The 2025-2026 Sacramento Kings: Record & Rankings

Padrino

Padrino

All-Star
Here we are, 10 games into the season. It's early yet, the Kings have been dealing with some injuries to key players, but there are still some pretty obvious takeaways we can mull over.

Given that this season is looking like quite the sh*tshow, I thought it might be useful to start cataloguing a few things. I won't necessarily be updating this thread after every game, but I will be checking into it periodically to update the Kings record and rankings in a variety of useful measures, and anybody who wants to contribute other illuminating metrics are more than welcome to do so.


As of 11/10/25, here is where the Kings are at:

3-7 record (13th in conference)

111.9 Offensive Rating (23rd in NBA)
119.9 Defensive Rating (27th in NBA)
-8.0 Net Rating (25th in NBA)

They're most used lineup is:

Schroder, Westbrook, DeRozan, LaVine, Sabonis (79 mins)

105.3 Offensive Rating
122.1 Defensive Rating
-16.8 Net Rating


There's more to break apart, particularly in the lineup data, but this feels like a good start. The Kings are bad, in other words. They're as bad as many of us thought they might be. With their current minutes distribution, it shouldn't be too surprising that they're atrocious defensively. And with all of these ill-fitting pieces in the rotation, I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that they're pretty awful offensively, as well.

I will be curious to see if the Perry/Christie braintrust pivots in any meaningful way as the losses continue to pile up.
 
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...

This is all fair. I suppose one's mileage may vary with respect to how much weight one wants to give to the factors you've cited, but Domas' and Keegan's skill sets are not well-served by the roster around them, so I'm not expecting a theoretically healthy Domas and/or a theoretically healthy Keegan to be able to make up an 8-point shortfall in net rating. Keegan's a good defender, but he's not good enough to elevate this roster, especially if he's given few opportunities to play alongside the Kings other good defenders.

And personally, I don't care how much time the coach gives the new guys to get integrated, this roster is not going to achieve much in the way of cohesion before Perry starts jettisoning players (for better or worse). They're not well-optimized. They're not well-balanced. They're getting blown out by 20+ regularly, and unless Christie wants to man up and sit some of the Kings' weakest defenders, it's a massive climb for this team to be playing anything resembling .500 ball, regardless of the quality of the opposition.

As for the schedule, it is quite tough to start the year. Brutally so. But this is the Western Conference. It's always tough. There aren't a lot of nights off, and the Kings so far have already had difficulty drawing even with the likes of the Jazz and the Suns. I'm not optimistic that the Kings record will improve dramatically as the schedule eases a bit.

Of course, that's what this thread is for. I'll be monitoring offensive rating, defensive rating, net rating, and specific lineup data throughout the season. Maybe this Island of Misfit Toys of a roster will prove me wrong. Maybe they're better than I think and they just need time to get healthy and gel. We'll see what the numbers tell us over time.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...

That is what I expect to see if Perry/Christie stay the course with this roster. If you sort these players into three buckets -- guard, forward, and big man -- we really only have one guy on the roster who belongs in the forward bucket and he's injured. Missing Keegan was always going to hurt us but his absence is even more glaring when there is no one else who can even come close to replicating his role.

Let's say Keegan comes back after Christmas (at home against Dallas on Dec. 27th) and the team goes 6-12 before that (a modest improvement on our current winning % but there are some weaker opponents during that stretch). We would be 9-19 with 54 games left to play. If the Kings play .500 ball from then on they would finish the season at 36-46. Last season that would have landed us in a 3-way tie to pick 9-12 in the draft. Is that such a desirable place to be that we should continue to stash all of our young players at the end of the bench while veterans on short-term deals get to define our team identity?

Alternatively, what if we trade Domas right now for a defensive big man who fits the age range of a Keon/Carter/Clifford/Murray core, bench or trade LaVine and DeRozan, and give Nique, Ellis, Carter and Reynaud starter's minutes. When Keegan comes back he would be returning to a team built around the culture of hard work and defensive intensity that Doug Christie has been preaching since he got the job. They might outpace 36 wins, they might be worse, or they might be about the same but regardless we would finish the season having established a new core group that we can build some continuity around and we would have given Doug a fair shot to coach the team the way he wants to coach.
 
