Potential Free Agent/Trade/Sign Tracker, '25-'26 Season

coolhandluke said:
We just paid Dennis, McDermott and Eubanks more money than what Lyles got. Perhaps they are hoping that Isaac Jones would be better than Lyles. Personally, in addition to IJ, I'd rather have JV + Lyles over Eubanks + Saric + McDermott.

We're a poverty franchise in the sense that Vivek would never get into luxury tax but that is understandable. A significant portion of income for the Kings comes from other teams paying luxury tax and there is no reason to get into luxury tax territory unless we have a championship contending roster. That's why I don't care about the first or second apron for the Kings because the only thing that matters is the luxury tax space.
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Clown level moves
 
hrdboild said:
I think asking Keegan Murray to play C and PG would be disastrous. So maybe the better description would be "some positions don't matter"?
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I was saying that more so in response to the people in the thread who were saying "old positions are dead". I don't care if you want to call it SF/PF or Wing/Forward. Doesn't really matter to me. I actually agree with you. And If you run 3 guards and a non rim protecting center consistently like the Kings have, you are always going to be undersized.
The Thunder are the best examples, but several teams ran multi positioned lineups.. they all had size and athleticism. There's some things you can get away with when you have a rim protecting center, or a 6'7 point guard, Kings don't have those luxuries. If Sabonis is your center, I think you need to prioritize size 2-4, I don't care if you call any specific player any specific position. Ideally 2/3 and 3/4 are switchable.
 
BuddyBuckets said:
I was saying that more so in response to the people in the thread who were saying "old positions are dead". I don't care if you want to call it SF/PF or Wing/Forward. Doesn't really matter to me. I actually agree with you. And If you run 3 guards and a non rim protecting center consistently like the Kings have, you are always going to be undersized.
The Thunder are the best examples, but several teams ran multi positioned lineups.. they all had size and athleticism. There's some things you can get away with when you have a rim protecting center, or a 6'7 point guard, Kings don't have those luxuries. If Sabonis is your center, I think you need to prioritize size 2-4, I don't care if you call any specific player any specific position. Ideally 2/3 and 3/4 are switchable.
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Yeah, some of this is a semantics shell-game. If a player is 6'6" and plays SG/SF we can call them a guard or a wing depending on which fits our argument better but it doesn't change anything about how they play.

There has been a trend toward playing smaller, more athletic players at the 2-4 positions (traditionally called SG, SF, and PF) to compensate for the way that 3pt shooting has spread the floor out. Asking a slow-footed big to rotate and cover sideline to sideline on a swing pass is just not that practical and we are now in a world where few teams play a post-oriented big at that PF position so your defense needs to be ready to cover 4 shooters at once. That's also where the obsession with wingspan comes from but I see that focus on arm length as an oversimplification as well since anyone who is any good at it plays perimeter defense mostly with their feet.

The hardest part about NBA team defense in 2025 is figuring out how you're going to defend the interior and the 3pt line at the same time without conceding open baskets in one area or the other. The Kings under Mike Brown tended to collapse into the paint to help Domas stay out of foul trouble but that left them particularly vulnerable to kick-out threes. Which is a bit of a confusing strategy when you realize that Mike Brown's own offense was built around generating kick-out threes.

Makes me wonder what those practices were like since we had a defensive strategy tailor-made to make our own offense look good. For all the game-thread bellyaching about defensive schemes last season, I don't think this problem was solvable with the roster Monte McNair handed over to Coach Brown and it's not any more solvable with the current roster. In the Doug Christie at HC era, Valanciunas was the best (only?) defensive big we had and he's gone now. So Scott Perry may be setting Doug up to fail the same way Monte couldn't help Coach Brown. Could be good news for the tank though?
 
coolhandluke said:
We just paid Dennis, McDermott and Eubanks more money than what Lyles got. Perhaps they are hoping that Isaac Jones would be better than Lyles. Personally, in addition to IJ, I'd rather have JV + Lyles over Eubanks + Saric + McDermott.

