The trading of Domantas Sabonis.
- Thread starter upinsmoke
- Start date
Regardless, the offense begins and ends with Tatum in pick and roll when it comes down to it. Holiday has run teams in a more traditional sense but White averages less than 5 apg for his career (which isn't a bad thing, look at Bibby vs. Williams and how it made the Kings better fit wise) and both are basically secondary combo G playmakers now. Even Steve Nash admits he should have played more like Curry rather than just lead facilitator. The NBA has always been about getting the ball into your best players hands and if they can't make plays for others they'll eventually fade from stardom potential. Having Domas is both an advantage and a complication because of what he does and doesn't do on either end. If the Kings put more onus on his playmaking then it should fit. This year Brown switched it up and went full on pick and roll through Fox/Monk which was good for Domas' scoring but his playmaking dipped. The clear divide that has to be addressed is the defense. Without that it's very unlikely a team led by Domas/LaVine is getting you anywhere spectacular which was no different than a Domas/Fox led team since it's somewhat a lateral move going from Fox to LaVine. LaVine in theory should be much better for Domas as playmaker though. LaVine could be like combining Fox and Huerter a little bit. Domas and LaVine are trying to find some chemistry and with a training camp hopefully it comes together. UNDER coach Christie. Who better to work in a little classic Kings offense than probably the player that understood it better than anyone else right?
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How many draft picks are you willing to attach to unload him?
Here he is judged the 3rd worst contract in the NBA.
https://www.spotrac.com/news/_/id/2230/nbas-10-worst-value-contracts
Here he is judged the 3rd worst contract in the NBA.
https://www.spotrac.com/news/_/id/2230/nbas-10-worst-value-contracts
Here is an analysis from April 4, 2025 this year. In the none injury contracts list LaVine is the 5th. It maybe was acceptable if he played a position of need hard to fill. But to block Keon on top of it was unfathomable.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/matiss...lyzing-contracts-from-the-2024-25-nba-season/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/matiss...lyzing-contracts-from-the-2024-25-nba-season/
Look, I honestly don't care about random articles. I didn't even like the trade either, I gave it a "5.5/10". But you saying it's one of the 5 worst trades of all-time for the Kings is just you, once again, being hyperbolic because you hate Monte.
Fox tanked his own trade value. There was no shopping him around. I'm not even sure what a different deal would have looked like. And just cap dumping him is even more stupid, which I don't even think you would suggest. But you got an okay coffer of picks and you got a player that pretty much played Fox even this season. Probably better. Not close to what ideally would have wanted, but it's not some sort of fleece deal in the slightest.
Fox tanked his own trade value. There was no shopping him around. I'm not even sure what a different deal would have looked like. And just cap dumping him is even more stupid, which I don't even think you would suggest. But you got an okay coffer of picks and you got a player that pretty much played Fox even this season. Probably better. Not close to what ideally would have wanted, but it's not some sort of fleece deal in the slightest.
Let’s assume we couldn’t have sent him elsewhere…..
Playing Keon at 2
Keeping the assets sent to Chicago
* Zach Collins
* Kevin Huerter
* Bulls 2025 1st Round pick.
* Giant Trade exemption.
Would have been a much better trade.
We at least then would have the financial flexibility to get a forward to balance the roster. We also would have been drafting in the lottery this year with Chicago’s pick.
Playing Keon at 2
Keeping the assets sent to Chicago
* Zach Collins
* Kevin Huerter
* Bulls 2025 1st Round pick.
* Giant Trade exemption.
Would have been a much better trade.
We at least then would have the financial flexibility to get a forward to balance the roster. We also would have been drafting in the lottery this year with Chicago’s pick.
The problem is everyone in the NBA knows the importance of longer wings and defense except Monte who trades and drafts exclusively guards.
Fox mentioned on the way out. You can be sure Domas thinks it. No one in the NBA has faith in Monte. I had another NBA GM directly tell me “the Kings are a mess”.
Fox mentioned on the way out. You can be sure Domas thinks it. No one in the NBA has faith in Monte. I had another NBA GM directly tell me “the Kings are a mess”.
Chicago’s pick wasn’t unprotected and if LaVine is as terrible as you insist, they’d be keeping it this year.
plus the range where that Bulls pick would’ve conveyed is roughly where our pick is conveying this season and is in relative no man’s land. Especially for someone looking for forwards as you are so obsessed with the Kings doing.
a Spurs/Kings two team deal would probably end up having the Kings taking on Devin Vassell, who’s on the first year of a five-year nine figure contract that makes Lavine’s “albatross” contract look like Jonas’s sweetheart descending MLE deal.
plus the range where that Bulls pick would’ve conveyed is roughly where our pick is conveying this season and is in relative no man’s land. Especially for someone looking for forwards as you are so obsessed with the Kings doing.
a Spurs/Kings two team deal would probably end up having the Kings taking on Devin Vassell, who’s on the first year of a five-year nine figure contract that makes Lavine’s “albatross” contract look like Jonas’s sweetheart descending MLE deal.
