Finding the Value of NBA Draft Picks

As we head into the NBA season later this month, fans are rightfully focused on how their teams will perform on the court this year. A few significant off-season moves have made things interesting heading into the season. Some of the headliners for me are how DeMar DeRozan fits on court with the Kings, how the new-look Knicks will look with Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns, whether the Timberwolves get enough out of Donte DiVincenzo and Naz Reid to not miss KAT, how effective the Warriors off-season moves were in replacing Klay Thompson, and how much growth there will be in OKC and Houston, two of the most fun young teams to watch in my personal view.

At the same time, I also want to stay cognizant of what’s on the horizon (as NBA teams must and some fanbases certainly will be). Next June will see an incredibly talented group of young prospects join the league, led by Duke freshman Cooper Flagg and a couple of Rutgers (!) freshmen, Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper. While these players won’t contribute to a team this season, they’re inevitably going to impact what happens on the floor, especially later in the year as teams jockey for lottery odds and draft position.

With that in mind, let’s jump headfirst into a project I’ve been thinking about for some time: analytically assessing the value of different draft picks.

As NFL draft fans may recognize, this is something that’s been done for quite some time in pro football circles. In the 1990s, then Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson developed a trade value chart that has become the most widely known trade value chart in football. The concept was simple—assign a value to each draft pick so that front office personnel could evaluate potential trades more easily. While Johnson’s draft value chart was in a sense pioneering, it is now generally considered outdated due to subsequent CBA changes and it wasn’t obviously based on analytical principles. As a result, many teams have developed their own draft value charts (which aren’t public), and some league observers/advisors have developed more analytically driven charts. For example, Chase Stuart developed a stat-based draft value chart using Pro Football Reference’s “Approximate Value” stat, a relatively blunt all-in-one stat designed to capture a player’s contributions to points scored/allowed. Kevin Meers published a draft value chart based on similar analysis. Jason Fitzgerald and Brad Spielberger also developed a draft value chart based on NFL contract values and performance.

Some NBA watchers have developed draft value charts of their own, though they’re not widely referenced. For example, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton put together an NBA draft value chart based on player performance at various draft pick slots over the course of their four seasons in the NBA (roughly, the player’s rookie contract) and the subsequent five year period using his wins above replacement metric. Others have also developed draft value analyses relying on Basketball Reference’s win shares statistic (for example, here, here, and here). I’ve also seen an analyses using value over replacement player (VORP) from a couple years ago. But for a variety of reasons, I wanted to try to tackle this question using one of my preferred all-in-one metrics, Dunks and Threes Estimated Plus-Minus (EPM), which no one has used as far as I can tell.

For starters, EPM is arguably the most accurate modern all-in-one metric in terms of its ability to predict team performance. It’s also not solely reliant upon box score statistics (such as points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, and shooting percentages), which may not be sufficiently detailed. I also wanted to look at pick values based on the outcomes that could have happened rather than focusing solely on who was picked in each slot, as many of the draft value analyses I’ve seen were skewed by a great player somehow falling in the draft (Nikola Jokic getting drafted at #41 overall shouldn’t make that pick decidedly more valuable than pick #40 after all, as the team picking #40 could have picked him). In addition, I was looking for an evaluation methodology that could be carried forward without artificially limiting a player’s production based on semi-artificial windows, like the player’s first four or five years. While those kinds of limitations can be defensible—four years is the length of first round rookie contracts when you include team options, and teams can hold restricted free agency over those players in their fifth year, too—a significant proportion of productive players are going to re-sign with the team that drafted them anyway. This dynamic is especially true for players who show All-NBA or All-Star level productivity early on in their careers, such that the value of those players can be underrated.

With a ton of help from my good friend Alex Takakuwa, whose math and programming experience far surpass mine, I set out to try to pull together a draft value chart.

Just so it’s easier to visualize from the start, I’ve included the draft value chart we developed below. The next few sections of the post will go into (gory) detail on how we created the chart, the rationale for our analytical decisions, and the potential issues with our approach. Then, I’ll follow up with some observations from the chart and our analysis that stood out.

[Figure 1]

Creating the Draft Value Chart

This section details the process we went through to develop the draft value chart above. If anything is unclear or unexplained, feel free to reach out to me for more details.

The Data & Why We Chose EPM

To conduct the analysis, I first needed to identify sources of information for past NBA draft picks and EPM. The draft pick history was easy—Basketball Reference has downloadable spreadsheets with picks by year. EPM, on the other hand, is a relatively new metric developed by Dunks & Threes (dunksandthrees.com) that incorporates possession-based stats derived from play-by-play data and player-tracking stats from stats.NBA.com. That modern data has not always been available, so we could only obtain league-wide EPM data from 2014 through last season (2023-24).

There are, of course, numerous all-in-one metrics available for assessing player performance, such as PER and its derivatives; Box Plus/Minus (BPM) and its derivatives like Value Over Replacement Player (VORP); Win Shares; RAPTOR; and net rating to name some. They all have advantages and disadvantages, but I personally favor EPM for a few reasons: it’s been shown to be the most predictive (as I mentioned), it attempts to account for teammate/opponent quality, it’s not wholly reliant on counting stats that can’t really capture defensive performance with precision, and, subjectively, it seems to have fewer inexplicable outliers than most of the other metrics.

With that said, the major trade-offs for using EPM data for this analysis are several. It is very time-limited (just 11 seasons of data), there’s no easy way for me to completely understand how the metric is determined given it’s based on a proprietary regression model, and a handful of players—especially on the lower minutes end—don’t have EPM data available. I’m also not aware of EPM data existing for playoff games, which is a bummer. Regardless, it’s still worth using in my view. The time limitations aren’t that problematic for this exercise, and it’s not obvious that draft tendencies from 30+ years ago—or even 20+ years ago—are all that relevant. I’m not realistically able to verify every metric anyway, and most other all-in-one metrics have missing data, use different approaches to different time periods, or are subject to major swings for players with few minutes played. Sufficient playoff data is also not going to be available for a huge proportion of players to draw meaningful conclusions, though that problem may not be evenly distributed amongst all types of players. But ultimately we can live with the concerns either way.

Initial Approach & Process

This section describes the process that Alex and I used to create the draft value chart. Where we made significant process decisions, I’ll flag them and explain why. For those that want just a cursory understanding of the process, I’ve bolded the major points below.

First, we chose to convert EPM—which is, in effect, a rate-based efficiency statistic—into a new metric that could be summed. We called these “EPM units” and I’ll describe the process further below. The decision and process for this warrant explanation.

To start, EPM as a metric can be positive or negative. Positive values are generally associated with better players, but because of the way the metric is designed, most players will have a negative value EPM. For example, the median EPM last season—which describes a middle of the pack player—was about -1.7 (Kris Murray or Haywood Highsmith). At the same time, Coby White’s EPM of 0.0 was in the 70th percentile of all players. In other words, you can be a pretty good player and still throw up an EPM that’s around 0 or slightly negative. We wanted to avoid having players with negative EPMs show up as negative contributors, though. This was for two reasons: first, below average players still contribute to a team, and two, roughly half the players on the court at any given time will have a negative EPM by the nature of the stat—yet they are on the court presumably because they are better than whomever potential replacement players are.

The second issue is one that affects all NBA metrics that describe efficiency: EPM does not directly account for how much a player actually plays. Said another way, a guy who plays with high efficiency over just a handful of games can appear to be a “better” player than someone who wasn’t quite as efficient but played 10 seasons in the NBA. For example, Josh Hart (Knicks) played 81 games and 2,707 minutes last season with an EPM of -0.7, putting him in the top 40% of all players last season by EPM. Without considering minutes played, it could appear that Hart had a worse season than looks like he had a worse season than Neemias Queta (Celtics), whose +1.5 EPM was in the 84th percentile of all players last year. But Queta only played in 28 games though, a total of 333 minutes, against mostly backups. Nobody would seriously argue he was “better” than Hart, and we agree! Thus, we wanted to ensure that our analysis captured the performance “value” of players who routinely saw the court and attribute value to their contributions.

Dunks & Threes has a metric called Estimated Wins that attempts to convert EPM into a summable stat. We could’ve relied on it, but we chose not to for a few reasons. There’s no robust public description of how the Estimated Wins metric is derived, so we weren’t sure exactly what it represents. Estimated Wins also can go negative, which is one of the things we wanted to avoid. We also built a quick tool to consider a draft value chart based on Estimated Wins, and the results weren’t as sensible—but I’ll be the first to admit that picking between stats becomes a subjective exercise, and we debated the question.

With that said, by making our EPM units metric positive, we credit some level of contribution to any minute played even if the player is bad. That makes some intuitive sense, as the minute must be played by somebody and if a team thought they could fill the minute with a better player, they had the opportunity to do so in theory. Of course, the consequence is that we mask the possibility that a player is so bad that they’re truly a negative contributor on the court and could easily be replaced, which we can also intuit is a real possibility. Imagine a player who is getting minutes solely for development purposes. The team knows he isn’t good enough to play now, but they want him to play for the potential long-term benefit. That player’s performance could actually be replaced by a better player, but the team is specifically choosing not to do so. Our choice to make EPM units positive hides that possibility somewhat, but the masking effect is mitigated by the likelihood that the player would have a noticeably poor negative EPM, which our calculation methodology will illustrate.

Calculating EPM Units

To calculate EPM units, we started by taking a player’s EPM for a given season, applying a scaling function, and then multiplying the result by the player’s number of minutes played for that year. Although could have used possession data, it’s trickier to obtain reliably and minutes function as a reasonable, consistent proxy. Regardless, for each season, we can calculate a player’s EPM units, and we can find the player’s career EPM units by adding the cumulative total for all seasons played. In simple conceptual terms, you can think of the equation below:

EPM Units for a Season =

(Scaling Function [EPM]) x (Minutes Played) x 1000

[Note: the 1000 is just so we have easier to read numbers—you can basically disregard it from a conceptual standpoint]

Obviously, the scaling function we applied is fundamental to the result, so I’ll explain our approach below.

To determine what scaling function to apply, we decided to look at the general relationship between player performance and player salaries as a guide. The idea here is straightforward: presumably, NBA teams pay players more if they think they’re better performers and playing often enough to be worth the financial commitment, so we could use a similar relationship to scale EPM to our EPM unit metric. While this is probably not a perfect comparison, it seemed more sensible than using an arbitrary scaling relationship that we might otherwise have conceived of.

So, we pulled data on the salary cap charges for all 449 players league-wide for the 2023-24 season from Spotrac and ranked them by percentiles, with the 100th percentile being the highest salary cap charge (we opted for cap charges over cash salaries because they aren’t as likely to fluctuate based on players receiving performance/trade/other bonuses, which could create some odd spikes). We also ranked Dunks & Threes’ EPMs for all players by percentile, again with the 100th percentile being the highest positive EPM. We then plotted these two datasets (salary cap charge vs. EPM) against one another to see what type of relationship there was between them, such as linear or exponential, to inform our scaling approach. You can see the curve below in Figure 2:

[Figure 2]

We plotted the same curves using salary cap charges and EPMs from 2023 and 2022 to make sure that 2024 wasn’t some odd outlier. As you can see from Figure 3 below, the curves look largely similar.

[Figure 3]

A few things stood out from reviewing these curves, keeping in mind the potential effects of the NBA salary cap.

• At the low end, player salaries are clustered around the same values even as EPMs improve. You can see this based illustrated by the relative flatness of the curve between for lower EPMs (roughly in the -10 to -5 range). This is likely due to a few factors:

  • player salary cap charges can’t go below $0 (duh);

  • players on rookie deals have specified salary amounts based on the NBA CBA, which may be artificially low; and

  • A lot of salary cap charges cluster around the two-year veteran’s minimum, which was just over $2 million last season.

• At the top end of the salary range, player salaries are artificially depressed by the CBA, so you see a clear flattening. Generally, no player’s maximum salary can’t exceed 35% of the salary cap (other than for in-contract raises), and whether players are even eligible to receive that maximum 35% depends on how long they’ve been in the league. [Note: 2023 looks a little wonky, but that looks like a spike specifically from Stephen Curry’s new deal before that season.]

• In the middle, there appears to be a roughly exponential curve, with salaries staying relatively flat between EPMs of about -5 and -3 before quickly rising. The exponential nature of the curve is even easier to pick out if you look at the graphs below in Figure 4. The left-hand side shows just the 10th to 90th percentiles of salaries vs. EPMs, which looks like an exponential curve. The right-hand side shows the 5th to 95th percentiles, which starts to show some of the flattening at the top end of salary cap amounts (likely resulting from CBA-imposed maximums).

[Figure 4]

Based on our review of the above charts, we opted to use an exponential scaling function and fit the scaling curve to specific points along the 2024 Cap Charge vs. EPM curve (Figure 2). Use of an exponential scaling function may come as a surprise to those of you familiar with the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric often used in baseball and some other win-value metrics, but we found that an exponential function makes more sense for the NBA as it better tracks how teams are valuing players in the open segments of the market (e.g., without as many rule-based boundaries) and results in a more sensible valuation of draft picks, which I’ll discuss more later.

To create the exponential, we fit an exponential curve to the 10th, 30th, 50th, 70th, and 90th percentile points on Figure 2 to avoid the “flattened” areas of the curve that happen at the high- and low-ends of the distribution that were likely due to maximum and minimum salary rules in the CBA. We did not expect those tail results to be relevant to the calculation of EPM units, which aren’t artificially capped at either end.

We also calculated each player’s salary cap charge as a percentage of the total cap allocations across the league (over $4.54 billion in 2024). The players who are the most valuable “accrue” a greater proportion of the value allotted to all players.

Once that was done, we pulled the results for 10th, 30th, 50th, 70th, and 90th percentile players (by salary cap charge) to fit the scaling function.

We used this function to convert EPM to EPM units for each player drafted from 2013 through 2023 and summed each player’s career EPM units (meaning the sum of the player’s EPM units accrued between the 2013-14 through 2023-24 seasons, the years for which we found complete EPM data).

Building the Draft Chart

To create the draft chart itself, we performed a few different steps.

First, we ranked the players in each draft class in order of career EPM units, best to worst, and we divided the EPM unit totals by the number of seasons that draft class was eligible to be in the NBA (up to a maximum of 11 seasons for the 2013 draft class). That gave us EPM units per season for each player, which was a bit more useful for comparison purposes.

[Note: There is some risk that we lowered the per-year performance of certain players who weren’t able to play the full number of seasons they were eligible for. That could be an issue for some players, such as those who suffered career-ending injuries or missed significant chunks of time due to injury. Given the nature of our project, though, it seems appropriate to knock down the values of players who missed time due to injury, and it’s reasonable to set and outside window around 10-12 years. We’ll have to think further about how to address this as EPM data becomes available over a longer window, however. For example, it would be a bit crazy to expect players to be playing 20+ seasons after they’re drafted.]

Second, we matched players up to their “theoretical” draft slots if they had been drafted in order of best (#1) to worst (#60) as if they’d in fact been drafted in order of ultimate performance. In other words, we slotted the player with the most EPM units in a draft as pick #1, the player with the second most EPM units was slotted as pick #2, and so forth until each of the 60* picks in a given draft year was matched up to a particular EPM unit score. [*The 2022 and 2023 drafts each had only 58 picks, as some picks were forfeited.] I’ll explain why we took this approach in a bit more detail later.

Third, we found the average of EPM units produced per year for each draft slot across the 11 draft classes with complete EPM data and normalized each value to a scale of 1000 (for convenience). To illustrate, let’s look at an example. Between 2013 and 2023, the average best player in a given draft class produced about 1,127 EPM units per season and the average second best player produced about 758 EPM units—about 67.2% of the EPM units produced by the average #1 pick. Accordingly, on our normalized scale, the #1 pick is worth 1,000 points and the #2 pick is worth 672 points.

You can see the full draft value chart (again) below:

[Figure 1 (repeated)]

What Jumps Out?