We're a poverty franchise in the sense that Vivek would never get into luxury tax but that is understandable. A significant portion of income for the Kings comes from other teams paying luxury tax and there is no reason to get into luxury tax territory unless we have a championship contending roster. That's why I don't care about the first or second apron for the Kings because the only thing that matters is the luxury tax space.
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There is definitely a talent downgrade in some spots. The Kings overpaid Lyles before and it was a pretty quick realization that they did when they tried to move him. Dennis is one thing, but Eubanks at his level and contract is what the Kings should have always been looking at in that spot. He's not much under Lyles ability wise considering the role and position and he's far cheaper than what Lyles got from the Kings before. The Kings always overpay for back end depth and role players and maybe now being saddled with almost all of their larger and questionable value contracts in this new NBA of the apron they finally understand that now. Teams can't pay 20 million a year for 6th men if they aren't a contender. Don't pay 4th bigs half of your MLE unless they are the difference between tiers. Also don't pay role playing PG's over 32 full MLE money but it's better than a 4 year contract. If a team gambles like that though duration is vastly more important than dollars per year.
 
BuddyBuckets said:
I was saying that more so in response to the people in the thread who were saying "old positions are dead". I don't care if you want to call it SF/PF or Wing/Forward. Doesn't really matter to me. I actually agree with you. And If you run 3 guards and a non rim protecting center consistently like the Kings have, you are always going to be undersized.
The Thunder are the best examples, but several teams ran multi positioned lineups.. they all had size and athleticism. There's some things you can get away with when you have a rim protecting center, or a 6'7 point guard, Kings don't have those luxuries. If Sabonis is your center, I think you need to prioritize size 2-4, I don't care if you call any specific player any specific position. Ideally 2/3 and 3/4 are switchable.
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If Domas is the weakness no amount of size at 2-4 is going to make up for those lacks. Domas isn't a bad defender and we've seen blips of the Kings committing to switch. These days switch is more often guard based, not big based. But that's because as you speak of, most teams have legit defensive help abilities at C and the Kings don't. I'm not sure what the Kings are defensively. They have two different worlds on paper. Keon, Carter, IJ, and Clifford is about the extent of the teams defensively ability on paper outside of the starting lineup with Keegan. Any team that wants to defend with someone like Domas at C needs to make as much use out of the switch as possible. Don't let teams get a free lane into the painted area and switchable guards are the secret sauce right now when it comes to that. Domas' advantage is always going to be his quickness and strength and he's shown his potential when allowed to come out and pressure pick and roll.
 
hrdboild said:
Yeah, some of this is a semantics shell-game. If a player is 6'6" and plays SG/SF we can call them a guard or a wing depending on which fits our argument better but it doesn't change anything about how they play.

There has been a trend toward playing smaller, more athletic players at the 2-4 positions (traditionally called SG, SF, and PF) to compensate for the way that 3pt shooting has spread the floor out. Asking a slow-footed big to rotate and cover sideline to sideline on a swing pass is just not that practical and we are now in a world where few teams play a post-oriented big at that PF position so your defense needs to be ready to cover 4 shooters at once. That's also where the obsession with wingspan comes from but I see that focus on arm length as an oversimplification as well since anyone who is any good at it plays perimeter defense mostly with their feet.

The hardest part about NBA team defense in 2025 is figuring out how you're going to defend the interior and the 3pt line at the same time without conceding open baskets in one area or the other. The Kings under Mike Brown tended to collapse into the paint to help Domas stay out of foul trouble but that left them particularly vulnerable to kick-out threes. Which is a bit of a confusing strategy when you realize that Mike Brown's own offense was built around generating kick-out threes.