The Fox trade is largely what resulted in that mess, and I think few would dispute the notion that the Kings' roster is deeply imbalanced on the other side of that trade. Not sure you need to quote a phantom NBA GM in order to underline a conclusion that most others have already reached. The question is what to do about it. Everybody on this forum knows your opinion on the subject. You want Monte fired.
We were not bad with Fox this year. At the time he was traded the team was 24-24 and thanks to some fluke early season single-possession losses and a whole chunk of November/December where either Fox, Domas, DeMar, or Keegan were out injured the team was outperforming their record in terms of Net Rating. Particularly if you look at their defensive performance they've gotten worse since the Mike Brown firing and a lot worse since the Fox trade.
The extent to which y'all have drunk the cool aid on Zach LaVine is really something to behold. He's on pace to have roughly the same career as Boris Diaw (nearly identical WS and WS/48 through 11 seasons) but because he "gets buckets" we're acting like he's more than just a guy?
The extent to which you’ve become so committed to being mad at people for not being as down on the Kings as you is really something to behold.
No one is calling Zach LaVine the second coming here aside from people saying that that’s what people they don’t agree with are saying that he is. There are people who aren’t trying to relitigate a trade that already happened but rather looking at what the team can do to try and build something competitive though.
No one is calling Zach LaVine the second coming here aside from people saying that that’s what people they don’t agree with are saying that he is. There are people who aren’t trying to relitigate a trade that already happened but rather looking at what the team can do to try and build something competitive though.
I'm really finding it difficult to square the careers of a low-usage rotation PF and a high-usage starting SG who is asked to be a primary scorer and create his own shot. Zach has been asked to take twice as many shots per game, has scored two and a half times as many points per game, and attempted three times as many free throws per game over his career than Diaw did. They just aren't remotely the same player and they don't play remotely the same role.
Zach is, no doubt, a flawed player. But he fills a role and as long as we can utilize him within that role. I'm not saying that in a vacuum you should go out and build a team around Zach. We already have the guy to build a team around anyways, that's Domas. I'm not saying Zach isn't overpaid. He is, but obviously Vivek/Monte wanted to get some sort of value out of the flaming Fox wreckage rather than push the reset button - and that's fair since we already have the guy we want to build around and he's under contract for three more years. So they took what they could get as a #2, who was available precisely because he's overpaid and inefficient. (Bright side note - Zach's TS% is higher during his Sacramento stint than during any other year in his career.)
Are we "stuck" with him? Yep, probably. Can we make things work? I think we've seen the start of it. We clearly need to surround the Domas/Zach duo with plus-plus defensive players who can be complementary scorers and we need a distributor in the backcourt. DDR and Monk don't really fit that bill. They're poor defenders and high-usage players, and there's only one ball and only 48 minutes to go around. But fortunately, Keon and Keegan do fit that bill, and Devin is starting to look like he may as well. Jake is another piece in that mold, if we can keep him. We've got the pieces to make this work, what we need to do is turn the misfits into players that fit Domas/Zach better. In the case of DDR, that probably means a trade. Fortunately he's on a reasonable deal and is better than an expiring with the team option in year 3, so it shouldn't be impossible to find another home for him. In the case of Monk, he's also on a reasonable deal, and - if he can be convinced of it - is better suited for the sparkplug role off the bench anyway. If he won't accept that, he too is movable. We've got a path forward with Zach, we just need to take it.
Zach is, no doubt, a flawed player. But he fills a role and as long as we can utilize him within that role. I'm not saying that in a vacuum you should go out and build a team around Zach. We already have the guy to build a team around anyways, that's Domas. I'm not saying Zach isn't overpaid. He is, but obviously Vivek/Monte wanted to get some sort of value out of the flaming Fox wreckage rather than push the reset button - and that's fair since we already have the guy we want to build around and he's under contract for three more years. So they took what they could get as a #2, who was available precisely because he's overpaid and inefficient. (Bright side note - Zach's TS% is higher during his Sacramento stint than during any other year in his career.)
Are we "stuck" with him? Yep, probably. Can we make things work? I think we've seen the start of it. We clearly need to surround the Domas/Zach duo with plus-plus defensive players who can be complementary scorers and we need a distributor in the backcourt. DDR and Monk don't really fit that bill. They're poor defenders and high-usage players, and there's only one ball and only 48 minutes to go around. But fortunately, Keon and Keegan do fit that bill, and Devin is starting to look like he may as well. Jake is another piece in that mold, if we can keep him. We've got the pieces to make this work, what we need to do is turn the misfits into players that fit Domas/Zach better. In the case of DDR, that probably means a trade. Fortunately he's on a reasonable deal and is better than an expiring with the team option in year 3, so it shouldn't be impossible to find another home for him. In the case of Monk, he's also on a reasonable deal, and - if he can be convinced of it - is better suited for the sparkplug role off the bench anyway. If he won't accept that, he too is movable. We've got a path forward with Zach, we just need to take it.
Yeah, and Doug Christie has almost everything to do with that. The Kings were trending towards a low to mid 30 something win season prior to Browns exit. The Kings have essentially held the line post Fox yet have had an insane schedule to end the year. Defensively the Kings were bad before, bad now. A little worse for sure since going from Fox to Monk is definitely a downgrade at PG on that end.