The Sacramento Kings came into the NBA trade deadline with a very real need to offload at least some off the top of their overpriced, vet laden, under delivering group of old timers, in the hopes that the team could fully pivot from their once firm delusion of a play-in contender into the soft reality of necessary youth movements and top draft choices. Instead, Kings management has opted instead to stay the course, trading no significant players brought in during the previous management’s run, and ultimately kicking the can of responsible stewardship down the road towards this summer.
Before wading too far into the weeds here: were there deals to be had? Yes. Unequivocally. Were they perfect? Certainly not. Ja Morant, Jakob Poetl, Khris Middleton and any other name you heard as the deadline approached all came with their own risks and flaws, but none so silly or cowardly as maintaining the course set before Sacramento by this owner and management team nine months ago.
As of this writing, Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Domantas Sabonis, Malik Monk are all still members of a Kings squad that has lost FORTY games before the All-Star Break, has lost 10 games in a row and counting and are currently in the pole position for worst record in the NBA.
This is the way the Beam Team ends, this is the way the Beam Team ends, this is the way the Beam Team ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
There’s nothing else to say, honestly. We’ll update this if anything meaningful changes.
I give up!
Are you not entertained!?!
(Too lazy to search the gif)
I has a sad.
If anyone was hopeful that Perry could be a better GM than the casual fan, well…
That hope was dashed when we overpaid Schroder.
And re-signed McDermott, and brought in Eubanks, and then signed Russ.
and traded away 2 picks +JV for Saric!!!!!!!
And doubly dashed by what he did and didn’t do by the trade deadline.
I have this fear that based on the moves mentioned above that THEY think with some tweaks maybe we can compete for a play in
Lord Help the fan base
An yet the casual fans, even around these threads, knew the Dennis signing was an overpriced mistake.
How is it an NBA GM who gets paid in the millions can make a mistake that we could all see coming? We are just fans on a sports blog without “expert” knowledge and we called bullshit.
But EuroBasket!!!
Hahahaha! I remember that argument by some last July! What a joke.
It seems his favorite players are guys like Dennis Schroder and Deandre Hunter, which, sort tells you all you to know.
Agreed, these seem to be his “type” – mediocre veterans that he’s determined to overpay for.
He sounds like Vivek’s kind of guy!!
Truth is, Deandre Hunter is the Dennis Schröder of wings, only he costs more. They are both fringe starters, but best as 6th men. that’s fine and all, as long as you don’t overpay them.
Cool. So we gave away Keon for the right to swap overpriced mediocrity. Smh
Bleakest days of being a Kings fan since the end of the Maloof era
I’m still ok with this if it results in a top 4-5 pick this year. Now if this core is still around at the beginning of next season, I’ll lose the little interest in this team that I have left.
they should be buying out demar and westbrook immediately
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not to worry — Ranadive is a basketball genius. He proved it 30 years ago, leading 12-year girls to a championship. He simply knows BB talent more than anyone else in the league. Trading for and paying Lavine almost $50 million a year will prove to be genius.
Why isn’t Ranadive in the Epstein files like everybody else? Then the NBA maybe could force him to sell…
Mike Prada in the Athletic:
“Lackluster deadline for Kings”
“Maybe the offers were just that bad. But when the dust settles, it’s hard to understand how Sacramento ended up adding long-term salary in Hunter without trading their three most prominent veterans.”
The offers were bad because the players are bad. The players are bad because the person calling the shots is bad.
And for some reason our GM keeps making it worse.
Everybody….we gotta start boycotting buying tickets to Kings games.
Every dollar we spend with the team is not just money in Vivek’s pocket, but a signal that we will continue to support him no matter what.
I know this is one of our favorite attractions in town, but boycotting spending money with this team is really our only tool to demand real change.
I haven’t gone to a game all year. I don’t plan on it. I did buy the NBC Sports add-on for Peacock so that I could stream the games this year to hate watch them, and I just went online and canceled that.
Same, haven’t been to a game all year either. The thought of spending money with Vivek at this point actually makes me cringe.
We can wait til they’re forced to give away tickets for free just to fill seats to support our players
I started my boycott in April last year. Haven’t spent a penny on this team, didn’t pay for YouTube TV (or other service), haven’t watched a second of the games this year. I’m just following along via this site and box scores.