Let’s start with the draft value chart itself (Figure 1). There are a few things that jump out that are worth flagging, in my view.

The first two picks are incredibly valuable.

Just looking at the chart itself, it’s evident that the first and second pick are tremendously valuable relative to other picks, even other early first round picks. There are a few ways we can see this.

The #1 pick (1000 points) is worth roughly 1.5 times more than the #2 pick (684 points), and the #2 pick in turn is about twice as valuable as the #3 pick (336 points). But the changes in pick values start to smooth out quickly after the second pick. For example, the #3 pick is only about 1.2 times more valuable than the #4 pick (276 points); the #4 pick is only about 1.2 times more valuable than the #5 pick (234 points); and the #5 pick is only about 1.1 times more valuable than the #6 pick (205 points). That general trend remains true through about pick #34 (in the second round), when we finally again start to see bigger changes in pick value as we move down the draft order.

This is illustrated by Figure 5 (below). The bars show, for each pick, how many times more valuable it is than the immediately subsequent pick (e.g., pick #1 is 1.5x the value of pick #2, and pick #2 is 2.0x the value of pick #3, etc.). Bigger bars show bigger changes in value as you move down the draft board.

[Figure 5]

For the most part, there aren’t huge drops in draft pick value when you go down a pick, other than jumping from pick #1 to pick #2 or pick #2 to pick #3. For the bigger changes from pick to pick toward the end of the draft, it’s important to keep in mind that these are small in absolute terms. While pick #54 may appear to be 2.4 times more valuable than pick #55, that’s because the actual values are so very low that small changes can have a big impact. For example, a player who makes an NBA roster and plays 5-10 minutes per game for a few seasons has many times more value than a player who did not even make a roster after being drafted, but in real terms, neither player has a big impact.

You can also see why picks #1 and #2 are so valuable when you look at the data another way. Check out the graph below:

[Figure 6]

Figure 6 shows the range of potential outcomes for the top 5 players in every draft from 2013 through 2023 in terms of EPM units generated per season (like with the draft value chart, I’ve treated the top five players as if they were picked with picks #1 to #5). The curves were generated using ChatGPT to perform a Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) to estimate the distribution of particular picks. The “density” here represents the frequency with which a particular pick value will land at a particular EPM units per season value—the higher the peak, the more likely that pick will land at that value. Alternatively, you can think of the area below the line for any given pick as the distribution of outcomes for that pick.

[Note: If you’re curious, I’m happy to share the KDE method used. I used a Gaussian kernel, a bandwidth spread of 1.0, and boundaries of 0 and 2,840.8 EPM units per season (the maximum EPM units per season generated by any player in our dataset, Nikola Jokic).]

For example, look at the red line for pick #1. Assuming you actually pick the best player in the draft, pick #1’s most likely outcome appears at roughly 600-700 EPM units per season, meaning the team with an average first pick in the draft has a chance to draft a player who generates about 600-700 EPM units per season—a really strong player. But the pick also has another huge benefit: it’s also quite likely to allow the team to draft a player who generates 1,000 EPM units or more per season (up to the bounded maximum of ~2,840). While those 1,000+ EPM unit per season players aren’t common—only 7 of 656 players drafted since 2013 have hit that mark, some in the same draft—having the #1 pick gives a team a reasonably good shot of landing that good of a player.

Let’s look at Pick #2 next. Pick #2 has a similar curve shape to pick #1, but you can see that the distribution of outcomes has a peak somewhere around 450 EPM units per season—quite a bit lower. The distribution also swings heavily toward the lower end of the spectrum, even though there are some outlier instances when the #2 pick ought to be worth 1,000+ EPM units per season. This occurred in drafts like the 2014 draft, where Joel Embiid was extremely productive but still the second most productive player in the draft class on a EPM unit per season basis.

Unfortunately picks #3, #4, and #5 skew much more heavily toward the left of the chart. The players available with those picks (the third, fourth, and fifth best players in a given draft) are likely to be less productive than the best and second-best players, and they are much less likely to generate seriously outsized performances in the 1,000+ EPM unit per season range (none of them have gotten there in the past 11 draft classes).

The combination of these curves helps illustrate why the #1 pick and #2 pick carry so much value in our draft values chart (Figure 1).

If you’re curious about the rest of the lottery picks, I’ve also included that graph below (Figure 7). I’m not going to provide curves for all 60 picks though because it would be visually impossible to decipher.

[Figure 7]

The value of picks in the middle of the first round flattens out quickly and substantially.

Let’s go back to Figure 1 and Figure 5 again.

[Figure 1 (repeated)]

[Figure 5 (repeated)]

Looking at Figure 1, between pick #9 and pick #21, there’s only about a 93-point drop in pick value (from approximately 135 to 41), and the drop-off for each pick slot is never more than about 14 points.

Looking at Figure 5, there’s a noticeable flat trend between picks #7 and #21 for pick value relative to the subsequent draft slot—each pick is worth between about 7% and 15% more than the pick that follows (there’s rounding going on).

If we look again at Figure 7, too, you can see a clustering of the distributions for picks #9 to #14 around the same EPM units per season outcomes.

Taken together, these charts strongly suggest that once teams are picking in the middle of the first round, there probably isn’t a ton of difference moving around in pick location—at least within a few slots. There’s little to suggest that picking the 10th best player in a draft class is meaningfully different than selecting the 12th best player (assuming the “correct” picks are made), so there’s little reason to value those picks much differently from one another.

Second round picks probably don’t have much value—and late second round picks aren’t worth much more than replacement players.

Let’s look at another graph, Figure 8.

[Figure 8]

Figure 8 was actually the basis for the draft value chart itself before we normalized everything to an easier scale. Specifically, Figure 8 shows the average EPM units per season generated by players drafted over the last 11 years (from best to worst). It shows that the average “best” player in a draft produces a little over 1,100 EPM units per season; the average second-best player generates just over 750 EPM units per season; and so forth.

You can see the bars start to get quite small when we’re talking about the 30th to 60th best players in a draft class who could be available at those pick slots. Many of those players essentially produce no value.

There are some jarring facts from the data. On average, the bottom 24 players in each draft class produce less than 5.0 EPM units per season, while a staggering 15 players (!) produce less than 1.0 EPM unit per season. Compare that to the over 1,100 EPM units per season generated by the average best player in a draft class and the 750 EPM units per season generated by the average second best player. Or even the roughly 134 EPM units per season generated by the average 10th best player in a draft, or the nearly 50 EPM units per season generated by the average 20th best player. It’s hard to conclude anything other than those last 15-24 picks are near worthless. Ultimately,, about 40% of the average draft class of 60 players is producing basically no value on the court.

If you map those 40% of players onto draft picks, that means that picks outside the top 36 aren’t worth much in terms of production, and as you get even further in the round (toward picks #50 to #60), those players aren’t likely to produce anything.

Potential Pitfalls

In my view, we took a fair, reasonable approach to our analysis and we followed a good process in creating the draft value chart. With that said, I think it’s important to acknowledge that there are some areas where we made judgment calls and it’s fair to wonder about the impact of those decisions. Let’s go through the most important ones.

#1: Re-Ordering the Draft

As I noted previously, we opted to sort draft pick values based on the best performing player from each class rather than the specific draft slot players were in fact drafted into. The basic rationale is that the team with the #1 overall pick, by definition, has the chance to pick the best player, the team with the #2 overall pick has the chance to pick the second-best player, and so forth. If teams miss their picks, that’s on them.

Of course, there are several real-world problems with this approach. I won’t go through a laundry list, but the most evident issues are that teams won’t always pick the “best” player and players may develop more if the team that drafts them has better coaching/player development or is simply a better fit (on and off the court). Using larger sample sizes and averages can mitigate these concerns, especially if you believe—as I do—that NBA teams tend to do a good job of identifying the best players through scouting.

But the biggest justification for sorting draft pick values based on the best performing player rather than actual draft slot is easier to show than explain with words alone.

Check out the graph below.

[Figure 9]

Figure 9 shows the average EPM Units generated by the 11 players drafted in each draft slot from the 2013 to 2023 drafts as though they were drafted in their actual draft position. In other words, the actual eleven players drafted with #1 picks in the eleven drafts from 2013 to 2023 are all averaged, the actual eleven #2 picks are all averaged, the actual eleven #3 picks are all averaged, etc.

You can see the trend here is quite lumpy and hard to predict. On top of that, some immediate absurdities leap off the screen.

The average #3 pick is about 75% more valuable than the average #1 pick and more than three times as valuable as the average #2 pick. The average #41 pick also appears to be insanely valuable—it’s the third highest pick in terms of average value overall, and over 10 times more valuable than the average pick on either side of it (#40 and #42).

If that seems wild to you, it’s because it probably is.

The chart below of top 3 picks over the last 11 years. Green is the best pick of the three draft slots, yellow is the second best, and red is the worst.

[Figure 10]

Glancing at Figure 10, you couldn’t be faulted for thinking the #1 pick is the best here. It produced the best pick of the three picks in 4 of 11 drafts, and only produced the worst pick two times. But the #3 pick has produced the best player of the three slots five different times, and when you look a bit closer you see that a few guys who were drafted at pick #3 have been truly stellar players.

The home-run picks really distort the numbers in an 11 year sample. Specifically, the outsize performances of Joel Embiid, Luka Doncic, and Jayson Tatum dramatically improve the average value of the #3 pick. Embiid and Doncic have produced by far the most value in terms of overall EPM units among top 3 picks (with the caveat that Embiid is one of the longest tenured players in the sample), and Tatum is only matched by the two of them and Karl-Anthony Towns. Conversely, the lack of outsized performances for #1 picks other than Towns, coupled with the bust picks of Markelle Fultz and Anthony Bennett, really affect the average value of the #1 pick. The #2 pick, meanwhile, hasn’t yielded a truly great player in the last eleven drafts, and several of the better performers from that pick slot have had injuries (Oladipo, Parker, Ball) or other issues (Morant) limit their performance.

We can also easily explain the apparently absurd value of the average #41 pick—it’s basically driven by one guy. Nikola Jokic has generated a staggering 2,840 EPM Units per season since he was drafted with the 41st pick in 2014, despite missing a full year playing overseas. The only other players who even clear 1,000 EPM Units per season are regularly All-NBA contenders like Joel Embiid (~2,129), Giannis Antetokounmpo (~2,098), Luka Doncic (~1,855), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (~1,590), Rudy Gobert (~1,238), and Jayson Tatum (~1,107).

The mere fact that a later pick ultimately yielded a better player should not make that selection inherently more valuable than an earlier pick. Though Marvin Bailey III was selected #2 ahead of Luka Doncic in 2018, for example, doesn’t mean the #3 pick was actually “better” despite the outcome. The Kings picking at #2 had the opportunity to select Doncic but chose not to, as did the Hawks, who traded out of the #3 pick—that those teams made the wrong selection at the end of the day says little about the pick’s value.

Moreover, when we sort draft position based on player performance—essentially, what should have happened with the benefit of hindsight—you get much more sensible results. Check out the graph below:

[Figure 8 (repeated)]

Figure 8 shows the average EPM Units per season that would have been generated by the #1 pick had the eleven best players in each draft instead been drafted #1 overall, the eleven second-best players been drafted #2 overall, etc. In other words, when you assume that in an average year the best player available is drafted in each slot, this is the curve you get.

While the result here is obviously somewhat artificial, the smoothed curve makes a lot more sense when trying to estimate the value of a given pick compared to the exceptionally spiky chart shown in Figure 8. Thus, we thought this was a much more sensible sorting methodology to use for creating our draft value chart.

#2: No Time Limits On Value Accrual

The number of years you count toward a player’s draft value is also incredibly important. In this exercise, we did not limit the years of value that a draft pick could accrue, so based on our EPM dataset, draft picks could accrue EPM Units for up to 11 seasons. Some of the other analyses I’ve seen have capped the amount of value they credit to a draft pick at 4 or 5 seasons, which is certainly defensible. However, I strongly suspect that 4 and 5 season caps on value dramatically understates the value of getting a top player through the draft, as most elite players will stay with the team that drafted them far beyond the first 4-5 seasons of formal “team control.” For example, out of the five players drafted since 2013 with the highest career EPM Units, four players have spent their careers with the team that drafted them (Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, and Luka Doncic), and the fifth player (Rudy Gobert) spent nine seasons with the team that drafted him before he was eventually traded, garnering additional value for the team. Still, there probably is some value in trying to nail down a more accurate timeframe to use for value accretion of each draft pick, and that’s something we may look at down the road.

#3: Choosing EPM

We chose to use EPM for several reasons that I covered earlier, but it essentially boils down to the fact that I think it’s one of (if not the) most accurate all-in-one metrics available. You could create this type of chart based other all-in-one metrics like Box Plus/Minus (which I may try at some point for comparison), RAPTOR, or other advanced stats, and people have. A draft value chart that incorporates several stats could, in theory, be even better if the other metrics used are also reliable.

We did, however, run a sanity check using another metric, which I describe in the next section.

#4: Exponential Scaling

Picking the scaling function used to calculate EPM units from Dunks & Threes’ EPM stat is, inherently, a subjective exercise. As I discussed above, we chose to use an exponential scaling function based on how NBA salaries go up, but we basically tossed out the high-end and low-end to do so. There are good reasons for that, but we certainly had alternative options. For example, the salary scale curves (figures 2 and 3) actually look a lot like Sigmoid curves when you include the extremes. We think that’s probably attributable to the CBA rules for maximum and minimum salaries rather than a true reflection of market values, so we didn’t use a Sigmoid scaling function, but that hypothesis may not actually be true. We also could have opted to use a linear scaling function, but that doesn’t seem to match with how the NBA distributes salaries as well, either.

As a check, we decided to also develop a rough draft value analysis based on Estimated Wins from Dunks and Threes [Note: it looks like Dunks and Threes recently removed Estimated Wins from its public site, but we had previously downloaded the data for the 2014 through 2024 seasons.] While we don’t have an exact understanding of how Dunks and Threes calculates Estimated Wins, we understand that it’s a function of EPM and playing time (probably in terms of minutes, but possibly based on non-public possession data). Regardless, based on the distribution of Estimated Wins, it appears to scale in a more linear fashion than our EPM units metric. Estimated Wins can also be negative, which introduces some challenges.

Doing this analysis was useful because it yielded results that quickly showed obvious issues.

First, in an average draft year, 23 players were expected to produce negative Estimated Wins. Not only did those players show up as being worse than players who never played, but their negative performance also suggests that more than two-thirds of second round picks in an average draft somehow carried negative value. That doesn’t track with logic or reality, as NBA teams routinely make trades for those picks.

Second, creating draft values based on Estimated Wins led to apparent under-valuation of early first-round picks vis-a-vis middle first-round picks.

For easy comparison, I’ve put side-by-side charts of the normalized values for EPM units and Estimated Wins below (Figure 11) and a graph showing how picks decrease in value using each metric (Figure 12).

[Figure 11]

[Figure 12]

You can see from Figures 11 and 12 is that draft values based on Estimated Wins run negative for pick #38 and higher in an average draft, which doesn’t make any sense.

You can also see the Estimated Wins-based draft values are significantly higher than EPM unit-based draft values for certain picks, specifically in the range of pick #3 to about pick #21. It’s difficult to assess the value of very high picks in the NBA based on past trades, but nonetheless, the Estimated Wins values seem too tightly packed between top picks. For instance, the Estimated Wins draft values suggest that teams should be willing to trade a #1 overall pick for two #5 picks or three #8 picks, both of which are virtually impossible to imagine for normal drafts (not to mention drafts with truly coveted prospects available at pick #1, such as Wembanyama last year or potentially Cooper Flagg in 2025). That said, it is possible that draft values that are more evenly distributed amongst the top picks (as occurs when we used Estimated Wins) would make more sense in an environment where you are less certain which players will be best.