I'm still thinking the record will be the mid to high 30s Vivek special when it's all said and done.

Keegan will have a big impact on the defensive end. Once we're allowing a modest 125 per game instead of 140 or whatever, we should start winning some of these shoot outs.
 
The Kings play Denver and Minnesota three times this month. They will play Oklahoma City for the third time next Wednesday. Then they will not face any of these teams in the regular season again. Just crazy.

So far, they have won two of the 4-5 games I predicted for the month of November, with a back-to-back at home coming up on Tuesday and Wednesday. The situation will look grim come December 1.

We can all pontificate on what Doug Christie should or should do in terms of rotations, but I think most here are agreed that a mixture of veterans and youth in the starting lineup and for the primary bench unit will optimize the team's talents until Keegan comes back. He is still experimenting. The addition of Precious Achiuwa should make the task easier.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...

Ah, just where a team wants to be as the 3rd oldest in the league or whatever it is. The upside is IMMEASURABLE, haha.
 
SacTownKid said:
Ah, just where a team wants to be as the 3rd oldest in the league or whatever it is. The upside is IMMEASURABLE, haha.
Click to expand...

Indeed. But you really have to believe that Domas getting healthier and Keegan returning to the lineup is going to reverse this team's fortunes enough to even see a path toward .500 ball. The problem is that minutes are being distributed primarily to aging offense-first talent with duplicative skill sets within line-ups that possess neither balance nor chemistry nor efficiency nor much in the way of common sense. That's partly on Perry, who prioritized backcourt additions in the off-season, and partly on Christie, who refuses to elevate his defenders in the rotation.

I mean, I'm not sure if Kings fans really appreciate just how awful this team has been through 10 games, particularly the most-used starting 5 we've seen on the court. I cited the following lineup data in my initial post, but I didn't provide enough context for the numbers:

Schroder, Westbrook, DeRozan, LaVine, Sabonis (79 mins)

105.3 Offensive Rating
122.1 Defensive Rating
-16.8 Net Rating

That OFFRTG would be good for 28th in the NBA. That DEFRTG would be good for 29th in the NBA. And that NETRTG would be good for 30th in the NBA. This lineup is one of the worst in the entire league, on both ends of the court, and it's Doug Christie's preferred starting 5 in the absence of Keegan Murray. But these guys are who they are! As you said, it's not like there's any upside to be had whatsoever with the parts of this roster that are "earning" the lion's share of the minutes. They may "gel" better as the season wears on, and getting Keegan back will restore the smallest semblance of sanity to the starting lineup, but I just don't see these factors correcting the Kings' fortunes in any meaningful way.

An old team that occupies the bottom rung of these efficiency metrics isn't likely to improve enough to sniff the play-in, certainly not in the Western Conference. And that's all right by me, since I view a high draft pick as the only means of salvaging this "gap year". But there's a reason a lot of smart NBA minds are looking at the Kings and wondering if a "stealth tank" is occurring, because it's hard to imagine any sensible owner and front office putting together a roster like this with the expectation that they're going to win in the west.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...
So in other words 10th place and our annual spot in the Vivek Invitational is not out of the picture.
 
Padrino said:
I mean, I'm not sure if Kings fans really appreciate just how awful this team has been through 10 games, particularly the most-used starting 5 we've seen on the court. I cited the following lineup data in my initial post, but I didn't provide enough context for the numbers:

Schroder, Westbrook, DeRozan, LaVine, Sabonis (79 mins)

105.3 Offensive Rating
122.1 Defensive Rating
-16.8 Net Rating
Click to expand...

I imagine most people who have watched a game or two will accept that the team is bad. Maybe they are just better at detaching than what you would like?

For me, I accept the Kings are going to be awful this year. I also accept that I cannot control the team and that if I only think about how much I dislike them I’m going to feel worse and I’m not going to be able to conjure the optimism/ delusion that is necessary to be a fan of most sports teams most of the time.