Makes me wonder what those practices were like since we had a defensive strategy tailor-made to make our own offense look good. For all the game-thread bellyaching about defensive schemes last season, I don't think this problem was solvable with the roster Monte McNair handed over to Coach Brown and it's not any more solvable with the current roster. In the Doug Christie at HC era, Valanciunas was the best (only?) defensive big we had and he's gone now. So Scott Perry may be setting Doug up to fail the same way Monte couldn't help Coach Brown. Could be good news for the tank though?
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I agree with the trend to play smaller. I think not only it's playing faster/more shooting, its just that we have an influx of talent at that size, and right now nobody on the floor can be a liability. One thing I noticed was the types of players. Take Josh Hart, Nesmith, Dort, Caruso, NAW. All of those guys listed at 6'3-6'6 on the best of days, but they are all capable of guarding up much bigger players without being bullied. Those are the kind of players that succeed in the modern NBA, and I do see some of that in Nique. It's genuinely the opposite of what we get from LaVine/Demar who have decent size, but can't guard a high schooler.

Thats why I love Nique, and I don't care if hes a 2 or a 3, or a guard or a wing... The point is that guy just needs to find minutes on the team, and we need to target more guys like that.

I agree there's literally no hope that this current team will even be passable defensively. We will be one of the worst defensive teams in the league, there is no way you can put that kind of pressure on 2-3 players, and have at least 4-5 that are absolutely awful on that side of the ball.

And agree with what you are saying on Brown. It's why I was never a fan of bringing him back and wanted Jordi. His schemes sucked. He was clueless most nights. Team caught lightning in a bottle and had a ton of luck with injuries in a down season in the west. I'll be curious to see how he does in NY, that team has enough talent to be successful no matter who is coaching, but I don't see him getting them over the hump.
 
SacTownKid said:
If Domas is the weakness no amount of size at 2-4 is going to make up for those lacks. Domas isn't a bad defender and we've seen blips of the Kings committing to switch. These days switch is more often guard based, not big based. But that's because as you speak of, most teams have legit defensive help abilities at C and the Kings don't. I'm not sure what the Kings are defensively. They have two different worlds on paper. Keon, Carter, IJ, and Clifford is about the extent of the teams defensively ability on paper outside of the starting lineup with Keegan. Any team that wants to defend with someone like Domas at C needs to make as much use out of the switch as possible. Don't let teams get a free lane into the painted area and switchable guards are the secret sauce right now when it comes to that. Domas' advantage is always going to be his quickness and strength and he's shown his potential when allowed to come out and pressure pick and roll.
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So when you watch the Knicks, you don't think OG/Bridges/Hart had any impact on helping cover for Brunson/Kat defensively?

This was my argument with the 22/23 Kings. Keegan was a start to that, but adding Demar, Huerter, Barnes around those 3 never made sense. The team had to prioritize getting a Hart/Anunoby. And then we would have 100% had sustained success as an organization. But they decided to prioritize a bunch of offense only guys who would get bullied, and Domas never had a chance.

And it's not if Domas is a bad or good defender. You can argue his man defense is solid. His help defense is non existent and there's literally no argument that says otherwise. When you don't have an interior help defender, its more important that guys don't get consistently beat. Having stud defenders 2-4 makes it so other teams can't just switch on Huerter/Demar and take them right to the paint.
 
BuddyBuckets said:
So when you watch the Knicks, you don't think OG/Bridges/Hart had any impact on helping cover for Brunson/Kat defensively?

This was my argument with the 22/23 Kings. Keegan was a start to that, but adding Demar, Huerter, Barnes around those 3 never made sense. The team had to prioritize getting a Hart/Anunoby. And then we would have 100% had sustained success as an organization. But they decided to prioritize a bunch of offense only guys who would get bullied, and Domas never had a chance.

And it's not if Domas is a bad or good defender. You can argue his man defense is solid. His help defense is non existent and there's literally no argument that says otherwise. When you don't have an interior help defender, its more important that guys don't get consistently beat. Having stud defenders 2-4 makes it so other teams can't just switch on Huerter/Demar and take them right to the paint.
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No disagreement from me on that. Undoubtedly the franchise hasn't run towards players that will make this team better on defense and if there is any truth to the Carter rumors they are running away from their best potential shot on that end right now. Good defenders will make a difference but size alone isn't necessarily the key, ability with that versatility is. Sure, if you can find that in the same package then you've got gold, but those players do not grow on trees. Look at the Thunder, they have a crop of guards headlining their perimeter D that look like Carter/Keon if you squint hard enough. Also, while Chet is certainly a better rim protector it was his ability to switch out and use his feet that truly turned the tide in that series. It's full on, full stop. If you want to defend it's going to start from the perimeter in, not at the rim. That might change shortly depending on whether or not the NBA goes full 90's at some point though.
 