Wrap-Up

That’s it for now! We hope this post was informative and valuable. If you want to see the script we used, feel free to email me and I’ll share it with you (duncan@thesportsappeal.com). Unfortunately, however, I am not going to be able to publish the EPM dataset from Dunks & Threes since they have it behind a paywall (it’s not that pricey). If you can’t find another way to get the data, let me know via email and I can try to point you in the right direction at least.

Also, we’re probably going to play around with some of the future projects like looking at better ways to determine how many years of value to attribute to a given draft pick. I am not sure when but stay tuned if you’re interested.

As always, really appreciate any feedback folks have—so if there’s anything you think we missed or did wrong, please don’t hesitate to let us know! Another special shout-out once again to Alex Takakuwa, who was fundamental to making this analysis possible.

Something Doing in Charlotte: Hornets on the Right Track

This July, I had the fantastic opportunity to spend a week in Las Vegas for the NBA Summer League to participate in a Basketball Immersive program put together by Sports Business Classroom. The program included dozens of talks by NBA front office executives, coaches, scouts, and agents on topics ranging from high-level concepts like leadership and building successful organizations to granular details on building scouting reports and front office organizational roles. Program instructors—including some well-known names like Bobby Marks, J.A. Adande and Howard Beck, Steve Jones and Nekias Duncan from The Dunker’s Spot podcast, and Seth Partnow, among others—also hosted sessions on salary cap management, film breakdowns and scouting, effective use of basketball analytics, and media strategies for writing and broadcasting. In all respects, the Basketball Immersive was a near-unparalleled chance to learn from experienced pros about all aspects of the industry.

Students like me were also put into teams to participate in a mock NBA trade deadline exercise. I was assigned the Charlotte Hornets along with three other SBC students. Our task was to assess the team’s current standing, come up with a strategy for improving it, and then identify, negotiate, and complete permissible transactions under the NBA CBA’s rules to actually fulfill our strategy.

I’ll be the first to admit that I hadn’t spent a ton of time thinking deeply about the Hornets before the mock trade deadline exercise. The Hornets are a young team that has been largely outside the national NBA discourse in recent years as they’ve struggled to win many games (one could argue that Michael Jordan selling the team last year was the only truly national news about the team in the last couple seasons). Like a lot of NBA observers, I was familiar with the team’s best players LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller, and I was aware of the team’s recent roster moves to obtain players like Josh Green and Grant Williams—and, controversially, re-sign Miles Bridges. I also knew the team had recently hired a lot of new front office staff, led by first-time GM Jeff Peterson (from the Brooklyn Nets), and a young new coaching staff under first-time Head Coach Charles Lee (from the Boston Celtics). But I hadn’t spent much time thinking about how the roster fit together, what their cap situation looked like, or what kind of draft capital they still had in the cupboard. I also didn’t have much of a sense going in as to how I felt about the team. Going through the mock trade deadline exercise made me think a lot more about how I view the Hornets and what I think they should try to do next, rightly or wrongly.

Having looked at the Hornets circumstances with more focus, I have to say that I am much more optimistic on the Hornets now than I was going in. I’ll explain why below (check the end to see what trades we made in the mock exercise, too)!

More Talent Than We’ve Seen the Last Two Years

The Hornets have won just 48 games over the last two seasons, good for a winning percentage of only about 29% and the third-worst record in the NBA over the period. With such a terrible record, it would be easy to assume the Hornets have been listlessly moving through the last couple years with little talent on the roster. But focusing on just the last two seasons misses the bigger picture. In fact, just a few years ago, a fun Hornets team led by All-Star LaMelo Ball won 43 games before losing in the Play-In to the Atlanta Hawks.

Talented Players Have Missed Too Much Time to Injury and Self-Inflicted Off-the-Court Issues

Since that promising season, the Hornets have suffered setback after setback, which has dramatically affected their ability to compete meaningfully during the regular season and stunted their team’s overall development.

• Since making an All-Star team in just his second season, point guard LaMelo Ball has suffered a rash of ankle injuries that have prevented him from regularly seeing the floor the last two years. Ball has played just 22 games last season and 36 games in 2022-23.

• At the time part of the Hornets core, small forward Miles Bridges was charged with multiple felonies in connection with an alleged domestic violence assault against his then-girlfriend in front of their children. Bridges pleaded no contest to a single felony count, missed the entire 2022-23 season, and missed the first 10 games of the 2023-24 season as a result of a league-imposed suspension relating to the allegations.

• Mark Williams, Charlotte’s promising first round pick from the 2022 draft, played just 19 games last year due to lingering back issues.

• Gordon Hayward struggled to stay healthy across multiple seasons after being brought to the Hornets from Boston. Hayward never played more than 50 games in a season while he was in Charlotte (he finally hit 51 games played this season after being traded to the Thunder in February).

• Similarly, significant role-players like Cody Martin have missed big chunks of time. Martin played just 7 games in 2022-23 and just 28 games last season due to various leg injuries.

All the players above will be back with the Hornets next year except Hayward, which should make for a significant talent-infusion for the Hornets next season.

Let’s start with the guys coming back from injuries. If LaMelo Ball and Mark Williams can stay healthy and return to form, the Hornets should get back an All-Star caliber guard and a young starting center. A healthy Cody Martin would also give the Hornets back a quality rotation player.

Ball’s unique talent is well-known to basketball fans. Sporting elite size for a point guard at 6’7”, Ball is an adept offensive engine capable of creating for himself and others. He’s averaged at least 29 points and 11 assists per 100 possessions for each of the last three seasons on solid shooting efficiency, knocking down 37.4% of threes and 83.4% of free throws for his career. Advanced metrics also reflect Ball’s offensive skill. For example, his Offensive Estimated Plus-Minus (EPM) has been in the 94th percentile or higher amongst all players in each of the last 3 seasons, too (per Dunks and Threes). While he could stand to improve his finishing around the basket, up his free throw attempt rate, and take care of the ball a bit more, there’s little question in my mind that Ball is a tremendous offensive player. That’s especially notable given Ball is still just 22 years old.

Mark Williams isn’t the same level talent as Ball, but he’s been a pretty strong player in his own right despite his young age. He’s shown the ability to score around the basket effectively, operate as a pick and roll screener, and perform reasonably well as a defensive big. Though he’s played in just 62 games, for his career to date Williams is averaging 22.7 points, 17.6 rebounds, 2.3 blocks, and just 2.1 turnovers per 100 possessions, while shooting 64.2% from the field. Healthy numbers for a 22-year-old. The rebounding numbers deserve special attention, too. Williams’ career offensive rebounding percentage is 13.5% and his career defensive rebounding percentage is 26.5%, both of which compare favorably to All-Star-caliber centers like Jarrett Allen (career 11.3% and 24.2%) and Anthony Davis (career 8.6% and 25.2%). Williams probably isn’t the same level of defensive player as those guys, nor is he the offensive weapon that Davis is, but that’s nice company for a young big.

Martin, for his part, is a solid wing defender and capable rotation player. While Cody Martin isn’t the same player as his twin brother Caleb (less shooting has held back Cody Martin’s offense), he has flashed the ability to play above-average defense. In three of five NBA seasons, Martin has played better than average defense based on Defensive EPM per Dunks and Threes (last season’s 97th percentile rating for Defensive EPM is an outlier as Martin played only 28 games, but so was his 6th percentile rating in 2023 when he played only 7 games).

The situation for Miles Bridges is obviously quite a bit different. Even though he played most of last season, it was obvious that missing more than a year of basketball meaningfully hampered his game. Of course, Bridges bears responsibility for the time he missed and the repercussions to his play, but the impact to the Hornets was significant. Even though his counting stats stayed mostly consistent compared to his break-out season in 2022, Bridges took a huge step backward by the advanced numbers. He fell from an 88th percentile +2.2 EPM in 2021-22 to a 66th percentile -0.5 EPM in 2023-24 per Dunks and Threes. The drop-off was largely driven by a notable drop-off in two-point shooting efficiency, as Bridges was less efficient in the paint without Ball on the court as often to generate quality looks.

[Quick aside. Despite a drop in productivity, Charlotte’s new front office gave Bridges a new 3 year, $75 million deal this off-season. I was not in favor of giving him that deal based on Bridges pleading no contest to a serious domestic violence assault and allegations of subsequent domestic violence assaults involving the same person. That said, Charlotte certainly should have more information than I do as an outside observer, and I believe in second chances. Accordingly, I won’t be overly harsh on the deal for now. But if Bridges is ever involved in violent conduct again, the Hornets should be held to account for the decision to bring him back.]

Charlotte Has Talent Upside from Several Recent Draft Picks

Over the course of the last few drafts, the Hornets have managed to find some quality players. I’ll go through them quickly.

Brandon Miller, taken #2 overall in the 2023 draft, is the obvious headliner, as he put together a very productive rookie season despite the team’s big roster changes. Miller, who finished third in Rookie of the Year voting behind Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren, is a 6’9” wing with great length, solid athletic attributes, and a penchant for scoring. He averaged over 17 points per game on robust shooting numbers of 44.0% from the field, 37.3% from three, and 82.7% from the line. Though Miller is really a secondary creator and perimeter shooter, he bore a substantial offensive load for a rookie—his 23.6% usage rate was second on the team to LaMelo Ball. Still, Miller finished in the 70th percentile of players league-wide in Offensive EPM. That’s very impressive for a rookie thrown into a tough situation, particularly when you consider that the Hornets didn’t get much consistency out of the point guard position (Ball was injured, and Terry Rozier and Vasilije Micić were only on the team for 30 games each). With a year of experience under his belt and an elite passer like Ball in the backcourt, there’s potential for Miller to thrive in his second season as he shifts to a role more focused on movement shooting and second side shot creation.

Charlotte also hit on the Mark Williams pick (taken #15 in 2022) if he can stay healthy. I’ve already talked about what Williams brings on both ends of the floor, and if he can stay healthy, he’ll have a chance to get even better in coming years.

The Hornets’ two other first round picks are less certain, but there’s reason for some optimism. Let’s start with this year’s #6 overall pick, forward Tidjane Salaün.

Because he’s only 18 years old, Salaün’s future is fundamentally based on projection right now. Physically, the French forward already looks the part of a prototypical modern NBA four. He’s 6’9” (without shoes), 217 pounds, and sports a 7’2” wingspan, and he demonstrated good athleticism and consistent, tremendous effort while playing for Cholet Basket in the French pro league. He’s also quite raw right now, and his production wasn’t all that impressive (Salaün averaged just 9.2 points and 4.0 rebounds per game last season). Given the physical tools and effort, it’s fair to project him as a strong defender. He also projects as a solid three-point shooter. While he only hit 33% of threes last season, he’s a willing shooter at 4.2 threes per game, his form looks good, and his 77% shooting mark from the free throw line suggests there’s some potential. While it may take Salaün a bit of time to develop, the raw tools look promising.

Like Salaün, Nick Smith Jr. (taken #27 in 2023) is a big question mark, too. Smith Jr. has decent physical tools for a 2-guard, but he struggled quite a bit to generate his quality offense both during his freshman season at Arkansas and his rookie year with the Hornets last season. Given his pedestrian play last year and his late first round pedigree, it’s tough to project Smith for the same type of future gains as a guy like Salaün, but Smith did show some things last year. Most notably, Smith knocked down over 43% of his 146 three-point attempts last season—if he can keep that up and find a way to league-average defense (possible given his 6’5” size), he’ll have a role on the Hornets for sure.

Recent Trades Shed Quality Veterans, But Charlotte Got Back Younger Potential and Important Draft Capital

With the team struggling on the court the past two seasons, the Hornets opted to enter several different trades designed to get back younger players and accrue future draft capital. Check out the deals below from the past two years:

• At the 2023 trade deadline, the Hornets traded Mason Plumlee to the Clippers for Reggie Jackson and a future second round pick, waiving Jackson just a few days later.

• The Hornets traded Terry Rozier to Miami for a future first round pick and Kyle Lowry, who was bought out by the Hornets shortly afterward and never played for the team.

• The Hornets traded PJ Washington and a pair of second round picks to Dallas in exchange for a future first round pick, Grant Williams, and Seth Curry.

• The Hornets traded Gordon Hayward to the Thunder, receiving back Vasilije Micić, Tre Mann, Davis Bertans, a pair of second round picks, and cash.

• This offseason, the Hornets got in on the NBA’s first-ever six team trade and acquired 23-year-old guard Josh Green, Reggie Jackson (again), and a couple future second round picks in exchange for Philadelphia’s 2025 second round pick and cash.

Through the five trades, the Hornets managed to snag three young players in Josh Green (23), Grant Williams (25), and Tre Mann (23) who still haven’t maximized their potential despite multiple years in the league, two future first rounders from Dallas and Miami, and a couple future second rounders. To do so, they gave up PJ Washington (25), who never really moved the needle in 5 years with the Hornets, Charlotte; and several players whose timelines didn’t match the rest of the roster in Terry Rozier (30), Mason Plumlee (34), and Gordon Hayward (34), who just retired the other day.

It’s hard to argue against the logic. In effect, the Hornets gave themselves looks at three younger guys with more upside plus snagged two future firsts, and they didn’t give up any core players to do it.

While Josh Green and Grant Williams haven’t performed consistently enough throughout their careers to date, they’ve both shown the capability to be strong 3-and-D players that should fit nicely with the team’s talented offensive core of LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller.

Grant Williams has proven he can be a plus defender capable of guarding wings and bigs, or even switching onto guards at times. During his first two years in Boston, Williams posted excellent Defensive EPMs of 1.2 and 0.7, good for 80th percentile league-wide in both years. While he hasn’t performed to that level since then (last year was a bit of a mess in particular), he still posted a solid Defensive EPM of 0.5 (72nd percentile) as recently as 2023. On the other end of the floor, Williams isn’t a world-beater offensively, but he can at least fill a clear role as a spacer. He’s hit almost 38% of his threes for his career and managed to put up a respectable 13.9 points per game in his 29 games with the Hornets last year. He’s under contract for the next 3 years for just $40.9 million, too.

Green has never shown the same defensive chops as Grant Williams, but he’s been a respectable wing defender at times in his own right. Green is smaller than Williams, but he’s shown the ability to cover attacking guards and wings on the perimeter, even if he’s not a top tier point of attack defender. He’s also much more of a threat with the ball in his hands, a bit more versatile in general offensively than Williams, and willing to get up the floor quickly in transition, an important skill when playing with a point guard like Ball. He’s also a capable outside shooter, having knocked down about 38% of his threes for his career. Green is also on a very reasonable medium-term deal with 3 years and $41 million remaining—almost a mirror image of the Williams contract.

Tre Mann was also a nice get for the Hornets, though he fills a slightly different role. Drafted by OKC with #18 pick in the 2021 draft, Mann didn’t have many opportunities to shine behind elite young talents like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, but after joining the Hornets last year, he put up the best numbers of his short career. In 28 games with Charlotte last season, Mann averaged 11.9 points, 5.2 assists, and 4.5 rebounds per game (18.9/8.2/7.1 per 100 possessions) and managed respectable shooting numbers of 45.3% from the field, 36.4% from three, and 75.9% from the line. While Mann’s numbers last year won’t blow anyone away at a glance, they do help show that he has some untapped potential, which makes sense for a player his age. Getting Mann, Vasilije Micić, multiple future seconds, and cash for Gordon Hayward, who retired roughly 5 months later, is incredible value—and the Hornets will get the chance to see if Mann can continue to take strides next year at the bargain price of $4.9 million in salary as a result.

There Are Paths Here to Long-Term Success and Contention

Charlotte has two high-potential talents already on the roster in LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller. The most important question to whether the Hornets will get to contention with this roster is how high of a ceiling they can hit. That’s pretty much always the case for young teams, though, especially in small markets.

Ball has already shown he can be an All-Star level offensive hub. Whether Ball can elevate himself to an All-NBA level player who can anchor a future contender remains to be seen, but he only turns 24 this month. There’s room for growth. Ball needs to stay healthy and give more consistent effort defensively. You also hope he can play with just a touch more structure offensively to help the guys around him be more consistent. The development seems well within reach if he’s able to stay on the court.