How about this way of looking at that most used lineup you posted - they are tank commanders on relatively short term deals.

Shroder is only making 9% of the cap, the third year of his contract is partially guaranteed, he’s tradable and has been traded multiple times recently, and he doesn’t have the name/ salary/ social capital that prevents a shift to a reserve role.

Westbrook is on a one-year, non-guaranteed minimum deal.

DeRozan is on a reasonable contract (15% of the cap) and it’s not impossible that a contender will take him on before the trade deadline. If that doesn’t happen, he only has one more partially guaranteed year left on his deal.

LaVine is on an unreasonable contract, and I would be surprised if someone was willing to take it on without taking back assets or getting rid of their own bad personnel moves. BUT he now makes less than Fox, is a better tank commander, and there is an outside chance (please!) he opts out of his contract at the end of the year. Our GM might not like him and didn’t extend him in the offseason. If he doesn't opt out, his contract should run out by the end of next season.

Sabonis is making 27% of the cap for two more years after this one. I don’t know how movable he is: he genuinely contributes to winning although with additional roster building challenges. His contract is longer than the other players, but since he isn’t blocking anyone’s minutes and he seems to make others better via his passing/ screening/ team play I don’t think it’s worth sweating his presence just yet.

Doug is an inexperienced head coach on a cheap, short term, ‘prove it’ deal. He hasn’t been great so far, but he wasn't going to be a finished product from day 1 and has an opportunity to improve. Finding himself in the deep end this early in the season is going to force him to either improve - ideally by making hard personnel decisions and playing a more balanced roster – or be transitioned into a different role. He is playing some young guys (Nique, Max). I think it’s easy to underestimate the challenges of player management, especially for an inexperienced coach coming up against established roles, egos, $$, agents, social hierarchies, etc. But if he doesn’t manage, he will be out.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...

That would be horrific if they went .500 the rest the way shortly after this. Probably the worst possible scenario they could be in by years end.
 
Padrino said:
Here we are, 10 games into the season. It's early yet, the Kings have been dealing with some injuries to key players, but there are still some pretty obvious takeaways we can mull over.

Given that this season is looking like quite the sh*tshow, I thought it might be useful to start cataloguing a few things. I won't necessarily be updating this thread after every game, but I will be checking into it periodically to update the Kings record and rankings in a variety of useful measures, and anybody who wants to contribute other illuminating metrics are more than welcome to do so.


As of 11/10/25, here is where the Kings are at:

3-7 record (13th in conference)

111.9 Offensive Rating (23rd in NBA)
119.9 Defensive Rating (27th in NBA)
-8.0 Net Rating (25th in NBA)

They're most used lineup is:

Schroder, Westbrook, DeRozan, LaVine, Sabonis (79 mins)

105.3 Offensive Rating
122.1 Defensive Rating
-16.8 Net Rating


There's more to break apart, particularly in the lineup data, but this feels like a good start. The Kings are bad, in other words. They're as bad as many of us thought they might be. With their current minutes distribution, it shouldn't be too surprising that they're atrocious defensively. And with all of these ill-fitting pieces in the rotation, I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that they're pretty awful offensively, as well.

I will be curious to see if the Perry/Christie braintrust pivots in any meaningful way as the losses continue to pile up.
Click to expand...

Yeah, whatever the preseason plan was for this squad... it's utterly failed. Sure, we've had injuries to deal with and Keegan being out certainly has thrown a huge wrench in this start, but as valuable as Keegan is, he's not THAT level of an impact player where we'd be 6-4 right now with him or something along those lines.

Russ is putting up numbers and has had a few excellent games, but he just does not translate to wins in year 18 of his career. He tries incredibly hard (most of the time, last night on defense not included), but he's such a heliocentric player that he just ends up sucking up #1 USG when he's on the floor.

Someone brought it up that if this team were Russ+kids, could actually work. He'd allow them to be brought along slower on the offensive end without like Nique and Keon all of a sudden having to be lead options. And Russ, while ineffective, actually does try on the glass and sometimes does try defensively.

