Yep without a Buddy/Bagley trade for a wing that actually helps us win games, I'd call this offseason a massive failure for McNair. He better hope Davion turns into Donovan in a hurry.
We'll see. I didn't think the Buddy for Kuzma & Harrell would make the Kings better. At best Harrell was insurance in case Holmes didn't re-sign and Kuzma would need to make a significant improvement to move the needle at all. He's also a stretch 4 and not the kind of wing this team actually needs.
And the only deal we heard of for Bagley was to move down in the draft and get Jonas Valanciunas. I don't think that would have improved the team either. There may not be a lot of opportunities to improve the team by trading those two.
On the other hand, nearly all of the best Kings lineups from last season (in terms of net rating) included Buddy and/or Bagley. Two that played significant minutes together and had net ratings of +7.6 and + 7.2 respectively were:
Fox, Hield, Haliburton,Barnes & Holmes
and
Fox, Hield, Barnes, Bagley, Holmes
If there's nothing out there of value for Buddy and MBIII then there's no need to trade them just to trade them. I've all along thought that if no decent deal for Bagley emerged and if Holmes left as a FA, the Kings were best off throwing Marvin out as the starting center and letting him sink or swim. But with Richaun re-signing, I think it's likely the Kings rollout a starting lineup of:
Holmes
Bagley
Barnes
Haliburton (or possibly Hield)
Fox
With Hield as the starting SG, that starting five led the Kings to a .500 record when they all played together. If Haliburton makes a small leap, Hield returns to a sixth man role and Mitchell and Len improve the second unit defense the continuity alone should lead to improvement as long as the team stays healthy.
I was incredibly disappointed on draft night that Hield and Bagley (and possibly Barnes) weren't dealt but no deal is better than a bad deal. This team isn't going to make a huge leap as constituted, but they should be better than last season which I'll take over a step backwards just to jettison Buddy and Marvin.