Miller may not have quite the same ceiling as Ball, but he’s already proven himself to be a capable scorer. His outside shooting is already exceptional for a wing with his size, and he can get to his shots off the bounce or off movement effectively. If he can improve his playmaking, he could easily be an All-Star. Continued defensive development is critical, too. He’ll need to be a two-way contributor to reach his highest potential, but he’s got the physical tools to do it. He’s also just 21, so like with Ball, there’s plenty of growth potential.

The rest of the roster is in solid shape, too. In terms of on-the-court fit, they’ve got youth, defense and hustle, and upside potential in guys like Mark Williams, Tidjane Salaün, Grant Williams, Tre Mann, and Josh Green. They have capable rotation players in Nick Richards, Cody Martin, and Vasilije Micić. They have Miles Bridges, too—and it’s possible he can get his career back on track after a self-inflicted step backward.

The Cap Sheet Is Clean, Which Gives the Hornets Options

The Hornets roster construction and cap situation also means the Hornets aren’t locked into bad deals for basically anyone. While not as important as on-court performance, it’s easy to overlook the importance of roster and cap management. The team has tremendous flexibility to experiment, see who fits and how, and give playing time to the guys who can best complement Ball and Miller. Guys who work, they can keep on fair (or even team friendly) deals. Guys who don’t can get traded, and probably for solid return.

Look at the cap sheet below, which shows the year-by-year contract amounts for each player on Charlotte’s roster and the estimated percentage of the cap each player takes up to see what I mean:

[Based on data from Spotrac and assumes maximum 10% growth of salary cap, luxury tax line, and aprons each season due to new NBA TV deals]

Several things jump out from the Hornet’s cap sheet for the next five years.

1. Other than LaMelo Ball, the Hornets have few long-term contracts that take up significant cap space. Even LaMelo’s contract looks quite reasonable as a percentage of the cap going forward (assuming health), he will be worth between 22-25% of the cap only. For comparison, that’s a bit less cap space than what OG Anunoby will use; players like Trae Young and Zach Lavine will each command about 30.6% of the cap this year.

2. The Hornets have five guys on rookie deals (Brandon Miller, Tidjane Salaün, Mark Williams, Nick Smith Jr., and Tre Mann). Rookie contracts are hugely valuable both because they are relatively cheap and give the team significant control.

   • That means they don’t take up a ton of cap space (Brandon Miller is the most expensive, but only takes up 8-9% of the cap in any given season).

   • It also means the Hornets have an advantage to re-signing them through restricted free agency if they want to bring them back. Tre Mann is the most obvious candidate here, as his RFA status in the 2025 off-season is likely going to tamp down his market for potential deals even if he plays well next season.

3. The other veteran contracts make sense.

   • Miles Bridges is getting starter money, but his salary declines each season. His contract should get more valuable over time if he plays even at the lower 2023-24 levels. The contract makes him more trade-able down the line if the Hornets want to move on.

   • Grant Williams and Josh Green’s salaries are less than 10% of the cap each year. That’s good for the Hornets, as both are rotation players who could develop into starters. The player/contract combos for both are also potentially attractive to other teams, who might offer the Hornets something valuable in trade down the line.

   • Martin and Micić take up just 5-6% of the cap over the next couple seasons, but the Hornets can move on from either one if they want to create cap space for free agents next season. Martin’s deal non-guaranteed after this season, and the team will have the option to bring back Micić or not. Nick Richards’ contract takes up even less cap space and is also not guaranteed.

4. The Hornets can create significant cap space next summer if they want to. By waiving the non-guaranteed contracts for Martin and Richards and declining the team option for Micić, the Hornets can create over $35 million in cap room next offseason. They could get over $41 million in cap room by also declining the team option for Mark Williams.

5. The Hornets have a bunch of players on tradable contracts.

   • The varying salary levels for Bridges ($23-27 million), Green/Grant Williams ($13-15 million), and Martin/Micić ($7-9 million) are all at salary levels that could make them attractive to a team looking to add pieces. That gives them trade value.

   • In addition, the varied salary levels of those players gives the Hornets lots of options for salary matching in a trade if needed. Combined with draft capital, that can be a powerful trade tool.

   • Even at his bigger salary, if the Hornets ever wanted to trade Ball, there would probably be a decent market for him. All-Star-level talents don’t always become available, and Ball is locked in long-term at a reasonable cap number.

   • The players on rookie deals could draw a significant interest because they are cost controlled. Miller could net a particularly large haul if the Hornets for some reason needed to deal him (not that they should).

Lots of Future Draft Assets Make Big Swings Possible

By default, before trades, NBA teams each have 7 first round picks available to trade (one in each draft). A few teams have an absurd number of future picks—for example, the Thunder and Jazz have 15 or more. But the Hornets are in a pretty good spot, with 9 future first round picks available assuming they keep their 2025 pick. The chart below summarizes their draft pick situation:

Charlotte controls most of their own first round picks here, except 2025. If the Hornets surprise and actually make the playoffs this season, they’d lose their 2025 first round pick but presumably be happy with the result. More likely, they aren’t yet ready to win a playoff berth and hold onto their 2025 first rounder (they’d lose second rounders in 2026 and 2027 but that’s fine, incoming seconds from the Sixers in 2025 and Blazers or Pelicans in 2027 offset that mostly).

They also have incoming picks from Dallas and Miami. The Dallas pick has very light protections (top 2), so it’s probably going to wind up in Charlotte even if Dallas were to take a step backward. The Miami pick has more protections at first, as it’s lottery protected, and only conveyable if Miami’s 2025 first rounder actually conveys to the Thunder next year. But, Charlotte will eventually end up with a first rounder from Miami no matter what—they may just have to wait until 2028.

The fact that Charlotte has these nine future first round picks matters quite a bit. Because they have enough picks, they can theoretically trade up to six first round picks to bolster their roster. Combined with the young players on trade-matchable contracts (Miles Bridges, Josh Green, and Grant Williams specifically), the Hornets can make a big swing for an All-Star level talent if one comes available and they want to. For a small-market team that may not have a chance to attract top-tier free agents, that’s an important option to have on the table.

They could also use their bevy of future firsts in other ways, like taking smaller swings on pieces that fit with their core as it develops or (GASP) actually using their picks in future drafts. The point isn’t so much that they will do anything in particular, it’s that they have the option to make decisions based on whether they want to make a deal—not whether they have to make a deal because of a roster or cap crunch.

In a Good Place

Ultimately, I think the Hornets are in a nice spot. Like any non-playoff team, they have big questions to answer. The most critical question is how high the ceiling is for talent they have when healthy, but that question is true for almost every non-contender. There are narrower, more discrete questions they need to answer first. Health for Ball and Mark Williams, the continued development of young guys like Miller and Salaün, and getting past Miles Bridges’ off-the-court issues are the most apparent, and I believe the team has positioned itself well to answer those questions and be able to pivot if they don’t like how the results come back.

In all, I’m excited to see what’s next for the Hornets. If the team can stay healthy, they should be fun to watch on the court, and they’ve got a ton of room to improve quickly.

How Did the SBC Mock Trade Deadline Go?

I mentioned that my SBC team was assigned the Hornets for a mock trade deadline exercise. We considered a crazy number of deals, but we really liked a few that came available when other teams decided to make moves. We made three notable trades:

Traded for Alperen Şengün

To get this deal done, we had to trade Mark Williams, Charlotte’s 2027 first round pick, Dallas’ 2027 first round pick (top 2 protected), and 3 second round picks to Houston in exchange for Şengün. Şengün is only 22 and already an offensive wizard. Though he has some defensive limitations and is going to get a big contract starting next year, it’s hard to find this kind of young talent. I was happy we could get him without giving up a ton of future draft capital.

Traded for De’Anthony Melton

This was my favorite deal, though it was a smaller swing. We traded away Seth Curry and Reggie Jackson (at the time of the exercise, he hadn’t been bought out by Charlotte yet) to the Warriors in exchange for Melton. Melton is a strong defender and good shooter who would fit nicely will Ball and Miller. With Green on the roster, we felt OK with Melton’s injury risk from back issues.

Recouped Draft Capital

We somehow also managed to snag an unprotected first round pick by trading away Nick Richards and taking on some salary. We traded Nick Richards to the Suns in exchange for Cleveland’s 2027 first (unprotected), which the Suns acquired in a separate deal during the mock exercise, 3 second round picks, and Nasir Little. While this left us thin in the front court, it was hard to say no to replenishing almost all our draft assets from the Şengün deal.

Let me know what you think in the comments of the deals!

And here are some photos from SBC just for fun:

Mitigating the Loss of Monk and Huerter

[Basketball News]

With only 7 games left for the Kings, we’re coming up on the home stretch of the NBA season. The last couple weeks have featured some injury tough breaks for the Kings. After getting injured in a game against the Memphis Grizzlies, news broke last Friday that starting shooting guard Kevin Huerter will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery. Just a few hours later, the anchor of Sacramento’s bench unit and leading candidate for Sixth Man of the Year Malik Monk limped off the court after Luka Doncic awkwardly fell into him. Reports are that Monk will miss 4-6 weeks, meaning the earliest that he could feasibly come back is part-way through the first round of the NBA playoffs.

Spring injuries in the NBA are bad for any team, but they’re particularly consequential for a Kings team that is fighting for a top-6 seed—a task made more difficult by losing twice to the Dallas Mavericks last week (losing Monk early in last Friday’s game was a key reason the Kings lost).

The Monk and Huerter injuries leave the Kings without two critical rotation pieces—Huerter and Monk are 5th and 6th on the team in minutes per game—and with significant questions at guard.

Prior to getting hurt, Monk was in the midst of his best NBA season. According to Basketball Reference, Monk averaged 15.4 points, 5.1 assists, and 2.9 rebounds over 26.0 minutes per game, while posting respectable shooting numbers (44.3% from the field, 35.0% from three, 82.9% from the line). Despite slightly-below-average three point shooting, Monk’s 11.0 three point attempts per 100 possessions made him a critical space generator for the Kings. Monk had also become the team’s de facto backup point guard by developing a more robust passing game and building a strong pick and roll rapport with Kings centers Domantas Sabonis and Alex Len to go along with his penchant for scoring. In fact, amongst players with 100+ minutes played, Monk was second on the team in points per 100 possessions (28.8) and assists per 100 possessions (9.6). While Monk can get a little loose with the ball (2.1 turnovers per game), his ability to serve as a primary ball handler has given the Kings needed offensive versatility, and it has kept Monk on the court in late-game situations, where he ranks second on the team in fourth quarter scoring (behind Fox) and leads the team in clutch net rating per NBA.com.

Huerter has also been an important offensive weapon for the Kings, even though he’s had a down year compared to last season. Before being sidelined, Huerter averaged 10.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.6 assists in just under per game, with his most important contributions coming as a floor spacer. Among the Kings rotation players, Huerter ranked third in three point attempts per 100 possessions (10.6), just behind Monk and Sasha Vezenkov. While his percentage slipped to just 36.2% from three this year, teams still were wary of Huerter’s three point shooting. Huerter, Monk, and Keegan Murray were also the perimeter players most likely to run dribble handoffs (DHOs) with Sabonis, which has become a staple of the Kings offense over the last two years.

Losing Monk and Huerter at the same time has pretty huge implications for the Kings. If the Kings tried to simply replace Monk’s and Huerter’s contributions, the task would be daunting: they would have to replace over 25 points per game and about 50 minutes played per game, find a way to fill the backup point guard role, find a way to manufacture over 21 threes per 100 possessions, and figure out who will be on the floor in crunch time alongside the regular crew of Fox, Sabonis, Murray, and Harrison Barnes.

That’s basically impossible given the Kings current roster.

But hope isn’t totally lost despite that! Rather than trying to re-create the same kind production that Monk and Huerter provided, the Kings have had to shift their identity. They can’t score as prolifically without Monk and Huerter, so instead they’ve had to lean into a new identity centered around perimeter defense and transition buckets.

So far, the results are encouraging. We’re seeing better defense overall, which has made up for some of the offensive drop-off. Similarly, the Kings’ defensive improvement—particularly with respect to generating turnovers and better shot contests—has allowed them to get out in transition, a good way to mitigate some of the impact from losing Monk and Huerter on the offense. If the Kings can improve their defense on ball screens, they may have a chance to weather losing two of their best guards late in the season.

Dialing Up the Perimeter Defense

Since Kevin Huerter got hurt on March 18, the Kings have dialed up their defensive intensity on the perimeter. During that stretch, the Kings have posted a defensive rating of 110.1 (9th in the NBA), compared to their season-long defensive rating of 115.0 (17th), per NBA.com.

A huge part of that defensive jump comes from swapping Keon Ellis in for Huerter as a starter. Ellis shines on defense. According to Dunks and Threes, Ellis’s Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus (DEPM) of 1.9 ranks in the 93rd percentile across the entire NBA—and tops on the Kings. Compare that to Huerter, whose DEPM was just -1.2 (27th percentile league wide).

With Ellis playing alongside Fox and Murray, the Kings have been able to play above-average defenders at every perimeter position (Fox’s DEPM is 1.3, in the 86th percentile while Murray’s DEPM is 1.4, in the 87th percentile).

Monk’s injury has also led the Kings to play backup point guard Davion Mitchell more over the last few games. Mitchell’s defense hasn’t been as impressive in terms of DEPM this season (his -1.3 DEPM ranks in the 23rd percentile), but historically he has been a strong defensive contributor—especially in terms of on-ball defense. Over the last two seasons, Mitchell has posted DEPMs in the 66th and 76th percentile respectively.

These line-up changes have helped the Kings tremendously in generating turnovers, and it’s helped to cover up the long-time issues with the Kings defense and lack of paint protection. Per NBA.com, over the last eight games, the Kings are generating 8.9 steals per game (4th in the NBA), compared to just 7.6 steals per game for the season (14th in the NBA).

It’s also just helped the Kings be more disruptive in general, as their increased athleticism on the perimeter and confidence that guys will make the right rotations and reads allows players to bend the basic defensive rules, making offensive players hesitate.

You see it watching the Kings play. Watch this play from the Kings-Clippers game on Tuesday.

Murray plays strong on-ball defense on Paul George, but George is confident that he can still get off a reasonable fadeaway from the paint. But Fox bites down hard and gets a hand on the ball from behind. While this sequence depends on great heads up defense by Murray and an awareness by Fox, it’s also made possible by Keon Ellis’ being in the right position. Ellis is in the passing lane between George and Norman Powell, cutting off the easy outlet for a three. He’s also looking directly at James Harden, and will be able to rotate to Harden if Fox cannot recover in time to contest a kick-out to him. That’s high-level defense from all three players, and not something that occurs as often when Huerter or Monk are in the game.

Here’s another play from the same game.

Strong on-ball defense from Ellis, Lyles, and Vezenkov (!) leads to a couple errant passes, but the real gem here is what happens at the end of the play. With only about 4 seconds left on the shot clock, Westbrook has to try to create something off the dribble. Ellis forces Russell Westbrook into the middle of the paint, which allows Fox to step into the key and block off an easy outlet pass to James Harden. Westbrook’s only good options are an outlet to Brandon Boston (a 30% three point shooter) or to shoot a contested floater, which Alex Len summarily rejects. Obviously the highlight here is Len, but the play is made possible by Ellis and Fox correctly playing their responsibilities and having the athleticism to discourage Westbrook from kicking the ball out for a three.

The Kings are also handling defensive rotations and switches much more effectively with Fox, Murray, Ellis, and Mitchell on the floor more often. Swapping Ellis and Mitchell for Monk and Huerter has made this more feasible, as they both have stronger defensive instincts and the athleticism and quickness to make ball-handlers hesitate and still recover to their defensive responsibility.