But I just don't understand the plan of bringing on Russ, to a team where you just signed Dennis to be the starting PG and lead ball-handler to a team that ALREADY have Malik Monk/Zach LaVine/Keon Ellis/DDR that all deserve big roles and a former lotto pick in Devin Carter that needs an everyday opportunity to develop. It's just asinine.

I'm not even sure how much Keegan can really help this team as currently constructed. He's certainly not going to get anymore offensive USG opportunity with how ball-dominant Russ/Dennis/LaVine/DDR have been. Hell, we've already seen Domas diminished in his playmaking role, currently on pace for his lowest AST rate since his 2nd year in the league. If he can't get the rock, why would Keegan? Who we already kind of pushed to the side the last 2 years?

This Minny game hopefully was fairly eye-opening for the decision makers. Was one of the first all year where we faced a great team at full strength. We've gotten some pretty fortunate injury luck for the most part (Lakers no Luka/Bron. OKC game 1 no Chet/Jalen. Warriors no Steph/Dray/Jimmy. OKC game 2 no Jalen).
 
It's a team with no future. It doesn't matter if Murray returns or Sabonis gets healthy. Lavine and DDR, the two misfit center pieces of this team give it a short expiration date. So even if all the stars align, they have penultimate health, and they run off five wins in a row, it's still a team in limbo. Until they come to grips with their cryonic state they will continue to go on and on and on with no rebirth on the horizon. Some say that such is the perfect definition of hell.
 
I didn't think I'd be updating this so soon, but there's notable movement in the Kings' NETRTG that is worth highlighting.


As of 11/13/25, here is where the Kings are at:

3-9 record (13th in conference)

110.3 Offensive Rating (25th in NBA)
120.6 Defensive Rating (27th in NBA)
-10.3 Net Rating (26th in NBA)

The lineup data is still a bit limited, since the Kings haven't had a consistent rotation due to injury, so I'll leave further number crunching until later.


They've only played two games since my initial post in this thread, but their NETRTG still sunk below -10. They're getting absolutely creamed out there. The effort of the starters is particularly odious, and I have no idea if Vivek and Perry actually have it in mind to initiate a proper rebuild, but every game that passes only further reinforces the notion that there's just nowhere to go with this crew.

Every team below the Kings in the standings is significantly younger than the Kings and is in the midst of their own tanking strategy, Dallas excluded. But it's probably not great to be in the same boat as a team that just fired their GM 10 games into the season because of the predictable results that followed from his execution of the single worst trade in NBA history.
 
Padrino said:
An old team that occupies the bottom rung of these efficiency metrics isn't likely to improve enough to sniff the play-in, certainly not in the Western Conference. And that's all right by me, since I view a high draft pick as the only means of salvaging this "gap year". But there's a reason a lot of smart NBA minds are looking at the Kings and wondering if a "stealth tank" is occurring, because it's hard to imagine any sensible owner and front office putting together a roster like this with the expectation that they're going to win in the west.
Click to expand...
Not only are we the smartest fans in the league, but we're also the best-looking.
 
Padrino said:
single worst trade in NBA history.
Click to expand...
How is that still not Joe Barry Carroll for Robert Parrish and Kevin McHale?

I mean it was a terrible deal, and Luka is a better individual talent than Parrish or McHale for sure. The optics were absolutely horrible for a player fans hoped would be a Maverick for life. But two future Hall of Famers who would be part of 3 championship runs for a guy who made one all star team still has to be the biggest on court blunder of all time?
 
pdxKingsFan said:
How is that still not Joe Barry Carroll for Robert Parrish and Kevin McHale?

I mean it was a terrible deal, and Luka is a better individual talent than Parrish or McHale for sure. The optics were absolutely horrible for a player fans hoped would be a Maverick for life. But two future Hall of Famers who would be part of 3 championship runs for a guy who made one all star team still has to be the biggest on court blunder of all time?
Click to expand...