Embarrassing.
On a positive note: we’re now stuck with the roster that won the Kings 12 games in 52 tries.
Really need to wave Russ and buy DeMar out.
That can be done in the offseason. No need to open up roster spots with no one to fill them.
no, needs to be now. Let them go try and win (they won’t) somewhere now and let our younger guys get minutes
Won’t happen. They’re now so pinned into the corner financially that any move they make puts them into the tax.
This is the team for the rest of the season. Your Sacramento Hostages…err….Kings.
Cool so we lost Keon, a 2nd, and paid another team to take the two guys we just traded for six months ago. Mission accomplished Perry.
The Kings actually help save the Cavs over $40M in tax, improve their roster, and increase their championship odds. And the Kings are the ones that had to give up assets in Keon and a 2nd round pick.
It’s just insane.
To take on ~$6 million in total salary and ~$10 million next season for a replacement level player.
It’s almost as if they would do anything to get rid of Keon. Maybe Keon knows where Vivek buries the bodies? Or maybe he just rejected Anjali’s advances.
I’m going with the later until proven otherwise.
Now that Keon’s gone, I hope the truth eventually comes out. It’s just too insane to be nothing.
The return on Zubac seemed insane to me. Mathurin, two firsts, and a second.
plus Isiah Jackson
Zubac’s contract is an absolute steal for his level of production. So much so that Indy is prepared to part with the #5 pick in this year’s draft. This move was about next year for them with a healthy Hali.
How is it that over multiple owners, a plethora of GMs and at least 2 good draft picks, we still have only been good TWICE in the last 30 years? That suggests to me that this shit might just be harder in Sacramento. Sure, ownership hasn’t helped, but I find it hard to believe that ALL these GMs are terrible.
think about it. The only constant has been the organisation. The decision makers and the owners have all changed over the years. Why is it so hard for them to succeed in Sacramento?
After 2008, the Maloofs were broke and kept the team at the salary floor until they sold. And since then it’s all Vivek.
Yep, it’s the ownership group that’s been at fault for the poor performance over the years, nothing to do with the team per se and certainly nothing to do with the city of Sacramento. The ownership groups have been either too poor (Lukenbill, Thomas, broke Moofs) and/or too stupid (Vivek). The one time there was a decently-rich ownership group that wasn’t stupid (not-broke Moofs), the glory years occurred.
The sad part is that if you heard any of the very many Maloofs talk, it was pretty obvious the train didn’t get all the way to the station. But they knew enough to hire smart people, get out of the way, and just be fans.
Well said.
Vivek likes to say he hires people way smarter than himself. If Perry is way smarter than Vivek, then Vivek’s IQ must run in the negative numbers.
Every single move Perry has made other than the draft has been horrific. And the draft looks somewhat promising, but not a sure thing at all.
So it’s better that no moves were made. Kings would have ended up with less picks and more bad contracts.
Perry is in WWE terms, a jabroni. He’s just here to facilitate losing trades.
I think the primary driving force behind all Kings decision-making is that Vivek wants to be cheered as the hero of Sacramento. His sports leadership career started with him getting credit for saving the Kings from leaving, and basically every thing since then is just him trying to get another fix of that public adulation.
Some examples off the top of my head:
Vivek wants to prove to everyone that he knows a whole lot about basketball and not just computers and software. That is the driving force. Since he is a very rich man, he can keep doing this and not sell the team. Think Mark Davis in Las Vegas. Their egos are stroked but WISH the team would be better. They are terrible owners.
Mark Davis has admitted on numerous occasions that he doesn’t know football well enough to be a key decision-maker and keeps trying to bring people in to run the football side for him.
His issue is that he’s repeatedly failed at finding the right people. But he does try. He managed it beautifully with the Aces, to the tune of 3 championships.
And that alone renders him light years ahead of Vivek. At least in the ego and hubris departments.
Your last point if extremely valid, IMO. Why would any GM here make long term moves, like tradeing for 2031 first when the chances are, they won’t be here to see it through. Each GM has had to make “win-now” moves in order to preserve their job and keep Vivek’s approval.
Had Perry dumped Sabonis for far off future firsts, do any of us think he will be here to reap the rewards of that effort?
Same goes for Doug and the coaching staff. Why develop the youth when you’re going to be fired in 24 months time. Might as well try and win at all costs to help your resume, even when you have the worst record in the league.