Two examples:

Here, Mitchell is able to help Fox to stop Paul George from driving and force a kick-out to Westbrook (a subpar shooter). Mitchell recovers quickly enough to prevent Westbrook from driving, instead forcing a pass down to Brandon Boston. Murray gets his hand up and prevents a clean pass, which disrupts any opportunity for Boston to launch a corner three and lets the Kings reset defensively.

But what happens next is just as important. Boston sets an on-ball screen for Westbrook, but Murray and Mitchell switch it effortlessly. There’s nowhere for Westbrook to attack, and Mitchell carries Boston out to the three point line to prevent a quick swing. Seeing this, Westbrook opts to go at Murray, who uses his length to prevent an easy drive and force Westbrook into a contested long two. That’s savvy play for everyone involved! Sabonis also shows in the lane to discourage Westbrook from driving too quickly at Murray, and Fox is hedged inside while staying close(ish) to Paul George to prevent a kick-out three (although ideally you would like to see Fox to get just a bit higher with Boston there to potentially screen for George).

This clip is from the Dallas game last Friday. You can see that Ellis and Barnes expertly switch a double-screen set for Kyrie Irving, and Ellis even gets his hands on the pass back to Tim Hardaway Jr. Mitchell and Len actually switch off on Dante Exum and Derek Lively, which is fine given Lively’s position so far away from the basket. That switch also allows Mitchell to step up and cut off a potential drive by Hardaway Jr. Eventually, Kyrie Irving is forced to take a pull up two—and even though Irving absolutely can make that shot, that is a good defensive possession.

The Kings sort of spoil the strong sequence by allowing a long offensive rebound. Whatever, it happens sometimes. But Mitchell recovers well and runs Hardaway Jr. off of an open three and into a weak drive attempt that gets cut off. Hardaway backs off and outlets to Irving, but Mitchell and Barnes keep the pressure on Irving, forcing a dump off to Lively who actually makes a solid read to find PJ Washington in the corner for three. Fox, however, makes a good effort to contest the shot, which misses.

That’s 27 seconds of good defense! Sure, the Mavs got a couple contested looks, but you can live with that. What stands out is the timely switches and effective rotations. Guys are in the right place and making the right defensive reads. That’s not something that can always be said for the Kings, and a noticeable improvement.

Defense Leads To Transition Points

Obviously it’s better to play good defense than bad defense (duh). But an added benefit is that strong defense—especially steals—helps the Kings get into their transition game much, much more easily. The Kings get into transition at the fifth highest rate in the league per NBA.com’s tracking data. Without Monk and Huerter to bolster the half-court offense, the Kings need to find easy buckets in transition whenever they can.

Strong perimeter has lead the Kings to a number of high-quality opportunities in recent weeks.

Kessler Edwards and Davion Mitchell do a great job passing off a guard-guard screen from Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic, and when Luka drives, Edwards does a really nice job of aggressively digging at the ball and forcing a turnover that leads to a fast break layup.

Fox and Ellis pair up here to force Kyrie Irving into a bad dribble. Fox plays solid head-up defense, and Ellis biting down off of Dante Exum causes Irving to hesitate. Fox takes advantage by stripping Irving and getting into transition, leading to free throws.

You even see the Kings getting into transition off shot contests more than they have in the past. Here’s my two favorite from recent games:

In both cases, good shot contests lead to blocks, and the Kings are able to get into transition and get open threes for Keegan Murray. That’s strong defense leading to high-quality offense, and it doesn’t depend on having a second shot creator in Monk or a good shooter like Huerter on the floor to make it happen.

Ball Screens Are Still a Problem

Though the Kings have improved their perimeter defense and rotations, they’re still struggling a bit with how to address on-ball screens. Having Ellis, Murray, Fox, and Mitchell in the line-up more often gives them some flexibility and recovery speed, but they still need to find a way to address screens more consistently.

No matter how you look at it, this is a busted defense:

Derek Lively sets a ghost screen for Irving and Sabonis gets caught in no-man’s land. Sabonis doesn’t drop with the screener and doesn’t double hard either—it looks like he’s trying to hedge the screen, but he’s roughly 40 feet away from the basket. The result is that Irving has an easy pass into Lively about 8 feet from the basket. It’s fine to force the ball into Lively’s hands and make him a decision-maker, but this is just way too easy. Lively makes an easy read and hits Tim Hardaway Jr. for an open three.

The Kings also struggled to find the right balance when he laid off the screen. In this next clip, you see the screen gets set in the backcourt. Sabonis drops way back to prevent Doncic from getting downhill too deep, and Murray recovers too slowly back to his man. They don’t communicate well, which results in Sabonis going for a steal and letting Doncic out of the double-team with an easy pass to Dante Exum.

A similar problem happened with Fox and Sabonis just a couple minutes later, though luckily the Kings got out of it.

When Sabonis did try to double off of the screen, he often did so too slowly. Again, this let Doncic (and Irving) off the hook—they made relatively casual passes to open teammates and forced the Kings into an extremely difficult rotation. In the clip below, Keon Ellis has to recover to the corner for the contest through a backside screen by Daniel Gafford. That’s never going to work, and it leads to a wide open three.

Dante Exum’s game winner from Friday night also came off a similar action. Again, Sabonis doesn’t double hard enough, making it far too easy for Doncic to get out of the potential trap. The result is an easy three for Exum.

Obviously that was heartbreaking for the Kings and their fans. And defending Doncic and Irving while they get on-ball screens is hard for any team to defend. But the Kings have to do better.

Get Out of No-Man’s Land

The first thing they can fix is avoiding no-man’s land. The screen defender (most often Sabonis, Barnes, or Len) has to avoid getting caught between a double-team/hedge and drop coverage. If they are not doubling/hedging, but also not dropping to defend the screener as he rolls, they are effectively guarding air. That can’t happen.

Even if you pick up the guard, by the time he’s going downhill, the big is going to get burned. Plays like this have no real place in a good defense.

If You’re Going to Double, Be Quick

The second thing the Kings can clean up is doubling quickly and with intensity. Lackadaisical double-teams are easy for players like Doncic and Irving to get out of—they’ve seen doubles off of screens thousands of times, and if they’re not pressured with intensity, they’re going to pick it apart.

These are good pressures that happen quickly, and they make it much more difficult to pass out:

If you can’t be that quick, get big! Alex Len does a good job of this to make up for his lack of foot speed. Sure, these aren’t ideal—but at least he’s in the way:

There’s obviously significant risk in doubling during an on-ball screen. That’s a strategic decision that the coaching staff will make based on game, circumstance, and personnel. But doing it quickly—or at least being a nuisance—is key to making double teams work (at least sometimes) against elite players like Doncic.

Don’t Fear Drop Coverage

Drop coverage on a screen with players like Doncic and Irving is also risky. You may give them an open look or let them generate speed and get downhill toward the basket, which often results in layups or fouls. But it’s important to mix so that the offense doesn’t see the same look every time.

The Kings used drop coverage a lot against the Jazz in Sunday’s game, relying on their perimeter defenders to fight through screens without giving up too much of an advantage.

In this first clip, Fox simply slips under the screen and Sabonis drops back to the paint. With Walker Kessler (a non-shooter) as the screener, this is a pretty viable strategy—Kessler isn’t going to make anyone pay for leaving him open at the top of the key.

Fox also accomplishes pretty much the same thing by going over the screen a little later:

Obviously, this kind of defensive strategy is tougher when the ball-handler is better or the screener is a more capable shooter. But it can still work in doses. In this last clip, Keegan Murray does a good job fighting through the screen to at least discourage an immediate shot from Doncic:

The Kings will need to figure out the right mix of coverages for on-ball screens, but it’s critical that they get more effective executing their coverages regardless. With more athletes on the perimeter who are better at fighting through screens (with due respect to Monk and Huerter as players, they too often died on screens), they have a decent chance to do so.

That’s It!

I’ll be back with more Kings coverage as we head into the home stretch of the season. Here’s to hoping they can keep up the good defense and continue to improve on screens!

KAT Is Hurt, But Don’t Sleep on the Wolves

Just going to do a quick post this week as we got some big news this week that significantly impacts the NBA playoff race. Shams reported that All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns has a torn left meniscus. It looks like KAT will have surgery on the knee next week and the team will re-evaluate his knee in four weeks, but he will likely miss more time than that given meniscus surgeries can take 4-8 weeks to recover (plus rehab). That’s a problem since the first round of the NBA Playoffs will start on April 20, about six weeks from now.

Obviously this is a huge bummer for the Pups and their fans who have been riding high all season. The T-Wolves currently sit second in the Western Conference after losing last night in OT to the Cavaliers, but they’re only a half-game back of the first place OKC Thunder (with whom they’ve traded back and forth for first place in recent weeks).

Towns’ injury has a lot of people concerned, and while it’s never a good thing to lose one of your best players, I actually think the Wolves are well positioned to weather the storm.

First off, Minnesota’s strong start through the first three quarters of the season has put them in a great position. It’s exceptionally unlikely that they can fall any further than fourth in the Western Conference, so they’re going to have home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs barring an epic collapse.

Although they have only a slim half-game lead over the third-place Nuggets, the Wolves have a much healthier two game lead on the fourth place Clippers and a huge 5.5 game lead on the fifth place Pelicans. Eight of the Timberwolves’ 18 remaining games are against teams with records under .500, so Minnesota should be able to at least tread water. If they can win even half of their remaining games, the Wolves would effectively lock up a top-4 seed unless the Pelicans can go on a miraculous run of 15-4 or better (and win eventual tiebreakers).

Setting the standings and future schedule aside, the Wolves have built their success this season on the defensive end of the floor. They are by far the NBA’s best defensive team this season, sporting a defensive rating for the season of 108.1—fully two points better than the second place Boston Celtics at 110.3. [For those who prefer traditional stats, things look just as good: the Wolves give up just 106.6 points per game, lowest in the NBA and about 2.7 points per game better than the second place Knicks.] That’s a meaningful improvement over last year, where the Wolves were 10th in the NBA in defensive rating, and a sea-change from where the Wolves typically resided before adding Rudy Gobert in 2022 (in the seven seasons Towns’ was in Minnesota before Gobert arrived, the Wolves finished higher than 20th in defensive rating just once).

Other metrics similarly confirm the Wolves status as an elite defensive team. Led by Rudy Gobert and strong defensive wings Jaden McDaniels and Anthony Edwards (when he wants to), the T-Wolves are holding opponents to shooting just 44.6% from the field (best in NBA) and 34.9% from three (third best). They only struggle defending the free throw line, where they give up a middle-of-the-pack 78.3% free throw percentage—just kidding, I’m only making sure you’re paying attention. On top of that, the Wolves are amongst the league’s top 5 teams in blocks per 100 possessions, top 5 in defensive rebounding rate, and top 10 in steals per 100 possessions per Basketball Reference. Except for steals, all of those numbers are significantly up from last year.

Towns, for all his talents, isn’t a huge contributor to the Timberwolves defensive explosion this year, so losing him isn’t likely to harm them much on defense. Towns has never had a reputation as a quality defensive player. That reputation may be slightly overstated, but it’s not wrong either. Although he does a solid job on the defensive glass, you’ll struggle to find other defensive metrics where Towns excels. Despite his 7-foot size, he’s 75th in the NBA in block percentage per Basketball Reference and he ranks 150th in steal percentage. According to PBP Stats, the Timberwolves give up 5.8 more points per 100 possessions on defense with Towns on the floor. [Cleaning the Glass puts a similar metric at 3.8 points worse per 100 possessions.]. Meanwhile, Dunks and Threes rates Towns’ estimated defensive plus/minus at 0.0 (slightly above average) and Basketball Reference gives up a defensive box plus/minus of 1.0 (not terrible, but not noteworthy). At the end of the day, we shouldn’t expect losing Towns to really cost Minnesota on the defensive end beyond losing front court depth.

Losing Towns is a much bigger deal offensively.

According to Cleaning the Glass, the Wolves score 7.9 more points per 100 possessions with Towns on the floor and their overall effective field goal percentage jumps by 3.8%, huge benefits that are hard to replace. Yet Minnesota has one of the best “KAT replacements” in the NBA already on its roster in Naz Reid. Reid isn’t the same level of offensive talent as KAT, but he’s a pretty close facsimile, and even with Reid filling in the Pups will still have to make some adjustments. But they can cover Towns’ absence through the regular season and potentially even for the early part of the playoffs.

Comparing Towns and Reid based on rate stats, it’s easy to see the similarities. Guess who is who?

Per Basketball Reference

Player A is Towns and Player B is Reid, and their numbers are awfully close.

Towns is a slightly better shooter than Reid and definitely has more of a penchant for getting to the line and knocking down free throws. He’s also a bit better as a rebounder and distributor. Otherwise, Reid puts up pretty similar numbers to Towns, and he does so while carrying a relatively high usage rate of 22.3% (especially high for a backup big man). Pushing Reid’s minutes and usage upward can help the Wolves make up for a lot of what Towns does.

Reid’s ability to play the same role as Towns on offensive is apparent watching the Wolves, too—and it showed up repeatedly in the Cavs game last night.

Perhaps most importantly, Reid runs the pick and pop to perfection, which helps Minnesota to generate a healthy 1.23 points per possession when he operates as the screener per NBA.com (they generated an outstanding 1.45 points per possession with Towns).

Reid sets a pick for TJ Warren on the wing then reverses to set an on-ball screen for Nickeil Alexander-Walker and pops out for an open three. Minnesota doesn’t have a true scorer on the floor (with due respect to Warren, who just joined the team), but using Reid as the screener forces the defense into a series of really tough decisions. They can’t easily cheat off of Warren, who is a capable scorer despite his faults and running toward a potential screen action with Rudy Gobert. And faced with the Alexander-Walker/Reid screen, Georges Niang opts to pick up the driver which leaves Reid with a wide open three. Even if Darius Garland cheats back, that’s still leaving a small guard to contest a 6’10” shooter in Reid.

Here the Wolves run a simple screen action, but they’ve pulled several help defenders outside with Ant Edwards replacing TJ Warren on the weak side. Jordan McLaughlin pushes downhill aggressively, forcing the screen defender Jarrett Allen to step up or risk getting blown by without a good help option to save him (Walker-Alexander is in the corner holding the playside help). Reid knocks down another triple.

They can also run similar concepts with Edwards, who is far and away Minnesota’s biggest offensive threat.

Ant misses Reid popping out on this play, but you can see that running on-ball pick and pops with Edwards and Reid is a hard thing for defenses to deal with. Ant drives so forcefully that all five defenders are watching him, including Damion Jones who is supposed to be guarding Reid. Jones sprints back and loses all sight of Reid who is sitting wide open, ready to shoot, without a defender in the frame.

The Wolves can even run pin-downs for Reid, like they have frequently in the past with Towns.

That is a big time play. It’s overtime against a top-3 seed in the East. Reid still has the confidence and talent to drill a huge three off a pin-down action centered around Mike Conley and Kyle Anderson (not exactly the biggest offensive threats in the world).

Reid isn’t quite the midrange that Towns is, but he can still find ways to be effective by getting deeper into the paint to take advantage of his size.

Reid’s being guarded by Isaac Okoro (a good wing defender), but he has a significant size advantage. Rather than settling for a midrange jumper, Reid drives to his strong-hand to take advantage of a half-hearted closeout and gets deep into the paint, going through Okra’s chest for the bucket. It should’ve been an and-1. That’s a big time bucket to put the Wolves up by one in the last minute of the fourth quarter.

Reid will also take advantage of slower bigs off the drive too, especially if they are closing out late to stop a three:

Jarrett Allen gets caught here closing out high on Reid (he was understandably watching for the Edwards cut to the basket). Reid sees it and immediately gets Allen moving laterally, where he’s at a disadvantage, which Reid presses by spinning back for a layup at the rim.

Reid also does a great job of getting out into transition, which isn’t something the Wolves often get from Towns. He’s got enough of a handle to push the ball himself and most importantly he’s willing to do so. According to NBA.com, Minnesota generates a strong 1.26 points per 100 possessions with Reid in transition, too (KAT doesn’t do it enough to even make NBA.com’s stat page).

