I wish we would have kept him. I'm new on this site, and I was banned on another kings fans site last year because I said that I thought Tyreke should handle the PG role over IT. I love IT, but imagine if we resigned Tyreke and put him at point.. I guess the FO would rather give a strictly offensive aging vet 6million and absorb the ugly contract of Rudy Gay's 17million. They didn't want a defensive minded pg because we have too many defensive players already.. I really like the D-Will trade, but not resigning Tyreke was a mistake.
Here's some interesting math to ponder.
Carl Landry $6,750,000
Grevis Vasquez $2150188
Jimmer Fredette $2,574,120
Total = 11,474,308
Tyreke's salary this season: $11,796,247
It could have possibly been lower had the Kings aggressively tried to re-sign him right away but at the very least they could have matched NO's offer at that number. It would have simply meant not signing Landry and giving Jimmer away for a future 2nd rounder. Obviously Vasquez wouldn't have been on the books because the sign-and-trade that let Tyreke walk never would have happened.
But it gets better. The Kings could have still made the Gay trade as long as Toronto was willing to to take Outlaw instead. Sure he's on the books for an extra year at $3 million but that deal still saves Toronto $9 million next season in actual money and $10 million in caproom since Salmons' buyout is $1 million which doesn't count towards the cap. For the Kings, including Outlaw would mean sending out $850,000 more in salary than Vasquez AND save $3 million more next season.
Obviously the Kings would have had to spend more cash to sign a couple more free agents from the bargain bin to fill out the roster but assuming the team put Tyreke back at PG where he's a nightly mismatch the net result would be a core of Evans/Gay/Cousins with IT coming off the bench. As a bonus, IT would be cheaper to re-sign as a super sub than as a starting PG. Add in a late lottery rim protector like Noah Vonleh or Willie Cauley-Stein to pair in the frontcourt with Demarcus (pushing JT to a role as the first big off the bench) and you have a team built to truly contend. For that matter with Tyreke on the team I wouldn't have wanted to see Mbah a Moute get traded. He's exactly the type of role player you'd want to have coming off the bench. McLemore would still be struggling and Thornton would still be an ill-fitting piece but those issues will work themselves out either way.
A long, physical starting lineup with plenty of scoring and a halfcourt offense built for the playoffs, very good defensive potential, solid rebounding with a high scoring, change of pace PG as a sixth man, a versatile, role playing PF/C as the 3rd big and a swiss army knife defender headlining the bench. Sigh.
This is why I don't get into Tyreke discussions. It just makes me agitated to think about.