De'Aaron Fox Traded to Spurs for Zach Lavine, three first round picks

Capt. Factorial

ceterum censeo delendum esse Argentum
Staff member
i hear you on lavine but I think 65 70 games is actually the norm for a lot of players in the league, we have been spoiled by the HBs of the world. Sabonis played 62 games in each of the three years leading up to the beam team year for example.
Don't forget that two of those were COVID seasons, with 73 and 72 games total. Which means he played 86% of games those seasons, not 76% - a decent difference.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
Spurs being overly greedy are gonna have too many mouths to feed.

Go ahead pay Fox all that dough. Give Area 51 max. How many of those "youmg players they going to afford?

Fox could be gone in 2 years. As a klitch crony I could see him jumping ship again, then that pick is worth a lot more than ppl think.

I'd rather have their pick outright than a swap.
He won't jump ship but San Antonio owes him nothing. They'll probably agree to an extension in the offseason and it will be smooth sailing for a year or two but if he takes nights off San Antonio isn't going to be soft on him the way Kings fans/Sacramento are.
 
He won't jump ship but San Antonio owes him nothing. They'll probably agree to an extension in the offseason and it will be smooth sailing for a year or two but if he takes nights off San Antonio isn't going to be soft on him the way Kings fans/Sacramento are.
the biggest concern with Fox is does the contract age well. If he continues to shoot 32ish percent from 3 and plays inconsistent defense things might not look aa good when he ages. It’s also possible his defense becomes great becuse he will be playing next to a good defender in castle and the alien behind him to clean up any mess
 
Getting Craig for cheap would make a lot of sense. He's old but he can shoot and would give us a little bench scoring.

I'm over Lyles. He's just not getting the job done. His season has been abysmal outside of 3 or 4 games where he went off.
Craig is an end of the bench guy, can’t rely on him to give you shooting and scoring. Agreed on Lyles, he’s a 4th big at best, relying on him as your 1st big off the bench is above his head.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
the biggest concern with Fox is does the contract age well. If he continues to shoot 32ish percent from 3 and plays inconsistent defense things might not look aa good when he ages. It’s also possible his defense becomes great becuse he will be playing next to a good defender in castle and the alien behind him to clean up any mess
San Antonio is a storied program. And they basically got him free. The assumption is San Antonio will just max him like we would have but now that he's there why should they? They can play hardball with him just like they did with us. And taking a quarter or a game off here and there is never going to fly there. Will be very interesting to see how he responds to actually having expectations with no threat of being able to derail a franchise or being able to get the fanbase to turn on the franchise. Life in San Antonio will be very different for sure.
 
San Antonio is a storied program. And they basically got him free. The assumption is San Antonio will just max him like we would have but now that he's there why should they? They can play hardball with him just like they did with us. And taking a quarter or a game off here and there is never going to fly there. Will be very interesting to see how he responds to actually having expectations with no threat of being able to derail a franchise or being able to get the fanbase to turn on the franchise. Life in San Antonio will be very different for sure.
Honestly, I don’t think his game will age well. His shooting is not consistent and he relies a lot on athleticism and that will drop off. Two, not sure how good Spurs rehab program is since the Kawhi debacle
 
Craig is an end of the bench guy, can’t rely on him to give you shooting and scoring. Agreed on Lyles, he’s a 4th big at best, relying on him as your 1st big off the bench is above his head.
Craig's 3pt percentages the last 3 years are better than Lyles' overall shooting percentages from the entire floor this year. At worst he would be able to hit shots that Huerter and Lyles have been bricking all year. He's definitely not the answer but if you can get him for next to nothing, I don't see why we wouldn't upgrade the roster somewhat.

This team has serious shooting issues. Everyone outside of Sabonis and Ellis have been abysmal and those two aren't high volume 3pt shooters.

Adding LaVine should help if he stays hot and Keegan is showing signs of life. I'm not confident that any of the remaining regular rotational players can hit 3s. Monk's 3pt shooting will likely continue to fall the more he has the ball in his hands. Shooting and defense are huge question marks right now.
 
