without shoes?
Just depends on which one wears the higher heels!
&ct=g
Where’s the WNBA team Vivek promised us?
Can you imagine what Sophie Cunningham would say if Sacramento had been awarded an expansion franchise?!
I’m holding out hope that we can make a trade with a team like Memphis grizzlies. Maybe Brandon Clark and Scottie Pippen Junior and a second rounder for DeMar DeRozan. Gives you a good back up point guard and Clark at 6’8 is pretty good defensively low usage player not a great three-point shooter but still think he could be on the floor when you have more shooters on.
That would be a great trade. I really like SPJ.
Although MEM traded away Bane, the rest of their moves, or lack thereof, suggests they’re in win now mode and could use a bucket getter.
I would do that trade. Does anyone think Scottie Pippen Jr. could be a starting point guard like with the Kings?
Dennis Schroder is, so anything is possible.
This podcast made both happy and well sad
I really liked the points Jerry made, this team is forever making moves on the margins without ever really getting better
For the talk about a new front office, it just seems like they have been given a mandate to make the playoffs roster construction be damned. Its like our GMs are working with an arm tied behind their backs
Its just full of square pegs shoved into round holes
Any significant roster move is for decent NBA player who is on the downside of their careers. There is seemingly no moves or considerations made for a younger or developing player. Jerry mentioned Jaden Ivey as an example. Instead of Schroeder why not work on finding cap space and make an offer for Giddey, the Bulls may well match but I’d rather take a flyer on him than Schroeder
Why can’t this team ever take a flyer on other teams who want to get rid of young unproved talent, its fitting the only player the Kings made a deal for could not be resigned as the Kings didn’t have his Bird rights to
The mention of all the other deals the Kings have made they trade 2 picks to get Valanciunas, then deal him for Saric a few months later and he wants to go to Greece, there are so many more why to the players the Kings trade for of no use to this team,
I think the organization leadership thinks that having a steady PG, full coaching staff, and a year to grow together with a training camp will lead them to the playoffs. I think most of us see this as a dead end road and loser mentality for the franchise. Maybe they are right and things will break their way. But I see a team destined for a strong battle for the 11th or 10th spot in the West. Just a frustrating path.
I’m not even sure the 11th spot is within reach unless other teams implode. The only team I can say for certainty right now that is worse than the Kings is Utah. With so much talent in the West right now, there is no better time to hit reset and build for a future without LBJ, Curry, Harden, Durant, etc carrying their teams
Think you are spot on
As my parents said to me and I have said to my kids on more than one occasion. Just because I say it does not make it so
I used to get annoyed when the national media would sh!t on the Kings as most of there takes were ill informed and Lazy, and now I think the team deserves the mockery they get, when they do stuff like this
This is optimistic. I don’t see this team ever looking like a possible play-in team.
They’re never right…..I used to hope they’d even just luck into being right.
So this is where we’re at? And Perry thinks we’re in a good spot? Yikes.
DS – Monk – DC
Zach – Keon
DDR – Nique
Keegan – IJ
Domas – Eubanks – Reynaud
‘Yikes” is a perfect summation .
Just logged in and read the AM posts. It is amazing how short a time it took to destroy the feel-good Beam Team. Feb 2022: Sabonis in. Feb 2025: Fox out. From high-octane pass-and-shoot-fest to depressing dribble dungeon. The die was cast when they brought in DeRozan. They stood pat in the 2023 off season when they should have picked up a rim protector to pair with Sabonis and Murray, then brought in an old 6’6” guy in 2024 who ruined the fit and the tempo. They got shorter when they should have gotten taller, and capped it off this year by getting older and more expensive when they should have gotten younger (assuming Fox was on his way out anyway). They’d be better off today if they did nothing since losing Game 7 to the Warriors. Thanks Montvek McAdive.
Just 4 players left from the Beam Team season: Sabonis, Keegan, Monk and Keon. Really it’s just 3 that played as Keon was a 2-way player who was in just 16 regular season games.
It’s almost like they got good and successful and then someone said “stop, we can’t have this kind of success.”
Absolutely wild and hard to comprehend.
My wife was worried about ticket costs as we went to the first 2 home games, was out of town for game 5, and I went to game 7 (she didn’t want to go). I reasoned with her that this might be the only time in a while they would be in the actual playoffs. Didn’t realize it would be this quick of a turn back to basketball hell.
Vivek really thinks he’s smarter than everybody. He’s about tearing stuff down, being a disruptor, 2 minutes ahead etc. this is Viveks modus operandi
Hes done this all along the way. From Malone to Brown ….on and on. So he fucks everything up and his ego is so massive he thinks he’s brilliant. 1 step ahead.
And, of course, he is making a shit ton of money, so he ain’t worried about the team. It’s his toy. Fuck the fans. Fuck sac, as long as he’s cashing in.
He really thinks this is the smartest path- because it’s his path.
Ridiculously stupid overpay.
https://bsky.app/profile/shamsbot.bsky.social/post/3ltl5elndw32n
At least the Suns have an owner with a willingness to spend, as opposed to our cheap-ass dismissive little pissant.
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