I think you answer this question yourself. Luka is a perennial MVP candidate, whereas Anthony Davis is a broken-down former All-NBA level talent who can barely keep himself on the court. It's the sheer lopsidedness of it that make it the single worst trade of all time. Carroll for Parish/McHale was a bad trade, no doubt, and it led to an incredible run of success for the Celtics, but from a talent/timeline perspective, Harrison trading away a 26-year-old MVP candidate for an aging big who may not play more than 50 games in a season ever again is madness of the highest order.
 
Padrino said:
I think you answer this question yourself. Luka is a perennial MVP candidate, whereas Anthony Davis is a broken-down former All-NBA level talent who can barely keep himself on the court. It's the sheer lopsidedness of it that make it the single worst trade of all time. Carroll for Parish/McHale was a bad trade, no doubt, and it led to an incredible run of success for the Celtics, but from a talent/timeline perspective, Harrison trading away a 26-year-old MVP candidate for an aging big who may not play more than 50 games in a season ever again is madness of the highest order.
Click to expand...
I really dislike AD. But I think he could play at the All-NBA level for a few more seasons in the right place. Its pretty clear Dallas has a conditioning problem as Luka sheds weight on departure and AD shows up 30lbs overweight and can't play. Luka's fitness was a real concern. It seems that Dallas viewed this as a Luka problem when it might be a Mavericks problem.

If Luka leads the Lakers to three championships I will certainly reconsider my opinion on the matter. I am inclined to think they will be a mid-table team and be buried behind OKC and San Antonio plus anyone who comes up over the next 2-3 years. As would Dallas have been if they kept him.
 
pdxKingsFan said:
I really dislike AD. But I think he could play at the All-NBA level for a few more seasons in the right place. Its pretty clear Dallas has a conditioning problem as Luka sheds weight on departure and AD shows up 30lbs overweight and can't play. Luka's fitness was a real concern. It seems that Dallas viewed this as a Luka problem when it might be a Mavericks problem.

If Luka leads the Lakers to three championships I will certainly reconsider my opinion on the matter. I am inclined to think they will be a mid-table team and be buried behind OKC and San Antonio plus anyone who comes up over the next 2-3 years. As would Dallas have been if they kept him.
Click to expand...

Even if Davis theoretically could play at an All-NBA level for a few more seasons, it's only a few more seasons, none of which is likely to represent a healthy season of basketball. After all, injury risk does not decrease as a player pushes further into their 30s. Conversely, Luka is only just entering his prime. And he's an All-NBA lock for the duration of his prime, as well as a perennial name in the MVP conversation. There is no way to square this trade as anything but a categorically disastrous move that would have set the Mavericks back by a half-decade if not for a bit of extreme lottery luck.

Now, if you want to use championships as your yard stick, that's fine, but I don't think it's all that useful for determining the end value of a trade, especially since not every trade can be evaluated by whether or not it delivers a championship to the team involved. Only one team wins it all every season. And in an era of increasing parity, so many factors determine who's hoisting the Larry O'Brien in the end.

When looking strictly at the talent involved, and looking at the timeline that talent represents, I just can't see the Luka trade as anything other than the most lopsided deal in NBA history, which makes it the worst trade in NBA history in my view.

If the Mavericks had traded Prime Luka for Prime AD, it'd be a much different conversation, but trading Prime Luka for 50 games a season of AD that maybe sniffs All-NBA level performance is, once again, absolute madness. You could find logic in the Carroll for Parish/McHale trade, even if it was ultimately a bad bet. There's just no logic to be found in the Luka trade. At all.
 
Padrino said:
Even if Davis theoretically could play at an All-NBA level for a few more seasons, it's only a few more seasons, none of which is likely to represent a healthy season of basketball. After all, injury risk does not decrease as a player pushes further into their 30s. Conversely, Luka is only just entering his prime. And he's an All-NBA lock for the duration of his prime, as well as a perennial name in the MVP conversation. There is no way to square this trade as anything but a categorically disastrous move that would have set the Mavericks back by a half-decade if not for a bit of extreme lottery luck.

Now, if you want to use championships as your yard stick, that's fine, but I don't think it's all that useful for determining the end value of a trade, especially since not every trade can be evaluated by whether or not it delivers a championship to the team involved. Only one team wins it all every season. And in an era of increasing parity, so many factors determine who's hoisting the Larry O'Brien in the end.