Unless the Kings luck into a superstar in the draft, Perry won’t be here any longer than the previous three GMs. He’s getting fired either way, and sooner rather than later the way it’s going. Absolute bang up job after Vivek didn’t conduct a GM search and negotiated while the last guy was still there.
4 GMs now and 3 of them were hired without a real search. They were just picked by Vivek and his infinite wisdom. The only proper search netted Monte and the lone playoff appearance.
This ain’t rocket surgery.
It also resulted in Vivek forcing Monte to hire Wilcox as his top assistant because Vivek couldn’t choose between them.
I think it’s driven by Vivek’s childish infatuation with celebrity, All Star appearances and counting stats.
Monta Ellis was infamously Vivek’s favorite Warriors player. He’s never moved off that knucklehead take. The Kings are filled with Monta Ellises.
And after wearing that “They not like us,” t-shirt, Vivek should never be seen in public again. He wasn’t including you, dummy!
I don’t think this is terribly different from what I’m saying tbh. At their core, most publicly-facing mega-rich people seem desperate to use their money to get the approval from others, and it basically never works.
I remember that ” Vivek Walk” with DDR. My instant impression on watching it was that he (VR) believes the applause is for him!!
Kings continue to give no evidence they actually exist: More at 11.
Just sell the team and leave our city you prick.
An utter embarrassment. When Fox decided to leave this team a year ago we had a chance to sell this roster off piecemeal from then to now. A choice I think that could have fetched multiple first. We now sit with assets that are depreciating in either play or by expiring, with almost zero draft capital, flirting with the apron, and with no promising prospect.
This is an utter diabolical shit show of a team. I have said it frankly since sactown royalty, when the lauded free agency window that was actually an absolute disaster Perry authored his first time around.
I honestly can’t even get excited about tanking as a saving grace (especially when rumors have us liking the third best prospect best in Dybantsa, a player exciting but I think needs good development structure). That isnt enough to override structural ineptitude.
Sell the team chants every game folks.
The Fox trade was the rebuild pivot opportunity. Could have gotten expirings, young players and picks at that time for Fox and Domas. Opportunity missed.
Any way we can use this to lose an extra game or two?
Is that how Bagley developed his double jump?
that’s hilarious. Eddie the Eagle still rocks.
The Kings are at $1.9M below the tax line and sit at just 13 rostered players and they must get to 14 rostered players a week from Saturday. We have already heard they intend to give Cardwell a regular deal, so he will be #14. The issue is the remaining cap space.
Should Russ, DDR, or anyone asked to be bought out or cut, the Kings can’t even do it! Hypothetically, if they cut Russ and his minimum deal, they’d still need to at another rostered player to get to 14, but they won’t have the cap space to do it unless they go into the tax!
The Kings have truly created a hostage (not volunteer) situation with their players, and there are teams out there that need PG help (Houston?)They couldn’t even dump Russ to a team to eat his minimum deal. That’s how pathetic Perry has handled this situation.
I don’t care if Doug goes with a youth movement at the end of games, we are still going to see a healthy dose of Russ, DDR, LaVine, Monk, etc. for the remainder of the season unless the Kings just tell them to stay home.
And we’re going to end up attaching picks to these contracts to move them in the off season so we don’t end up over the 1st apron.
Someone is going to have to be moved in order to get below the apron.
They are at 9 rostered players heading into the offseason slated at $199M ($184 should they cut DDR and eat his $10M guaranteed) The tax line next season is right around $200M
Now, They’ll be at 10 with their high lottery pick rookie scale. FWIW, the #4 pick is guaranteed $10m their first year. That means, with a fully guaranteed DDR and the new rookie, the Kings will be at around $210M with 4 more roster spots to fill. The first apron line next year is $210M!
So, should they cut DDR and eat his $10M guaranteed of $25M, they’d still be a $195M, but now with 5 roster spots to fill. 5 roster spots with just the vet minimum of $2.5M is still $12.4M. That would put them right at the apron.
The Kings are fucked financially unless they can find someone to eat some contracts and reduce their overhead. Of course that likely means they Kings would need to attach draft capital to such deals.
Basketball Hell.
