Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- One veteran star faces a nearly impossible trade scenario as Sacramento reshapes its roster after a deep draft haul.
- The player's high salary, injury history, and current production value create a perfect storm that deters suitors despite an expiring contract.
- The franchise may be forced to let the star play out his deal and walk in free agency, a decision that carries both cap and competitive implications.
After selecting a handful of young players in the 2026 NBA Draft (Darius Acuff Jr., Alex Karaban, and Emmanuel Sharp), the Sacramento Kings are looking to offload a lot of their veterans and make way for a new iteration of Kings' basketball. According to Sam Amick, that includes DeMar DeRozan, Domantas Sabonis, and Zach LaVine.
Getting off DeRozan will be relatively easy, DeRozan is on the hook for $25.7 million in 2026-27, but only about $10 million of that is guaranteed. So, the Kings can waive DeRozan, stretch his contract to minimize their yearly cap hit, and allow the six-time All-Star to search for greener pastures in the twilight of his career.
Sabonis is a little trickier, since he has two more fully guaranteed years left on his contract, and his salary figure takes up over 27.5 percent of the cap (per Spotrac). However, Sabonis does still have some trade suitors (Amick mentioned the Toronto Raptors, for instance).
We just saw Karl-Anthony Towns (one of the notoriously bad big man defenders in the association) turn into a solid defender in the 2026 Playoffs by increasing his effort and leveraging his robust frame to get away with some of the extra physicality that officials were allowing. Who is to say that Sabonis can't do to the same, albiet, at a different level since he isn't as good of an offensive player as Towns?
Unfortunately, moving off LaVine is nearly impossible.
No one is going to want to trade for Zach LaVine
Technically, LaVine could be a free agent this offseason, which would remedy a lot of the Kings' issues. He has a player option for 2026-27 that he could easily decline to be a free agent. However, since that player option is worth nearly $49 million and LaVine is coming off a pretty poor season (where he only played 39 games), it seems unlikely that he would be willing to walk away from that kind of money.
That brings us to the next part of the equation: even though he will be an expiring contract, it seems unlikely that anyone is going to be eager to trade for LaVine.
NBA teams (other than the Kings, lol) have become a lot smarter about keeping clean contracts on their books, and even a healthy version of LaVine is not worth what he will be making next season.
Forget last season, when he was limited by injuries. In 2024-25, LaVine played 74 games. If he did that next season and produced at a similar level, he would be worth roughly $27.2 million to his team (based on my formula for estimating production value), which is far below what he's actually being paid. And that's a best case scenario since he's two years older now and coming off season-ending surgery.
It also doesn't help that LaVine is a wirey, finesse player in a league that is trending more toward sturdy athletes that can handle that extra contact that we mentioned is being allowed in the playoffs.
At the end of the day, it seems like the Kings will have to let LaVine play out the remainder of his contract in Sactown, then let him walk for away in free agency in 2027.
More NBA news and analysis:
Add us as a preferred source on Google