Honestly, I don’t think his game will age well. His shooting is not consistent and he relies a lot on athleticism and that will drop off. Two, not sure how good Spurs rehab program is since the Kawhi debacle
Will be ironic if he gets squeezed out in a couple years because Castle ends up developing like they obviously think he will and decide the 60M Fox is getting is better spent elsewhere
 
Will be ironic if he gets squeezed out in a couple years because Castle ends up developing like they obviously think he will and decide the 60M Fox is getting is better spent elsewhere
I would not be surprised... not because of any ill will towards DeAaron, but that's what seems to happen with guys on that max contract that are not full blown superstars. Still a super valuable player, but the contract makes things hard. See a player like Zach Lavine....
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
Kinda lost respect for Fox on this one.
Pretty much the only way he can get it back is if he does what every true Sacramento Kings legend does and works for the Kings, raises a family in Sac, or otherwise becomes an ambassador of some such for the org post playing career. I can't imagine he does that, he wanted out this bad. Maybe the business end of basketball will smack him hard in the face now that he got his wish and he'll realize what he had here was unique. Time will tell.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
I would not be surprised... not because of any ill will towards DeAaron, but that's what seems to happen with guys on that max contract that are not full blown superstars. Still a super valuable player, but the contract makes things hard. See a player like Zach Lavine....
Also because what is San Antonio's investment. Not like they gave up any high value picks or players in this deal. Paul got Fox what he wanted but his value around the league remains an unknown because of how he did it.

If I'm San Antonio I am not offering him a 30% max extension, he'll get maybe what Sabonis got - maybe a little less - and maybe he'll be happy.
 
Collins and Johnson make too much to fit the TPE.

It’s one of the bigs on the market (Time Lord?!, Jonas, Portis) or someone out of left field.
Seems like this is full on Domas' team now. Bring on Jonas!
Williams from this bunch imo
The problem is that we saw how bad our defense was starting Fox, Monk, DeRozan, Murray, and Sabonis. Now that defense is getting worse by swapping Fox for LaVine.

DeRozan is the obvious guy to swap out for many reasons…
  • He’s considerably older than the rest of our core. Would make sense to try and extend our window more by swapping him for someone younger.
  • Moving him and getting a PF allows us to improve our size/length (pushing Murray back to SF) or we just swap DeRozan for a bigger/longer SF
  • He’s not a good 3PT shooter, and if we replace him with a good shooter, we all of a sudden replaced two poor 3PT shooters (Fox & DeRozan) for two good 3PT shooters (LaVine & ???). That would be a significant change to the offense and spacing and maybe that ends up unlocking Sabonis that much more when the other 4 guys on the floor with him can hit 3s at a very good rate
  • He’s a weak defender at a position where we don’t have good defensive depth. Murray is the only good forward defender on the roster. I’d much rather swap DeRozan out for another good forward defender (giving us 2 good for wed defenders) vs. trading Monk for amother good guard defender (when we already have Ellis and Carter on the roster)

If you can somehow leverage the 1sts and 2nds you just acquired to bring in Cam Johnson, PJ Washington, and Day’Ron Sharpe, you have a pretty interesting team. A starting lineup of…

Monk
LaVine
Johnson
Murray
Sabonis

…is a TON of shooting and nobody is going to be able to go under on Sabonis’ screens with those guys (otherwise, they’ll just pull from 3). That’s going to give Sabonis a lot more space in the lane when he rolls to the basket.

Then off the bench you have…
  • Your two defensive aces at guard in Ellis and Carter
  • A big, long, athletic forward in Washington (7’2.5” wingspan, 8’11” standing reach, & 230 lbs) who can do a little of everything (shoot, score, defend, rebound, block shots, pass)
  • A PF/C who can stretch the floor and bring some toughness in Lyles
  • An upgrade at C in Sharpe who can help keep the team afloat while Sabonis rests
At that point, we’re talking about a merged trade of…

Fox
DeRozan
Huerter
McLaughlin

for

Lavine
Johnson
Washington
Sharpe

…I think you’d see the fanbase come around more if that’s how this trade deadline ends up working out because at the very least the team would finally have a balanced roster.
It's hard to imagine PJ being available considering how injury prone AD is, but they made Luka available ( to 1 team only but still) so who knows. Your constructed team would be 4-5 seed material imo
 
I still don't love the trade. It feels like the move you make to keep your team within the play-in bracket for the next couple of years before you ultimately quit on the roster and have to start a rebuild in earnest. Had the Kings also received the ATL pick, or even the Spurs first rounder this year, I'd feel differently. But they were over the barrel and had to swallow a deal that represents considerably less than value for De'Aaron Fox. I would rather they had waited until the off-season to see if they could find a multi-team deal that gave them more shots in future drafts.

Now, maybe Zach LaVine makes a believer out of me. Maybe CHI was not the right situation for him and he'll be more of an impact player alongside a guy like Domas in the frontcourt. I am not confident in this hypothetical, though. And I hate the idea of a starting lineup with Monk/LaVine/DeRozan. On defense, in particular.