If DDR is waived and stretched it would add an extra $6.66M (basketball hell approved) in savings. They will also have two early 2nd round picks that could combine to be paid $2.5M. That would keep the Kings below the apron but still probably not able to maneuver as most rebuilding teams would in the offseason.
Stretching a dude that is guaranteed just $10M is so Kangz. If they can’t find a home for DDR then Perry should be fired.
If there is another GM that would rather trade assets to pay a 37 year old DeRozan $24M instead of waiting and signing him to a better contract, that GM should be fired. I’d much rather the Kings pay 3.3 over 3 years than give up assets to move off DDR.
You could very well be right.
I thought a team could use him this year in exchange for dead money. Miami, for example, is sitting on Rozier’s contract and thjey are a playoff team. Why couldn’t they have trade DDR for Rozier?
I guess Rozier’s zeor production and expiring deal is worth more than $10M guaranteed rental to a playoff team.
Am I right that none of this would be happening (or less bad) if they hadn’t signed Schroder or made the dumbass Hunter deal?
You are correct.
Had they just signed Russ and not Dennis, There would have been no Saric, no need for Eubanks, no need to move JV (who may have opted out for Europe) and the Kings would have close to $20M more in space. They also could have retained Keon by letting him hit RFA in a depressed market and signed him to a longer and cheaper deal. There definitely would have been no need to attach him to Dennis to get Hunter.
With that kind of space the Kings hypothetically could have eaten salary for picks (much like the other bottom feeders) or moved off of the bad deals in exchange for taking on salary this year.
The Dennis signing has been one of the worst moves of the Vivek era, especially when you take into consideration all the butterfly effects.
And I’ll add, for anyone who subscribes to the “Perry inherited this roster” stuff, he was the one who signed Dennis that put the Kings in this situation.
Perry inheirited a flawed roster and immediately made it worse . Also, continued the incompetence at trade deadline . There is no hope for a legit rebuild as long as Vivek, Matina, Perry, and Christi are involved !
The Kings need the GM from Phoenix.
a year ago the Suns were in cap hell. No draft picks and not making the playoffs. Now they are below the luxury tax and a game out of the 6 slot for playoffs.
HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. This is rich.
Welp! All of this shit storm started by thinking we should give up Harrison Barnes for DeMar DeRozan. And drafting another undersized guard combo guard instead of a Kelel Ware or Tristan DaSilva, double down and Trade Fox hastily and going after another bad fit… smdh…
Fans are making too big of a deal about this….only 30 gms left in a lost season anyway. If the goal to get a top 3 pick, then keeping these crappy, non-winning vets is a good way to ensure it. Russ’ contract expires and have one last shot at moving Demar in the off season. If they can’t deal him, they can always buy him out for 10M. Zach will be the only bad, expensive holdover. He is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to move.
I’m actually excited for ’26-27 with a potential starting lineup of Domas/Keeg/Hunter/Clifford/Flemings or Peterson.
Max/Cardwell/Zach/Carter/Monk as the reserves. PA as the 11th guy.
Younger, bigger & better lineup than what the past 2 years have been. Only Domas, LaVine & Hunter are close to 30 or a bit older.
LaVine looks so unhappy, that I’m actually starting to wonder if he’ll consider waiving his option for next season.
What’s the price of leaving Basketball Hell? We might actually find out.
Nope just announced today he is opting in
Good news!
And there it is. Now at 14 rostered players and right at the tax line. Can’t add anyone else, and can’t cut anyone to replace with someone else. Good times.
Time to start tracking how many spots Russ and DeMar can move up in the all time rankings in the last 30 games.
I’m already getting sick of that shit. Last game they spotlighted Russ moving up to #14 all time on the scoring list. Like i give an actual fuck.
It’s hilarious. Fucking Vivek.
At least it looks like they structured the contract to maintain longer term rights if he continues to develop.
Oh, and what’s the going rate on 10-day contracts?
I believe it’s a pro-rated version of a vet minimum deal. I also don’t know if you are allowed to use them through the end of the season. In the end, I think it would be a wash financially.
There might be a work around, however. Teams are allowed to go 14 days at 13 rostered players. So I guess the Kings could sign a guy to a 10 day, cut him, then sit for 14 days before adding a new 10 day deal. That would be a cheap ass way to follow the rules, but I wouldn’t put it past the Kangz.
