The Kings Are The Product Of One Good, One Bad And One Ugly Trade

As of today, the Sacramento Kings are in the provision playoff seedings. With a 10-9 record through the season’s first quarter, they find themselves a smidgeon ahead of the defending champion Golden State Warriors, the not-as-good-as-expected Portland Trail Blazers and the returning-to-Earth Utah Jazz. And although the Kings themselves have just muddled through a three-game losing streak, they do so off the back of a seven-game winning streak.

Out of the playoffs since 2006, the Kings might finally be about to get back in, and end the league’s longest active no-postseason streak. As things stand, this is the best Sacramento Kings team for a while.

It is also a very different team. Of the 17 players currently on the roster, only eight (De’Aaron Fox, Harrison Barnes, Neemias Queta, Terence Davis, Chimezie Metu, Alex Len, Davion Mitchell and Richaun Holmes) were on the roster this time last year, meaning that all of Marvin Bagley III, Tyrese Haliburton, Mo Harkless, Buddy Hield, Damion James, Jah’mius Ramsey, Robert Woodward, Tristan Thompson and Louis King have all left the team.

Certainly, some of that list is just moving the very end pieces of the bench, as every team does every year. Much as I personally see more value in someone like Chima Moneke than Robert Woodard, it is not meaningful in the grand scheme until proven otherwise. But at least three of those players were at one point meant to represent ‘the future’. Said future never came, and the present exists without them.

Those three – Bagley, Haliburton and Hield – were moved in two trades last season. The first deal saw Bagley moved to the Detroit Pistons in a four-team deal that saw the Kings get back Donte DiVincenzo, Josh Jackson, Trey Lyles and the draft rights to 2016 L.A. Clippers second-round pick David Michineau.

Michineau will never join the NBA, while DiVincenzo and Jackson have already left the Kings via free agency. The return for Bagley, then, is nothing more than Lyles, a solid yet unremarkable bench scorer averaging 6.2 points and 2.8 rebounds per game off the bench in his eighth NBA season.

As a return for the once-prized Bagley, it is tiny. Drafted ahead of Luka Doncic and Trae Young, Bagley (or at least the number two pick that he was drafted with) was supposed to be the reward from yet another season of losing, and a long and talented scoring big man around whom hopes could be pinned. It mattered not that he was the selection of a previous regime, and that injuries, lack of development, the upcoming expiration of his contract and the continued disruption of the franchise around him had long since put out the fires of optimism or meaningful trade value. It was still an ugly end to something that could have been, should have been, and frankly needed to be so much better.

On the plus side, the Kings did some buying in a buyer’s market this summer when they acquired Kevin Huerter from the Atlanta Hawks. For the cost of only Harkless, Justin Holiday and a heavily-protected first-round pick that will convey in 2024 at the earliest, Sacramento were able to land a very solid wingman who contributes in every area of the game.

So far this season, Huerter is averaging 16.1 points, 3.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.5 blocks and only 1.6 turnovers in 32.2 minutes per game, shooting 48.8% from the field and an extremely hot 45.6% on a high volume of three-pointers. Freed from the cluttered Hawks depth chart, Huerter is breaking out as a player.

He always a good shooter, savvy defender and solid role player, yet he is finding another level this year. Bringing not just the shooting but also ball movement, tertiary handling, some drive-and-kick game and a high defensive motor in a good-sized frame, Huerter is making a strong case for how important a wing player can be while taking few contested dribbles in traffic. The contracts of Holiday and Harkless were mere filler for both teams, and the chances of the first-round pick yielding a player better than Huerter are extremely slim – for the Kings, then, this was a good trade.

Unfortunately, though, the biggest deal of the lot overshadows it.

At last February’s trade deadline, Haliburton and Hield were sent to the Indiana Pacers, along with Tristan Thompson’s contract, in exchange for Holiday, Jeremy Lamb, a 2023 second-round pick, and the real meat of the deal, Domantas Sabonis. Even if Hield’s inclusion is written off when analysing the trade from the Kings’ point of view – despite how underwhelmingly his once-promising tenure in Sacramento ended, this would be extremely generous given his improved play as a Pacer – removing all the peripheries leaves the deal just as a straight-up swap of Sabonis and Haliburton. And that is a deal that the Kings love.

Even with their already-poor defense, Sabonis made sense for the Kings. He was and is a talented player on the right timeline, on a good contract, and who adds new dimensions to their offence. From the day he arrived, Sabonis was the best player the Kings have had for a generation (in NBA terms at least), a 25-year-old multi-time All-Star who is playing exactly as advertised. By all means, try to make a deal for him.

Just not that one.

Much has been made in NBA media circles this week about Haliburton’s last three games, in which he recorded the rather amazing feat of 40 cumulative assists alongside zero turnovers. It was truly eye-catching in a non-flashy way, and his play on the season (19.9 points, a league-leading 11.3 assists and 4.7 rebounds to only 2.7 turnovers per game) has already led to some of the more wildcard analysts out there to put his name into MVP contention.

Do not be thinking, however, that this week or this season are the only times he has ever been good. Even before the trade, Haliburton was knocking on stardom’s door, an excellent all-around player who was always extremely far along for his age. It would have no slight on Sabonis to acknowledge that Haliburton was a better prospect at his age at a more important position. And moreover, on a franchise that has struggled for a decade plus with player development, Haliburton represented their best success story.

Even among the relative good times, then, the Kings may have again shot themselves in the foot. Notwithstanding the circuitous route they took to get there, Sacramento has assembled a fun, cohesive and balanced roster with a mix of productive veterans in or near their primes, and talented youngsters like Keegan Murray with room to grow.

The Kings play fast, they score highly, and while they need to make significant defensive improvements to make significant inroads beyond this hot start, there is an energy and excitement about the place currently that has been so hard to find for so long. In picking up Huerter, they showed some of the timely buy-low aggression that has been absent from their team building strategy too often, and while the Bagley era ended dejectedly, it at least ended for next to no cost. By and large, things are going better in Sacramento now.

Ten months ago, though, they traded away the man who would comfortably now be their best player. What might have been, eh?