I love this play. Reid recognizes Sam Merrill and Caris Lavert are the only defenders back and uses his speed and handle to run the floor. He’s got McLaughlin in the corner (who he maybe should’ve hit), but it doesn’t matter because he attacks the rim and gets fouled. It’s not sexy, but it’s the type of instant transition game that can help an offense get easy points.

Here’s another transition win of a different sort.

Reid again initiates the transition, but this time he gives the ball up to Alexander-Walker in the corner. When Alexander-Walker drives, Reid continues into the paint on a secondary break and puts Sam Merrill in the basket, drawing a foul. This is fundamental basketball, but it’s only made possible by Reid’s willingness (and skill) to initiate the fast break himself.

With Reid substituting for Towns temporarily, the Wolves can stay afloat in the regular season and perhaps even make it through the first round of the playoffs. Given Minnesota hasn’t won a playoff series since 2004, that would be a success. But at the end of the day, the Wolves probably can’t advance far into the playoffs without Karl-Anthony Towns. He’s a core piece of the puzzle for them and a ceiling-raiser. Towns is also better and more versatile than Reid offensively—in fact, he is one of the best (if not the best) big-man shooters and carries a substantial offensive load for a Wolves team that has at times struggled on that end of the floor.

The Wolves can run most of the same offense with Reid that they’ve run with Towns in the past, and they can use Reid’s better transition ability to try to get easy buckets. They also should get a defensive boost, too, as displayed by Reid’s stellar block on a Darius Garland jumper to force last night’s game into OT:

By slotting Reid into KAT’s offensive role, the Wolves can cover Towns’ absence if they find a way to fill Reid’s old role with Anderson and others. That’s a less scary task, and one that the coaching staff should be able to navigate over the next 18 games. It may even have the added benefits: letting Ant fully become the offensive engine (he’s already well on his way) and encouraging Mike Conley to look for offensive more aggressively.

All told, even with KAT’s absence, I’m bullish on the Wolves finding their way to a top-3 or -4 seed in the West and being in position to win a playoff series. They’ll need KAT back, but they can survive while he heals up.

Kings NBA Trade Deadline (Part 4): Trade Targets!

[This is part four of a series of posts on the Kings ahead of the February 8 trade deadline. In part one, I looked at the areas on the floor that the Kings should be trying to improve, specifically defense and efficient, reliable offense when Fox sits. In part two, I wrote about what the Kings can send out in potential trades and how the NBA’s rules governing player- and draft-pick trades affect what the Kings can offer. Part three covered the Kings’ roster construction needs, diving deep into future contracts the Kings will want to offer to De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk, and Keegan Murray, as well as reviewing what on-court roles the Kings will look to fill ahead of the deadline.]

We’re finally here at the most exciting part of the post—who are the potential trade targets for the Kings ahead of the trade deadline and does it make sense to go after them?

There are obviously a lot of rumors about potential trades that make the rounds this time of year. I’m not going to weigh in on how true those rumors are or which players are truly on the trade block. Shams, Woj, and dozens of other reporters (shout out to Sam Amick for reporting on the Kings) will give the best intel on that. But I will look at players that have frequently come up in reporting or the rumor mill that may be of interest to the Kings. For each player, I’ll try to talk about the player’s talents, how they would fit on the Kings, what the Kings would sacrifice by making a deal, and whether I think a deal makes sense.

I’m going to organize this summary by team since there are a number of teams that are could be sellers at the deadline. The Bulls, Hornets, Raptors, Blazers, and Wizards all come to mind as obvious candidates—I cover all of them and more below. Other teams might consider one-off deals that make sense, even if they’re not full-on “sellers,” so I’ll look at those possibilities individually (plus Detroit, which only has one trade candidate that should even draw remote interest from the Kings in my view).

Just so folks know how this is organized, I cover the following players in the below order. The order is just how I started writing things, so don’t think too hard about how it doesn’t make sense, I concede that’s true.

• Chicago Bulls

  • Zach Lavine

  • Alex Caruso

• Atlanta Hawks

  • Dejounte Murray

  • De’Andre Hunter / Saddiq Bey / Bogdan Bogdanovic

    • [I combined these three for convenience]

• Utah Jazz

  • Lauri Markkanen

  • John Collins

  • Kris Dunn

• Brooklyn Nets

  • Mikal Bridges / Cam Johnson

    • [I combined these two because, realistically, the Nets aren’t going to deal them anyway]

  • Dorian Finney-Smith

  • Royce O’Neal / Lonnie Walker IV / Spencer Dinwiddie / Nic Claxton

    • [I combined these guys for convenience. Even though they’re different styles of players, the thinking is comparable.]

• Portland Trailblazers

  • Jerami Grant

  • Malcolm Brogdon

  • Matisse Thybulle

• Washington Wizards

  • Kyle Kuzma

  • Tyus Jones

• Charlotte Hornets

  • Miles Bridges

  • PJ Washington

• Toronto Raptors

  • Gary Trent Jr.

  • Bruce Brown

• Miscellaneous

  • Naji Marshall

  • Bojan Bogdanovic (Detroit version—how’d we get two Bogdanovic’s?)

  • Andrew Wiggins

Let me know in the comments if there are other players you want me to look at, or if there’s other details you want to know about any of these prospective deals.

Bulls Trade Targets

The Bulls are sitting in 9th in the East but their roster is way too old and way too expensive for the production they’re getting. It feels like they’ve stagnated over the last couple years without Lonzo Ball. One of their best players, Demar Derozan, is about to hit free agency and their highest recent draft pick, Pat Williams, is about to get a pay bump as a restricted free agent (even though his on-court production hasn’t been anything to write home about). This team should be looking to re-tool, but what they’re going to look for in doing so is harder to predict.

Zach Lavine

As most basketball fans know already, the Bulls are trying their best to ship Zach Lavine to anyone who will take him, but they still want to get at least something of value back.

Only 28 years old, Lavine is still a high-level scorer who can create for himself and knock down shots, but there are lots of questions about what else he brings to the table.

Lavine’s numbers have historically looked pretty good. During the five seasons from 2018 to 2023, Lavine scored more than 23.5 points per game each year, always shooting above 45% from the field and over 37% from three, and put up 4.0+ assists and 4.5+ rebounds per game, all while playing heavy minutes (34.5+ minutes per game). Those are impressive numbers, and proved out that Lavine is capable of generating quality offense with relative efficiency.

Lavine also has a good combination of size (he’s 6’5”), length, and athleticism, which allows him to create space against most defenders and get to the rim when he wants to attack. He pairs these skills with solid ball-handling and strong perimeter shooting. He doesn’t need a lot of help to get quality offense, as he largely lives off of a strong pull up game these days. But he can also run pick and rolls when he needs to, with decent efficiency—Lavine runs about 6.2 pick and rolls per game this year, which generate about 0.94 points per possession, a tick down from 8.1 pick and rolls per game and 0.93 points per possession last season.

Lavine has always had a “score first” game, so he’s never excelled at creating offense for others. He’s not a black hole on offense at all, but he’s not always quick to move off the ball—for example, at 42.5 passes per game, he’s moving the ball at about the same rate as Tyler Herro. This could make for a bit of an awkward pairing with the Kings style and De’Aaron Fox in particular, who is also a score-first guard (though a better overall distributor than Lavine). There’s only so much room for players with a score-first approach in Kings’ line-ups, as they rely heavily on ball movement. That said, issue can be can be mitigated by staggering when Lavine and Fox are on the court, especially since generating offense when Fox sits is one of the things the Kings need to improve (as I wrote about in part one of this series). [Just as a quick aside—staggering minutes isn’t always the “best” use of players. Staggering minutes is nice, but it also generally means that the team’s ceiling is lower since the best players aren’t functioning perfectly together in late-game situations, especially in the playoffs.]

In addition, Lavine’s strong shooting and ability to get up efficient shots could work nicely when the Kings run their offense through Domantas Sabonis, which they often do in non-Fox minutes. Lavine is an expert shooter with the ability to pull up from all over the court, so having him work off of Sabonis—who creates tons of space for shooters with dribble hand-offs and screens—could work wonderfully. Adding Lavine would also let the Kings to keep at least one elite scorer on the floor with Sabonis at all times. Monk, and to a lesser extent Kevin Huerter, fill that role now, yet there’s no doubt that Lavine packs more of an offensive punch.

Still, there are glaring questions that come with Lavine.

Health has been an issue for Lavine throughout his career. Now in his tenth season, Lavine has played 65+ games just four times, and over halfway through this season, Lavine has only played in just 25 games.

Lavine has also never been part of a winning NBA team, raising questions about whether his game contributes to winning. He’s been on just one team with a .500 record or better in his NBA career, despite the Bulls attempting to build a championship contender around him. Of course it isn’t fair to put this on Lavine alone, and it doesn’t detract from his skill as a player, but it does raise red flags.

One of the reasons Lavine’s teams have struggled to win is that Lavine has never been a strong defender himself, despite having the physical tools to be one. That’s obviously an acute concern for a Kings team that desperately needs help defensively. Given Lavine’s offensive talent, his defensive limitations aren’t fatal. Plus, just because Lavine isn’t great defensively doesn’t make him a complete zero. In fact, several advanced metrics paint Lavine as just slightly below average on defense, which is probably sufficient. For example, Basketball Reference’s Defensive Box Plus/Minus, which estimates the points per 100 possessions a player contributes above league average, rates Lavine is at -0.5 this year and -0.7 last year, while Dunks and Threes Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus, a similar stat, rates Lavine at 0.2 the last two years (a little above average defensively). With that said, Lavine has rarely (never?) been part of a good defensive teams. His effort defensively can come and go, and the defensive stats one might look at to see effort (like steals, blocks, and deflections) don’t stand out at all. There’s also a little bit of Rockets James Harden to his game defensively, where he appears to sometimes lose track of his assignment inexplicably.

The net result is that while Lavine would help the Kings offensively, they can’t expect him to bring much more to the table on defense beyond slightly improved rebounding.

Trading for Lavine would probably help the Kings this season, but Lavine’s injury history and limitations on defense make that a risky bet in a vacuum. There’s also no guarantee that adding would help in the playoffs. Lavine has no real prior playoff successes himself, and it’s not clear how much of a benefit he would provide overall when rotations start to tighten and teams buckle down. And if there are struggles playing him alongside Fox and Monk, whether because of overlapping offensive skillsets or defensive limitations, adding Lavine may not add as much to the team’s playoff ceiling.

We also haven’t talked about Lavine’s contract yet, which may be the poison pill that ultimately kills the possibility of the Kings trading for him.

Lavine signed a 5 year, $215 million contract in 2022 that pays him $40 million this year, $43 million in 2024-25, $46 million in 2025-26, and gives him a player option for $49 million in 2026-27. He’s pretty likely to pick up that player option, so he’s effectively got four years and almost $180 million left on his deal.

Lavine’s future salary would be high for any player, and if Lavine can’t stay healthy or help deliver playoff success, they’re completely absurd for a team like the Kings to trade for.

Take a look at the chart below showing the projected salaries for the Kings core plus Lavine, compared to the projected salary cap and luxury tax line.

[For simplicity, I’ve assumed Fox signs an extension for a max contract, not the super max he could become eligible for if he makes another All-NBA team this year or next. I’ve also assumed that Murray signs an extension with a starting salary of $30 million in 2026-27, but you could imagine the extension ranging from $25-40 million depending on how well he plays. Those estimated salaries are shown in green.]

As you can see from the chart, even before trading for Lavine, the Kings core of Fox, Sabonis, and Murray is going to get expensive. Combined, the trio will make over $85 million in 2024-25, over $93 million in 2025-26, and could top $129 million in 2026-27. If Fox makes another All NBA team this year or next, or if Murray continues to develop, they could easily push the trio’s combined salary to almost $150 million before adding Lavine or filling out the roster.

Adding Lavine’s salary would be tough even before extensions the Fox and Murray kick in, as it would push the combined salary for just four players (Lavine plus Fox/Sabonis/Murray) to $128.5 million in 2024-25 and $139.2 million in 2025-26. That’s inching close to the cap in both seasons, and would leave little room for the Kings to maneuver elsewhere. They’d be limited in re-signing players, signing free agents, or trading for new talent without pushing toward the luxury tax line.

The 2026-27 season is where things could get really ugly from a cap standpoint, as extensions for Fox and Murray would likely put the Kings over the cap with just Lavine + Fox/Sabonis/Murray. Filling out the rest of the roster would likely put the Kings into the luxury tax—though the tax aprons probably wouldn’t be a huge issue (the Kings would still have about $39 million under the projected first apron and about $52 million under the projected second apron to operate). The Kings could theoretically try to find ways out of the luxury tax at that point by moving off Lavine’s contract in the last year, but getting off contracts always comes with its own challenges. Teams are often happy to take on expiring contracts but they usually want something valuable stapled to it like a future draft pick, and that ask would be comparatively high to eat a salary over $40 million (the imposition of a higher salary floor in the 2023 CBA could change market dynamics on this, as teams might be more willing to absorb big expiring contracts).

On top of thinking through future cap issues, the Kings also need to think about how to match Lavine’s salary in a trade. Complying with the trade salary matching rules for a $40+ million contract is, almost by definition, expensive—especially for a Kings team whose only big salaries are for meaningful rotation players.

Lavine’s $40.1 million salary this year means the Kings would have to send out about $31.9 million or more in any potential deal. There is simply no way for the Kings to piece together that much salary for a trade without raiding their current rotation. To get to $31.9 million in outgoing salary, the Kings would have to trade at least two or three players at a minimum. That would most likely be Barnes ($17 million) and Huerter ($15.7 million), or one of those two plus some combination of Monk ($9.9 million), Lyles ($8 million), Vezenkov ($6.3 million), Mitchell ($5.1 million), and Duarte ($4.1 million). Dealing Huerter and Monk might make the most sense given their skillsets overlap with Lavine’s the most, but that would be quite painful in terms of depth. For that kind of outlay to make sense, the Kings would have to be absolutely convinced that Lavine will seriously outperform Monk. That’s certainly possible, but it’s not a guarantee by any means.

Taking on Lavine’s huge salary and sending out multiple rotation players is tough to swallow given Lavine’s injury history, lack of playoff success, defensive limitations, and imperfect fit with Fox. This simply isn’t the most natural roster fit for Lavine. On top of that, the Bulls, somewhat surprisingly seem to be asking for first round draft pick compensation back from any team that wants Lavine, which further complicates things. Nobody appears all that ready to dish out picks to get Lavine—the consensus around the league appears to be that the Bulls should probably be willing to give away picks just to get Lavine’s salary off their own books . . .

Verdict: Hard pass on Lavine. Lavine is a good player, but it is hard to envision a trade for him making sense for the Kings. The contract issues, health questions, lack of defensive impact, and lack of playoff success make the price too much to absorb.

Alex Caruso

Even though Lavine isn’t a good fit, Chicago does have another very attractive trade target for the Kings: Alex Caruso.

Caruso isn’t a big household name. He’s played in relative obscurity on a mediocre Bulls team for the last three seasons and at a glance, his numbers aren’t eye-catching. He averages 10.1 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.7 assists in just under 26 minutes per game. He is, however, relatively efficient offensively: he shoots 49.1% from the floor and 41.5% from three and he rarely gives the ball away.

But Caruso really shines on defense, and his impact on that end of the floor shows up all over the place. Caruso is averages 1.3 steals and 1.0 blocks per game, which are both stellar numbers for a 6’5” guard. He’s also top-10 in the NBA in Basketball Reference’s Defensive Box Plus/Minus (10th) and Dunks and Threes’ Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus (8th). The Bulls, too, benefit enormously defensively with Caruso on the floor, as they give up about 5.5 fewer points per 100 possessions when he’s in the game according to PBP Stats.