When looking strictly at the talent involved, and looking at the timeline that talent represents, I just can't see the Luka trade as anything other than the most lopsided deal in NBA history, which makes it the worst trade in NBA history in my view.

If the Mavericks had traded Prime Luka for Prime AD, it'd be a much different conversation, but trading Prime Luka for 50 games a season of AD that maybe sniffs All-NBA level performance is, once again, absolute madness. You could find logic in the Carroll for Parish/McHale trade, even if it was ultimately a bad bet. There's just no logic to be found in the Luka trade. At all.
Click to expand...
You are assuming that Luka plays healthy for another 5-7 years and Dallas had calculated that he wouldn't. They also calculated (apparently) incorrectly on AD, but AD could possibly give 3-5 high level years. I do think a lot could change if Luka blows his achilles or AD returns to fitness and plays 65 games a year for the next 5 years.

I factor championships in because down the road in the history books they are what gets remembered and recorded for people who never even saw those guys play. Luka is a spectacular talent who's career was mis-managed by the Dallas org after they fortuitously landed him. He may start winning chips in LA, or he may just go down as one of the best who never crossed the line. I think concerns about his overall attitude and fitness are very real. Its also possible getting traded by Dallas is the shot in the arm that wakes him up to the issues surrounding both.

They also either dumb lucked into Flagg as part of this deal or they were secretly rigged to receive him as part of a league conspiracy.

I just feel its recency bias that has lead everyone to state definitively how awful this deal is in terms of all time status when in reality all we have is a salty fan base and an unemployed GM to show for it right now. The results matter more than feelings down the road.
 
pdxKingsFan said:
You are assuming that Luka plays healthy for another 5-7 years and Dallas had calculated that he wouldn't. They also calculated (apparently) incorrectly on AD, but AD could possibly give 3-5 high level years. I do think a lot could change if Luka blows his achilles or AD returns to fitness and plays 65 games a year for the next 5 years.

I factor championships in because down the road in the history books they are what gets remembered and recorded for people who never even saw those guys play. Luka is a spectacular talent who's career was mis-managed by the Dallas org after they fortuitously landed him. He may start winning chips in LA, or he may just go down as one of the best who never crossed the line. I think concerns about his overall attitude and fitness are very real. Its also possible getting traded by Dallas is the shot in the arm that wakes him up to the issues surrounding both.

They also either dumb lucked into Flagg as part of this deal or they were secretly rigged to receive him as part of a league conspiracy.

I just feel its recency bias that has lead everyone to state definitively how awful this deal is in terms of all time status when in reality all we have is a salty fan base and an unemployed GM to show for it right now. The results matter more than feelings down the road.
Click to expand...

Luka led a team to the Finals when he was 24. AD couldn't do it as a #1 and had to pair up with Lebron to get his championship as a #2. Even based on their careers to date Luka is a safer bet to build a team around and then when you factor in age (Luka is 26 and AD is 32), injury history (AD couldn't stay healthy in his 20s and like all big men he's one serious knee injury away from being dead weight), and marketing potential (which does matter to the team's bottom line) and there's just no world where any savvy GM makes that trade.

Nico Harrison is supposed to be a marketing guru. Did he not consider the optics on this? Anthony Davis played all of one game for Dallas after that trade before going on the shelf for 6 weeks while Dallas fans burned jerseys outside the arena. The only way this would have worked is if AD immediately jumped in and the Mavs went on a win streak. He only played the first 5 games this season and he's on the injury list again. He's been doing this his whole career so it shouldn't qualify as bad luck. And lastly, he traded Luka to a rival Western Conference team that pretty much every fanbase hates and he has personal history with. He was going to take flack no matter where he traded Luka but sending him to the Lakers on a deal that almost everyone agrees was not fair value just magnifies that exponentially.

In the end the results will be what gets remembered, you're right about that, but if you're going to go for a Queen sacrifice type of move it damn well better work fast or don't be surprised when you get run out of the arena with pitchforks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top