BuddyBuckets said:
I was saying that more so in response to the people in the thread who were saying "old positions are dead". I don't care if you want to call it SF/PF or Wing/Forward. Doesn't really matter to me. I actually agree with you. And If you run 3 guards and a non rim protecting center consistently like the Kings have, you are always going to be undersized.
The Thunder are the best examples, but several teams ran multi positioned lineups.. they all had size and athleticism. There's some things you can get away with when you have a rim protecting center, or a 6'7 point guard, Kings don't have those luxuries. If Sabonis is your center, I think you need to prioritize size 2-4, I don't care if you call any specific player any specific position. Ideally 2/3 and 3/4 are switchable.
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Sabonis is an undersized center, so adding more length in the frontcourt would be a priority. We've consistently lacked a true rim protector at the 4 and never addressed this; enough is enough.
 
sono said:
Sabonis is an undersized center, so adding more length in the frontcourt would be a priority. We've consistently lacked a true rim protector at the 4 and never addressed this; enough is enough.
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This has been true for 5 years and the Kings never make the moves to solve it. Thinking Vivek wants a team to mirror himself. 🤓
 
Jdbraver137 said:
I don’t think you necessarily need a shot blocker in today’s game. You need 6’8 wings to chase shooters off the three point line. We have neither though, just a bunch of combo guards.
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Yeah, shot blocking at PF has never been much of a thing anyway. Historically Domas would definitely have been a PF but today the game is all about spacing, not physicality. We'll see if that changes. Even more so you need switchable guards that can guard on ball and still reliably switch to one other spot at least. The two teams in the finals and the Celtics the prior year were stocked, locked, and loaded with defensive guards. That was the foundation of their defense. Chet's ability to switch in the finals was the key, not necessarily shot blocking even though that was an added bonus.
 
SacTownKid said:
Yeah, shot blocking at PF has never been much of a thing anyway. Historically Domas would definitely have been a PF but today the game is all about spacing, not physicality. We'll see if that changes. Even more so you need switchable guards that can guard on ball and still reliably switch to one other spot at least. The two teams in the finals and the Celtics the prior year were stocked, locked, and loaded with defensive guards. That was the foundation of their defense. Chet's ability to switch in the finals was the key, not necessarily shot blocking even though that was an added bonus.
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Yeah, the advent of Warriors style three ball chucking means that shotblocking (while still a nifty skill to have) isn’t quite as important as it used to be. Rudy Gobert is one of the best rim protectors this league has seen but pretty much every single playoff game he gets involved in devolves into teams hunting him on switches because he’s got traditional big man lateral agility. Same thing sorta happened with Turner and Hartenstein in the finals this season.

Would it be nice to get a shot blocker to play next to Keegs and Domas? Sure but that’s probably not as important as just getting a strong defender who doesn’t get blown up the second he gets switched onto anyone who isn’t a traditional big.
 
SacTownKid said:
Yeah, shot blocking at PF has never been much of a thing anyway. Historically Domas would definitely have been a PF but today the game is all about spacing, not physicality. We'll see if that changes. Even more so you need switchable guards that can guard on ball and still reliably switch to one other spot at least. The two teams in the finals and the Celtics the prior year were stocked, locked, and loaded with defensive guards. That was the foundation of their defense. Chet's ability to switch in the finals was the key, not necessarily shot blocking even though that was an added bonus.
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there is more physicality from guards and forwards than big men, it's just a role reversal more so right now. Things always change in sports though
 