Caruso’s impact defensively is obvious watching the Bulls play and it earned him All-Defensive NBA First Team honors last year. It’s also not new—he’s basically done the same thing his entire career, even dating back to his days at Texas A&M where he was on the All SEC Defensive team.

Caruso brings the kind of defensive presence the Kings are sorely missing on the perimeter. He’s big enough to take on guards that are too big and powerful for Fox or Monk to handle and agile enough to stick on guards that are too quick for Kevin Huerter. Caruso defending opposing guards would also free up Keegan Murray’s defensive responsibilities a bit. Murray is being asked to cover players like Steph Curry too often in the Kings’ current lineups, and while he typically does an admirable job, Murray is much better suited to guarding wings that he doesn’t need to chase as much.

At the same time, Caruso brings enough on offense that he would fit well with the Kings’ core. He shoots well enough from deep to maintain spacing (averaging 37.6% from three for his career), he moves well without the ball, and he’s a willing cutter, which plays well with Sabonis.

Caruso is basically a plug-and-play add that would raise the Kings’ floor defensively instantly.

The only real downsides to trading for Caruso are his age and the cost to get him. Caruso will turn 30 next month, so he’s probably in the back half of his defensive prime, though still young enough that it shouldn’t be a major concern. He also is an ideal fit for lots of playoff teams that could use a perimeter defender of his caliber. The Bucks, Sixers, Pacers, Nuggets, Suns, and Mavs would all benefit tremendously from adding a player like Caruso. Many of those teams have little to offer the Bulls in a trade, but it’s enough of a market that any deal for Caruso isn’t going to come cheaply. The Bulls haven’t shown a lot of interest in dealing Caruso to date, but given their current roster situation, it’s hard to see why they wouldn’t deal him for a solid offer.

Despite Caruso’s age and a potentially hot market, the Kings would be wise to consider giving up meaningful future draft capital to get him. He would give the Kings enough juice on the defensive perimeter to meaningfully improve their overall prospects, even if he doesn’t provide a ton offensively. Being able to roll out line-ups with two strong perimeter defenders would go a long way to improving the Kings defense generally, hopefully with an effect similar to what the Knicks got after adding an elite perimeter defender in OG Anounoby (though less dramatic). Getting Caruso shouldn’t be nearly as expensive as prying Anounoby away from the Raptors was, and Caruso’s $9-10 million salary over this year and next is a bargain compared to the $30+ million that Anounoby is likely to receive. It’s also easier than trying to add rim protection alongside Sabonis, which could really compromise the Kings’ offense.

The Kings could potentially get Caruso with just a small outgoing salary like Davion Mitchell’s ($5.1 million) plus future draft picks. That would give the Kings flexibility to play stronger defensive line-ups with Caruso, but keep the option to bring more offensive firepower off the bench with Huerter and Monk. Alternatively, the Kings could send Huerter ($15.7 million) to Chicago for Caruso and a smaller, expendable contract like Andre Drummond’s ($3.4 million). That would cost the Kings a bit more in terms of offensive firepower, but it might mitigate the amount of future draft capital that the Kings would need to send out. The Bulls could use shooting (they rank 20th in three point percentage), and Huerter is still young and has a favorable contract for the next three seasons.

There’s also a funky (and far-fetched) alternative the Kings could offer if the Bulls want to get off of Lonzo Ball, who hasn’t played a game since January 2022 due to a career threatening knee injury. Ball just got cleared to run this month, and it’s possible he will never play again—yet he is on the books for $20.5 million this year and has a player option for $21.4 million next season that he is assuredly going to exercise. The Bulls have paid Ball to not play for two years and could be looking at another one (the Bulls could try to stretch Ball’s salary to save themselves the salary cap hit, but they’re still paying for no on court production if they do). The Kings could send Huerter ($15.7 million) + Mitchell ($5.1 million) + Duarte ($4.1 million) and a future first to the Bulls in exchange for Caruso ($9.5 million) and Ball ($20.5 million). There’s risk to the Kings here, as they’d be sending out Huerter and a pick, plus absorbing a year of Ball’s contract, but the deal could work out well for the Kings if Ball can return to playing (he’s a good distributor, shooter, and defender when he plays) and the down-side of carrying Ball’s $21.4 million contract next season is palatable for the Kings, since it would end before extensions for Fox and Murray kick in. Meanwhile the Bulls would get shooting they need on a movable contract in Huerter, plus free looks at Mitchell and Duarte.

Verdict: This is the guy this trade season the Kings should want (given we couldn’t get a deal done for OG)! I really like the idea of the Kings trading for Caruso, so long as they don’t have to sell the farm in terms of draft picks to get him (giving up multiple first rounders gets to be too pricey without big protections on the picks). Obviously, the Kings can’t overpay dramatically—but giving up a little more than Caruso’s actually worth because of his limited offense is still fine given his defensive prowess. He’s a clear floor raiser that could hopefully transform the team’s identity on defense from middling to hounding, and adding him would let Fox and Murray guard guys they’re more naturally suited to. The Kings are right to bet on their core, but adding Caruso is the type of incremental move that can actually enable that growth to happen smoothly.

Hawks Trade Targets

The Hawks are in a weird spot. They’re hanging on by a thread to a spot in the play in at 10th in the East, but this season has largely been forgettable. They’re certainly not as good as they envisioned when they gave up three first round picks and a first round swap right to add Dejounte Murray a year and a half ago. There’s a lot of smoke around the Hawks shedding pieces that don’t fit well together, so there is a ripe chance for the Kings to make a deal.

Dejounte Murray

Before trading for Dejounte Murray, the Hawks had a high-usage, deep shooting scorer in Trae Young who couldn’t play defense. To shore up their squad, the Hawks traded an absolute haul to the Spurs for Murray, a lanky and athletic 6’5” point guard, in the hopes that he would bring excellent defense, downhill scoring, and strong ball distribution.

His last season in San Antonio, Murray averaged 21.1 points, 9.2 assists, 8.3 rebounds, and 2.0 steals per game, and he brought an athletic, attacking style that put a ton of pressure on defenses. Murray would run right at guys to get them in backpedals and either get to the rim, pull up for short jumpers and midrange shots, or kick the ball to open shooters. Fitting that game alongside Trae Young made some sense on paper.

But that hypothesis hasn’t worked out at all like the Hawks hoped.

Offensively, the Murray-Young pairing has been like oil and water. Far too often, they end up playing an undesirable brand of “your turn, my turn” basketball, where neither player really does anything to help the other succeed. Teams like the Dallas Mavericks have done that in the past, but Doncic and Irving are transcendent offensive talents who still had to learn to play more complimentary basketball to start winning games more often.

Since joining Atlanta, Murray’s offensive efficiency has stayed pretty solid, but he’s had to change his game a bit too. It’s not clear that it’s really an improvement. As Murray’s usage rate has dropped, his assist rate has plummeted to 22.2% this year, down from 40.6% his last year with the Spurs. He’s also shifted to a more perimeter-oriented game, which shows up in the numbers. Murray now shoots 6.2 threes per game compared to just 4.3 per game in his last year in San Antonio. Though he’s hitting threes at a career high clip—38.7% from three this year compared to a career average of 34.6%—he’s also not getting downhill nearly as often. Murray is shooting a lower proportion of his shots from inside 10 feet, making fewer trips to the line, and getting offensive rebounds less frequently, all of which indicate his game is moving farther and farther away from the basket. That’s normal as a player ages, but Murray is still just 27 years old and in his athletic prime. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with Murray’s move outward (it does create more space on the interior), it’s not quite what the Hawks envisioned when they traded for Murray, and they don’t have other players who’ve stepped up to put downhill pressure on defenses and score in the paint.

At the same time, Murray hasn’t been the elite defensive weapon that many thought he might turn into based on his time with the Spurs. Murray’s steals rate has dropped each of the past two years, from 2.8% his last year as a Spur to 1.8% this year. Per Dunks and Threes, his Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus has also dropped too; he was in the 81st percentile of defenders his last year with the Spurs, but he’s dropped to the 53rd percentile this year. While Murray’s defensive reputation was probably a little overblown, he’s still had a meaningful drop-off on that end of the floor. That may be on Murray or it may be on the Hawks as a team, but it’s been an issue for them trying to pair Young and Murray regardless.

The net result has been the Hawks failing to live up to their own expectations, and it seems like they’re ready to get off of Murray. The Hawks have also overpaid several players on their roster, such that they’re already within $10 million of the luxury tax line this year and projected to be about $9 million below the luxury tax next year, so they have a clear incentive to get out of Murray’s contract if they want to create more operating space to adjust their roster. That presents an opportunity for the Kings to get Murray or someone else off the Hawks roster.

Fitting Murray on the Kings does raise some of the same issues that have come up for the Hawks in the Trae Young-Dejounte Murray pairing.

Offensively, it’s a cautionary tale of sorts for a potential Fox-Murray backcourt. Fox is one of just nine players in the league with a higher usage rate than Trae Young, so there’s a concern that he and Murray could end up playing “your turn, my turn” offense too. And Fox and Murray both seem to be moving their games out toward the perimeter and away from the paint, which might be too much of the same thing. But there are a few things that I think would make adding Murray to the Kings more feasible.

One point of adding Murray is to solidify the Kings’ offense when Fox sits, which minimizes some of the risk that they have overlapping skillsets. During those minutes, the Kings try to run offense through Sabonis. Murray’s pull-up shooting and quickness should work well off of Sabonis in the high post, and Murray is athletic enough to serve as a capable cutter off actions where Sabonis starts with the ball (though Murray doesn’t cut often enough now). Murray is also an experienced pick and roll initiator, running 7.3 pick and rolls per game, which would be an effective half-court tool for Murray-Sabonis lineups. Murray’s ball-handling and knack for avoiding turnovers would also be a big benefit to the Kings. While Fox does a good job taking care of the ball, the Kings’ other primary ball-handlers (Sabonis and Monk) turn the ball over too often. Finally, Murray’s improved three point shooting has really shorn up what was previously a weakness. Murray is an effective spot up shooter, scoring about 1.18 points per possession on those shots, and he’s managed to push out his range beyond the three point line. If he can keep that up, he would be an effective floor spacer that can also attack close outs (much like Monk, and to a lesser extent Barnes, already do for the Kings), which puts a lot of pressure on defenses to collapse to the paint and opens up other shooters.

On the defensive end, even the Hawks version of Murray would be an upgrade for the Kings’ perimeter defense. He’s bigger and lankier than Fox and Monk, and quicker on his feet than Huerter or Keegan Murray, which would provide some benefit against scoring guards. He also has active hands defensively to generate steals and deflections (3.0 deflections per game, tied for 10th in the NBA), which would be a nice addition. If it does turn out that the Spurs defense version of Murray is still there, the upgrade is even more obvious.

Let’s turn to the contract situation. Murray signed a four year, $120 million extension this off-season, but his salary this year is just $18.2 million, which makes salary matching a bit easier. The Kings would have options of who to send out, but the Hawks roster is in such a transition state that it’s hard to know what they would want back. Presumably, players with contracts cheaper than Dejounte Murray’s going forward like Barnes and Huerter would have some appeal to the Hawks, as they could get them another $7.5-10 million in cap relief next season. But those guys probably don’t add much for the Hawks on the court. A three-way deal could make more sense, as Huerter or Barnes could be more useful to a playoff contender. The Hawks have a big trade exception of over $23 million from the John Collins trade with Utah that could be used to facilitate such a three way deal so they don’t have to take back $45 million or more in long term salary, as they would have to do if they accepted Barnes or Huerter.

The real prize for the Hawks in a Dejounte Murray deal with the Kings would be draft picks and salary cap relief. The Hawks already have Sacramento’s 2024 first round pick (top 14 protected), but they are still pretty short on draft equity from 2025 to 2027. They might jump at the chance to get another future first rounder from the Kings, plus whatever could come from a third team for Huerter or Barnes. The Hawks aren’t going to recover the three first rounders and a pick swap they gave to get Murray, but if they can get back 70% of that, it might be worth cutting bait.

The cap relief benefit for the Hawks is also real. They’re almost $24 million over the cap this year, and the problem gets worse in the next two years. If the Hawks do nothing, Dejounte Murray’s extension will kick in next season, and they also have to decide what to do with restricted free agents Jalen Johnson (2025) and Saddiq Bey (2024). The Hawks could deal Bey at the deadline, but extending Johnson is a must. The Hawks are also probably stuck overpaying a bit for Trae Young ($40-50 million) and De’Andre Hunter ($20-25 million) each year through 2026-27, and they likely want to hold on to quality players on reasonable, tradable contracts like Bogdan Bogdanovic (making $16-19 million on a declining contract through 2026-27) and Onyeka Okongwu (making $14-17 million through 2027-28). The Hawks are in a tough cap situation, so they’re going to have to let someone go below market value. Trading Murray would probably get them the cap relief they need and allow them to get back reasonable valuable in terms of future assets.

Verdict: Only if the price is right. Ultimately, I think a Kings trade for Dejounte Murray would be super interesting, but it’s high risk. If Murray can’t play with Fox effectively, as he’s struggled to do with Trae Young in Atlanta, the Kings could be looking at moving him on from him relatively quickly. That said, the Hawks are in a precarious cap situation without an obvious way out, so it’s possible that the Kings could nab a clear talent on a reasonable contract without giving up a ton of on-court talent. I’d be comfortable letting Huerter head back to Atlanta, giving up a future first rounder, and adding perhaps some additional draft capital (second rounders or a first swap, perhaps) to get a deal done, but not much more than that.

De’Andre Hunter / Saddiq Bey / Bogdan Bogdonavic

I mentioned De’Andre Hunter, Saddiq Bey, and Bogdan Bogdanovic in the Dejounte Murray section. These guys are all different players and in totally different contract situations, but they could also make for appealing trade targets. I’ll go quickly here.

De’Andre Hunter is the most interesting, but he’s also totally confounding. Hunter is a 6’8” wing that sports incredible length and athleticism. He can also shoot well from distance and he’s young, only 26 years old. He was drafted as a prototypical 3-and-D player who could cover four positions, and he looks like he should be exactly that. Hell, the Hawks gave him a 4 year, $95 million extension because they thought that’s what he is.

But the on-court production has been consistently underwhelming, and it’s hard to figure out exactly why. Hunter is scoring 15 points per game on a slash line of 46% from the field, 40.4% from three, and 90.7% from the line, but it still feels disappointing. Despite the solid offensive numbers, his impact on games is hard to see unless you squint. You don’t see him making plays that pop as a scorer or a passer, and he offers way less than he should as a rebounder given his physical profile. Hunter also hasn’t lived up to his prospects as a defender, and you rarely see him pop on that end of the court either. Advanced metrics show him to be a bit of a paper tiger defensively too—his Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus of -1.1 is in the 26th percentile of all players.

Hunter’s profile and shooting ability makes him an intriguing target, but his marginal impact on games in four of his five seasons in the league makes it hard buy into the next four years and $95 million of his contract. Given that, it’s hard to see the Kings swinging a deal for him unless they believe he’s got a leap in him. Trading for Hunter would require sending out Barnes or Huerter plus another player, and he just hasn’t produced enough to warrant that and taking on more salary at the same time. I would love for the Kings to add a player with his physical profile on defense to add length on the perimeter, but it’s hard to justify at $20-25 million a year.

Saddiq Bey is another player whose early prospects looked more promising than his actual NBA performance. Bey is only 24 years old and is a bit of a SF/PF tweener, but he can get points and rebound reasonably well at a low usage rate, though he’s not particularly efficient. He’s sort of like a less consistent Harrison Barnes, but he brings better rebounding and worse shooting. He might be useful to shore up the Kings rotation, but he’s not going to meaningfully improve the roster in the near term. He is also on the last year of his contract, so he will be a free agent next year even if the Kings trade for him—but his $4.6 million salary is easy to match this year and the Kings may be able to get him cheaply.

