But the question is: What decision is a poor decision?
The answer to that question, particularly as it concerns the Kings' (undisclosed) negotiations and ultimate inaction at the trade deadline, is quite complicated. We don't know what offers were on the table. We don't know how those offers would have impacted the team with respect to salary and draft picks down the road - a question that is even more pertinent now than ever before with the implementation of the very punitive two-apron system. It's not entirely clear that there were any franchise-changing pieces available on the market. Ultimately it appears that we decided to stop our pursuit of Siakam, probably the nearest thing to a franchise-changing piece, because he was not willing to commit to staying in Sacramento beyond this season. The other players we were rumored to be after - for instance Kuzma and Grant - seem to me (and at least some others here) to be lateral moves at best with fairly heavy financial penalties.
One can certainly look at it this way: We have a young duo (Fox, Sabonis) that is capable of anchoring a championship-level basketball team, and is locked up long term (Sabonis 4 more years/Fox 2 more years and likely to stick around), and has a long window remaining (3+ years easily). We have a very exciting and still developing third piece (Murray) also locked up for 2 more years and due to RFA lockable for longer. And we have a good core of support pieces, one of whom (Monk) needs to be re-signed and others that give us good flexibility (talent and capwise) to keep or use as trade bait to better support our top players (support = Huerter, Barnes, Lyles, Vezenkov, and to be honest, now that he's signed to a very team-friendly contract, potentially Ellis). But, on the whole, we don't have the experience to get it done yet. We're a bit young, we're inconsistent, we lack focus, we're only 1.5 years into our current construction, and by any reasonable account, we're not ready to win it all. So, if we blow our future flexibility on a win-now scheme, trying to integrate a new player into an already-green team while shortening our window, is that a good decision, or a poor one? If our own history is any indication, the Webber/Peja/Divac Kings weren't nearly ready to win in year 2, had nothing but an outside chance in year 3, and were then title favorites in years 4 and 5. Those teams only changed out one core piece (the JWill/Bibby trade, and that was a clear upgrade). Patience has worked before. Maybe patience is actually the good decision here.