SacTownKid said:
No disagreement from me on that. Undoubtedly the franchise hasn't run towards players that will make this team better on defense and if there is any truth to the Carter rumors they are running away from their best potential shot on that end right now. Good defenders will make a difference but size alone isn't necessarily the key, ability with that versatility is. Sure, if you can find that in the same package then you've got gold, but those players do not grow on trees. Look at the Thunder, they have a crop of guards headlining their perimeter D that look like Carter/Keon if you squint hard enough. Also, while Chet is certainly a better rim protector it was his ability to switch out and use his feet that truly turned the tide in that series. It's full on, full stop. If you want to defend it's going to start from the perimeter in, not at the rim. That might change shortly depending on whether or not the NBA goes full 90's at some point though.
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The thing with OKC, they don't really accept non-defenders in their rotation. People mention Caruso/Dort a lot, but Shai, Wallace, Wiggins, Williams, are all really good defenders as well. To me that is a culture/team building philosophy. I thought for a second maybe Perry was heading that direction with the Nique pick, but everything he did in FA (along with Carter trade rumors for Russ), signal to me hes just another Vivek puppet. And I 100% agree with you on perimeter D being more important than interior at this time.. Length isnt important because they can defend inside, its important because they can switch and recover quickly on 3pt shooters.

Kings were laughably bad recovering at the 3pt line. Where you watch OKC and they are constantly moving and closing out on shooters. NY same way, Indiana same way, Minnesota same way.. Basically every good team was able to do that.
 
Tetsujin said:
Yeah, the advent of Warriors style three ball chucking means that shotblocking (while still a nifty skill to have) isn’t quite as important as it used to be. Rudy Gobert is one of the best rim protectors this league has seen but pretty much every single playoff game he gets involved in devolves into teams hunting him on switches because he’s got traditional big man lateral agility. Same thing sorta happened with Turner and Hartenstein in the finals this season.

Would it be nice to get a shot blocker to play next to Keegs and Domas? Sure but that’s probably not as important as just getting a strong defender who doesn’t get blown up the second he gets switched onto anyone who isn’t a traditional big.
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And the problem with wishing and praying for a shotblocking 4, who? JJJ isn't available and that's about the only guy who checks that box. I always wanted to go after someone like Eason to play that spot. Long, athletic, can guard multiple positions, can help, guard on ball, versatile. We are lacking those types of guys imo.
 
@twslam07 and I been talking about PJ for literally like 5 years at this point. Damn good player that's like your 5th or 6th best player on a title team. Fits with any and all superstars.

Really is quite annoying how easy it is to identify some of these really good role players and we've just been allergic to them for the better part of 20 years. And when we FINALLY look like we've stumbled into 1 (Keon) and potentially another (Carter), we're doing our best to just not get them on the floor.
 
The_Jamal said:
@twslam07 and I been talking about PJ for literally like 5 years at this point. Damn good player that's like your 5th or 6th best player on a title team. Fits with any and all superstars.

Really is quite annoying how easy it is to identify some of these really good role players and we've just been allergic to them for the better part of 20 years. And when we FINALLY look like we've stumbled into 1 (Keon) and potentially another (Carter), we're doing our best to just not get them on the floor.
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Not gonna but Carter up there with Washington. Keon’s impact on the team is big but I wish he was PJ’s size. The thing is the only way for the Kings to get one is by drafting and agents sure don’t want their clients here. What’s sad is the the clippers debacle has exposed the league. It’s basically large markets as the globetrotters and small markets as the Washington generals
 
Jdbraver137 said:
Not gonna but Carter up there with Washington. Keon’s impact on the team is big but I wish he was PJ’s size. The thing is the only way for the Kings to get one is by drafting and agents sure don’t want their clients here. What’s sad is the the clippers debacle has exposed the league. It’s basically large markets as the globetrotters and small markets as the Washington generals
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I'm very confident Carter's floor is somewhere around the Cason Wallace, Andrew Nembhard, Alex Caruso, etc. I watched that finals and just saw like 7 Devin Carter skill-set clones on the floor playing key minutes in the finals. He's not there yet and obviously has a lot to prove, but his tools are exactly what you need to win in the NBA now around star players.

Edit: Ok, maybe not "floor", but in most median outcomes of his career, I think he can be that level of role player.
 
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