Apparently the 10-day salary is also tied to years of experience:
+1 There’s another little twist where the league encourages teams not to avoid signing longer-term vets by reimbursing anything over the two-year level. The figure in the quote below is for last season; this year’s figure is about $ 132,000:
$871K of the remaining $1.9M in tax space.
I just realized that Cardwell turned 24 a couple months ago; so if he completes the four years of this rookie contract, he’ll be just a few months younger than what De’Andre Hunter is now.
As for our other two-way contract players, Plowden is 27 and Steven’s is 25. So it turns out that even our “young” guys are “old”!
we cannot say “nothing happened”- Kings traded away my favorite player- Keon
He was my favorite on this year’s team, too, which is why I’m glad they traded him away. He deserves so much better than Vivek’s BS.
Like everybody, I really wanted them to do something more, because they are not only bad, they are completely unwatchable. I’ll probably watch a game or two to see what Hunter looks like, but, sadly, will likely give up my Comcast cable account, as I kept that mostly to watch Kings games. Time to cut the cord (cord and streaming cutting will get as much attention as not going to games, I think).
In the meantime, here’s some “hot takes” which I’ll leave quickly without defending….
I’m an eternal optimist about NBA basketball. My working theory is a team is always 2-3 good moves from relevancy in the NBA, no matter how bad they are. For instance, McNair traded for Sabonis, signed Monk, and traded for Huerter. Kings wnt from shit storm to relevancy AND a lot of fun. It can be done. For a championship it takes more but mostly my goals are more modest than most-basketball is a beautiful game when played the right way, win or lose. But what we have here is not basketball in any real sense.
Sad, really.
See you next year….
Doesn’t whimpering imply caring. This kings team does not care. The Beam Team went down with a shoulder shrug.
So this is the part where this veteran team “figures it out” well enough to go on a run, string a bunch of wins together and finish in 11 place, right? Just out of the play-in, just out of the lottery and inspires the front office that they can run it back next year. I deserve this for continuing to support this organization year after year.
I remember May or so of last year we could say. “At least we are not the Suns.” Things change quickly with wise people in charge.
Yup. And how the brittle Fakers would fall apart and how Charlotte and Utah were clueless etc.
Many Kings fan seem to have a need to point at other teams and shout “haha, they suck worse than we do.”
And I then always ask myself; how long have you been a Kings fan? Have you learned nothing?
Might as well give Cam Thomas a shot! I’d rather watch him jack up shots than LaVine, DeRozan, and Westbrook!
We’re in such cap hell that we don’t even have the room to absorb him off waivers, if I am not mistaken.
Cam Thomas getting cut made me finally understand why no one wants Monk.
And the Kings have four Cam Thomases.
Correcting the typo in your headline, Will—I believe you meant, “Staying the Curse.”
Hey y’all it has been a minute.
I have been a kings fan long enough to know what 10,333 means, and not to be a dismissive little chap, but ain’t watched a game all year because I know what an abusive relationship looks like and how to regain my personal self worth.
They can take my team, but they cannot take my money and they can take my time.
A tip of the cap to the faithful. If I can survive the drafting of insert blank, I can survive this as well.
I am stoked that Dallas finally got the player they deserved, and I’m sure MBIII will kill it.
I am happy for Dylan Cardwell today. It is still easy to be happy for hard working people.
purple tears dropping
a teams reach should exceed grasp
perry churns butter
with the first pick…
I checked out on the season as well and haven’t watched or attended a game. Excellent decision mate.
It’s so “funny” to hear the local media defending the FO, that they shouldn’t have agreed to just any deal and that it’s better to wait for the offseason. Patience, people. That’s all we need.
I find it hard to accept that they could not find a reasonable trade for Sabonis to say Washington. They may not have gotten the haul the Mavericks received but the Wizards couldn’t have done the Middleton package plus one 1st and 2nd? Find it hard to believe.
Is there any way to petition the NBA to engineer a takeover of the Kings on the grounds that Vivek’s running of the team into the ground is conduct detrimental to the league?
Or maybe have the league compel VR to sell the team to Sacramento in compensation for the city’s efforts to keep the team and get it some new digs to play in? (Shaq sold his interest in the club when the NBA told him he had to do it in order to purchase gambling interests…why can’t they pry the loaded dice out of VR’s fingers?)
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