NBA Free Agency 2018: 5 offseason targets for the Sacramento Kings
After another disastrous season, is there any glimmer of hope for the Sacramento Kings? How do they proceed from here?
The Sacramento Kings pulled off a rare NBA feat last season, finishing in the bottom five of the league in both offensive and defensive rating. So much for all the praise the franchise received after signing George Hill, Zach Randolph and Vince Carter last summer. That ignominious double tells you everything that you need to know about last season’s Kings and the state of the franchise more broadly. They’re stuck in the doldrums and there is no easy way out. Every season represents another chapter in a seemingly endless rebuild.
Although we all laughed when DeMarcus Cousins got traded to the Pelicans for Buddy Hield and a first-rounder, the Kings actually entered the 2017 offseason in a promising position. They owned their 2018 first-round pick and had a ton of cap room. In the league’s tight cap environment, those are two assets that enable a rebuilding team to be terrible while also taking on bad contracts in exchange for future assets. But in all too predictable fashion, the Kings didn’t take the most prudent approach to the summer.
Sacramento signing the Hill-Randolph-Carter trio (and outbidding themselves in the process) was one of the most troubling moves of the entire 2017 offseason. Instead of using their cap room absorb dead salary as the salary cap crunch impacted most of the NBA, the Kings brought in those guys on hefty multi-year deals (except for Carter). The team did well to offload Hill later in the year, but it had to accept Iman Shumpert’s ugly deal to do business; in one of the least shocking moves of the summer, Shumpert has opted in to the final year of his deal. He’s set to make just over $11 million next season.
Sacramento’s draft stock wasn’t ultimately hurt by their maneuvers in 2017; the Kings took Marvin Bagley III with the second overall pick in the 2018 Draft. Even so, management missed a golden opportunity to restock the franchise’s asset chest last summer. Beyond Bagley, De’Aaron Fox and perhaps Bogdan Bogdanovic, this team doesn’t have any especially compelling players or future picks.
The Kings will have a chance to make amends for last year’s missteps this offseason. But with the deals of Shumpert and Randolph in particular clogging up space, they won’t have as much room to operate with. Assuming that Garrett Temple opts in for the 2018-2019 season and Sacramento doesn’t extend a qualifying offer to perpetual project Bruno Caboclo, the Kings will have about $20 million in space to work with this summer.
This offseason, the Kings should primarily use their cap space to become the salary junkyard of the NBA. With so many teams desperate to dodge the tax, Sacramento could extract some riches from especially desperate teams. The fact that the franchise owes its 2019 first-round pick shouldn’t substantially alter its decision making process. Obviously, the pick is gone so tanking won’t help them next year. But this team isn’t going to be good any time soon; there’s no need to make ill-advised, short-sighted signings in order to ease the pain of that pick potentially falling within the top four.
In addition to accepting bad money, the Kings should seek out bargain deals and take a few flyers on guys in the restricted market. If Sacramento wants to bring in a veteran, it needs to be diligent about finding the right guy at a good price. The particular set of veterans that the Kings added last year muddled a rotation that already had poor balance. Last year Sacramento had no reliable wing defenders on roster. The team had far too many guards and bigs.
The Kings are still barren on the wing at this point. Despite assurances from General Manager Vlade Divac, Marvin Bagley isn’t going to solve Sacramento’s wing problems. Finding playable threes should be a priority for the Kings in this free agency window. Here are a few players that that they should consider acquiring as July approaches.