Kings fans know and love Bogdanovic. He’s pretty good at a lot of things (scoring, passing, defense), and he’s on a totally reasonable contract that pays him between $16-19 million through the 2026-27 season, the last year being a team option to boot. That said, Bogdanovic doesn’t truly excel at any one thing and probably wouldn’t be a big upgrade for the Kings (plus, the the Kings already picked Huerter over Bogdanovic in a way, and it’s not like it hasn’t worked out). He doesn’t shoot better than Monk or Huerter, he isn’t a stellar ball handler or offensive organizer, and he has similar defensive limitations that the Kings have lived through before. I love the guy, but he doesn’t make sense as an addition this season, though it’s possible he’ll be traded off the Hawks.

Verdict: Only if the price is right. Of the three, Hunter and Bey are probably the most interesting, but I wouldn’t give up a future first to take either of them. Hunter for Huerter and a second rounder or Bey for a second rounder plus Kessler Edwards or Chris Duarte would be reasonable, but there’s no reason to break the bank to get these guys.

Jazz Trade Targets

The Jazz don’t need to make a trade this year, but they’ve shown a willingness to deal players (even very good ones) in order to build up a long term championship roster. They’re playing well right now, which could mean they’re less likely to make a move—although a surprisingly strong showing last season didn’t stop them from dealing Mike Conley to the Timberwolves. The Jazz currently sit 10th in the West and are playing well, but they’ve bounced in and out of the play in so far.

Lauri Markkanen

A Kings trade for Lauri Markkanen is a huge long-shot given his talent and the likely cost to get him, but man, would it be fun to watch! It’s the kind of big swing trade that can really raise the team’s ceiling, without having to bet on a player that may be past his prime.

Just 26 years old, Markannen is the type of offensive force that can fit onto basically any team. At seven feet tall, Markkanen is an elite scorer (24.0 points per game) that can space the floor with ease (he’s shooting over 39% from three the last two seasons on heavy volume), and he rarely turns the ball over (1.7 turnovers per game this year). Markkanen scores effectively off of catch and shoots, in transition, off offensive rebounds, and as a cutter, and he’s also able to get downhill to pressure the basket despite not being an particularly good ballhandler. He doesn’t need the ball much to be effective, as he’s getting 12+ shots up per game on touches of under two seconds and hitting over 50% of them.

Even though Markkanen was drafted as a floor-spacing big, during the last two seasons in Utah, he’s also developing into a very good interior scorer. Prior to joining the Jazz, Markkanen scored about 5-6 points in the paint per game, but last season he upped that to 10.2 paint points per game according to NBA.com (he’s holding pretty steady this year at 8.7 paint points per game and keeping his overall scoring numbers up).

Adding Markkanen to the Kings would be an enormous boon offensively, where his scoring prowess would essentially eliminate concerns about the King’s offense struggling when De’Aaron Fox sits. Markkanen’s strong shooting, quick trigger, and ability to score off cuts would make him a fantastic fit with Sabonis, and he’s big enough to play as a pick and roll partner with Fox or Monk when Sabonis sits (even though he hasn’t done that much in Utah). You can even imagine some funky big-big plays where Markkanen plays off of Sabonis dribble hand-offs or runs inverted pick and rolls with him, which would be wild to watch and totally throw off lots of NBA defenses.

Defensively, Markkanen isn’t a ceiling raiser, though he would still probably help the Kings a bit. He has much more size than current forwards Harrison Barnes and Trey Lyles, which would let the Kings add desperately needed length at the rim and rebounding. A starting front line made up of Sabonis, Markkanen, and Keegan Murray would bring a ton of size and rebounding that could be tough for some undersized Western Conference teams like the Clippers and Thunder to deal with.

Obviously everyone knows Markkanen is good, he was an All-Star last year, so the toughest part about getting a deal done for him would be the cost to acquire him. While his age, offensive game, and adaptability would fit perfectly on the Kings, those same factors also make him an attractive player for Utah to build around and for other teams to target, so Utah can wait for a Godfather offer or choose not to move him at all. The Jazz have also historically demanded enormous hauls to trade away players of Markkanen’s caliber: the Donovan Mitchell trade netted the Jazz three young players (Markkanen, Collin Sexton, Ochai Agbaji), three future first rounders, and two first round pick swaps, while the Rudy Gobert trade similarly resulted in the Jazz getting young players (Walker Kessler, Jared Vanderbilt, and Leandro Bolmaro), two veterans (Malik Beasley and Patrick Beverley), three first round picks, and two first round pick swaps.

To get Markkanen, the Kings would have to put together a huge offer. That means they would probably have to give up all of the first round picks they can feasibly make available. To do so, the Kings would have to free up restrictions on the 2024 first round pick owed to the Hawks so that the Kings could trade three first round picks (2026, 2028, and 2030), and they would also potentially have to give the Jazz pick swap rights for some of the years the Kings retain their first rounders (2025, 2027, and 2029).

In addition, to match Markkanen’s $17.3 million salary, the Kings would need to send out at least $9.8 million in salary, which would probably mean trading away either (A) Harrison Barnes, (B) Kevin Huerter, (C) Davion Mitchell and another player, or (D) perhaps most realistically, whatever Utah asks for (within reason). Still, because Markkanen’s salary is relatively low compared to players like Zach Lavine, salary matching alone wouldn’t force the Kings to raid their depth as much.

If the Kings were to deal for Markkanen, they’d be locking in a young, elite offensive core (Markkanen is 26, Fox is 26, Sabonis is 27, and Murray is 23). But the Kings would also probably be limited to this core, and would potentially face steep cap restrictions and luxury tax bills down the line.

Markkanen is on the books for 2024-25 at $18.0 million, but signing him to an extension could easily cost upwards of $40 million per season. The 2024-25 season would be fine: Fox, Markannen, Sabonis, and Murray would combine to have a salary of just under $103.5 million (the salary cap should be around $142 million), but things could get really tight after that—much like with a potential trade for Zach Lavine (discussed above).

If Markkanen were to be extended with a first year starting salary of $45 million, a four player core of Fox/Sabonis/Murray/Markkanen would make about $138.1 million in 2025-26, $176.8 million in 2026-27, and $186.4 million in 2027-28—again, assuming Fox is extended to a max deal (not a supermax) and Murray is extended starting at $30 million. Those figures would be about $9 million higher if Fox signed a supermax, and it’s possible Murray could sign for more than $30 million too.

In other words, with just four players, in 2025-26 the Kings would have only about $18 million in cap room to fill out their roster, although they’d be about $51 million under the luxury tax line. In 2026-27, those four players would put them about $5 million over the cap, with just under $32 million of room below the luxury tax line. In 2027-28, the team would be about $2 million below the cap, with about $43.3 million in luxury tax room. [You can see the projected cap and tax levels in Part 3.]

Those kind of salary cap/luxury tax issues would probably be worthwhile if things panned out with Markkanen and Murray, so it’s hard to fuss too much. Unlike with the Lavine trade, the Kings would also get a chance to see how a core of Fox/Sabonis/Markkanen/Murray functions before they have to commit to any extensions for Fox, Markkanen, and Murray. Putting aside Markkanen’s better fit with the Kings roster, that’s a massive distinction between a trade for Markkanen and Lavine, as the Kings have time to figure out potential cap issues along the way, and they could always unwind a Markkanen deal if it didn’t work out.

Verdict: Only if the price is right, but man it would be fun! I think this one is far-fetched given what the Jazz are likely to ask for in return, but I’d be excited about it if it did happen—this kind of deal could make the Kings the best offensive team in the league. The defense might struggle but hey, how many teams can put up 150? If the Jazz demanded three future firsts and swaps, as they probably will, this doesn’t make sense—but if the price comes down? I’d go for it.

John Collins

It’s much more plausible that the Jazz trade forward John Collins. Collins, now 26 years old, is a 6’9” power forward who the Hawks traded to the Jazz last year in exchange for Rudy Gay and a future second round pick after things didn’t work out in Atlanta. The Hawks wanted to get out of Collins’ contract, which pays him a little over $26 million a year through 2025-26 assuming he exercises his player option in the last year of the deal.

Collins is a bit polarizing as a player and in recent years he hasn’t quite played to his ceiling. He is talented, athletic, and has the ability to score at the rim, get to the line, hit threes, rebound, and contest shots. Although Collins doesn’t really create a ton of offense for himself and he’s not a great distributor, he excels at finishing at the basket (he’s a career 75%+ shooter from within 3 feet according to Basketball Reference) and has been a solid floor spacer most years, even if he’s not an elite shooter like Markkanen. He’s a career 35.6% three point shooter on relatively low volume (about 3 to 3.5 threes per game)—he’s managed to pull his shooting back up to his career average after dropping to under 30% last season, which may have been attributable to an ugly finger injury.

Collins has some attributes that would be helpful aside from his scoring. He’s pretty good on the glass, sporting a career rebounding rate is 14.9%, though that has waned a bit in recent years as he’s become less active on the offensive glass in particular. And even though he’s not a true rim protector, Collins does provide some shot blocking, averaging more than 1.0 blocks per game each year of his career but one. Early in his career, Collins also graded out as a reasonable defensive player. According to Dunks and Threes, Collins posted defensive EPMs between -0.4 and 1.3 for his first five years in the league. But this year, he’s dropped off dramatically, to the point where it’s a significant concern. His defensive EPM per Dunks and Threes has dropped to -2.1 and his defensive rating has dropped all the way to 121.3 per NBA.com.

Overall, Collins could bring scoring, rebounding, and athleticism to the Kings’ front court, though the team would take a step back in terms of shooting and passing. At this year’s defensive performance levels, Collins would be a step backward, but I do think there’s a good chance he can recover his form since this year’s defensive numbers are an outlier for him.

Given the Jazz got Collins for peanuts just last year (basically a second round pick), it’s doubtful that the Kings would have to pay a ton of draft capital to obtain him—perhaps as little as a protected first or a couple second rounders. To match Collins’ $25.3 million salary this year, though, the Kings would also have to be willing to deal players. Likely, the Kings would send out Harrison Barnes ($17 million) and another player with some untapped potential like Davion Mitchell ($6.4 million) or another back-end player like Chris Duarte ($4.1 million). Such a trade would net the Jazz some pick equity, a flier on Mitchell, and some cap flexibility in 2025-26. The Kings would lose some cap flexibility and lineup versatility at guard in particular, but they’d still have the ability to go after other trade targets, too. Alternatively, the Kings could try to send out Huerter ($15.7 million) instead of Barnes.

I think trading for Collins would be a smart shot to take, although it’s not a “must” by any means. He’s not an obvious part of Utah’s future plans because he overlaps positionally with Markkanen, Utah’s best player, and they have Walker Kessler at center. As a result, the price to get Collins could be pretty reasonable if Utah doesn’t see him as part of its future. His game should work well with Fox and Sabonis, and he would provide the Kings with better size, athleticism, and rebounding, and could provide some defensive help inside as well. But the Kings need to believe he will continue to rebound well and recover some of his defensive form, otherwise a deal doesn’t make sense. You can’t pay $25-26 million for the next three years for Collins if he’s going to play bottom-of-the-league level defense.

Giving up Barnes or Huerter would hurt a bit, but Mitchell and Duarte barely play, and sacrificing a protected first or some second round picks to raise the team’s ceiling seems worthwhile. At the same time, the Kings would only be adding about $2 million in salary in 2024-25 and $7.6 million in 2025-26, but those seasons will be before extensions for Fox and Murray would kick in anyway. Plus, even though Collins would be overpaid, he’ll still be in his prime and his contract isn’t so big that there would be no market for him if the Kings need to get out of the deal down the road.

The Kings could make a trade for Collins even more desirable by trying to add Kris Dunn to the deal. I’ll discuss Dunn more below.

Verdict: Only if the price is right. Barnes + Duarte + a protected future first rounder (or various seconds) seems like a fine deal, and the Kings could even go up a bit from there if needed. If the Jazz demand Mitchell, I’d want to also try to get Kris Dunn in the deal to keep some defense, even though that could add to the price.

Kris Dunn

Dunn is a 29 year old point guard known for his defensive prowess. Dunn never developed into a strong offensive player and his shooting is pretty suspect, but he offers very good perimeter defense. Although only about 6’3”, Dunn has very good length and he’s physically strong enough to hold up at the point of attack against most guards. For the Kings, this would pair well with Fox and Monk, who can struggle with more powerful guards. Dunn would provide the defensive help that the team hoped to get from Davion Mitchell, but in a bigger package that more readily compliments Fox in particular on defense.

Offensively, Dunn really wouldn’t provide much help. He’s essentially a non-factor from the perimeter, as he takes just over 1.5 threes per game this season and he is a career 32% shooter from three. He’s also doesn’t break down defenses off the dribble or provide significant playmaking, though thankfully he doesn’t hold on to the ball too much either. Still, because the Kings run so much of their offense through Fox, Sabonis, and Monk, the Kings wouldn’t be asking him to create offense—the only real compromise would be to spacing, which the Kings already have to give up when they play Duarte or Mitchell anyway.

Dunn is on the last year of his contract and his salary for this year is just $2.5 million, so he’s not likely to be a long-term answer for the Kings and they shouldn’t give up a ton to get him. But he would help improve the defense and offer alternate line-ups against teams with attacking guards that are too big for Fox (for example, the Timberwolves, Thunder, and Clippers). The Jazz have Keyonte George, Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, and Ochai Agbaji on longer contracts, so they don’t have much reason to hold onto Dunn past the deadline, so the cost to acquire him or add him to a deal for John Collins shouldn’t be high.

Verdict: Do it (assuming the Kings can’t get Caruso or Finney-Smith)! A small deal for Dunn or a combo deal for Collins and Dunn would both help the Kings improve in the near term and set them up well for the next couple of seasons.

Nets Trade Targets

The Nets have fallen into a hole. Since the start of December, they’re 7-18 and have dropped out of the play in, which would counsel in favor of a reset. But they don’t control most of their own first round picks as a result of the James Harden trade two years ago, so they don’t have a strong incentive to strip the roster down to the studs and hope for a better draft pick. They don’t seem desperate to do deadline deals even though they perhaps should be more willing to consider offers.

Mikal Bridges / Cam Johnson

The prime trade target on the Nets is undoubtedly Mikal Bridges, but all indications are that he isn’t likely to be available based on recent reports. I won’t spend a ton of time on Bridges, but he would be a pretty stellar get for the Kings as he is only 27 years old and offers high-quality perimeter defense and strong shooting at a pretty reasonable contract price—$23.3 million next season and $24.9 million in 2025-26. He’s over-extended as a lead scorer in Brooklyn, as reflected by his dip in efficiency and their inability to win games, but he would be a great fit alongside Fox, Sabonis, and Murray because he would offer better scoring than Huerter, similar shooting capability, and dramatically improved defense. Alas, the Nets probably won’t trade him, and the Kings would probably have to move a Markkanen level package to get him anyway. But we can always dream!

Cam Johnson would also be a great trade target for the Kings, although less appealing than Bridges. Johnson is also 27 years old and on a reasonable 4 year, $94.5 million contract. He’s a little bigger than Bridges, and though he is a solid defender, he’s not as versatile defending the perimeter. But Johnson can absolutely stroke it from three point range, where he’s a career 39.3% shooter, so he can find minutes on any roster. Johnson would be able to replace Barnes in the starting line up and offer a bit better defense at the power forward position. Given Brooklyn just signed Johnson to an extension and has given no indication they want to move him, he’s also a pretty far-fetched trade target and not worth spending a lot of time on. But if the Kings could get him for a deal centered around a future first round pick, a trade would be worth considering.

Verdict: Only if the price is right (and it probably won’t be).

Dorian Finney-Smith

Even though the Nets probably won’t deal Bridges or Johnson, there’s been smoke about teams inquiring about the availability of Dorian Finney-Smith (including the Kings).

Finney-Smith is a relatively unheralded player, but he’s a popular trade target for teams ahead of the deadline this year. At 6’8” and 220 pounds, Finney-Smith plays high-quality defense, is versatile enough to guard wings and power forwards effectively, and knocks down threes at a solid clip (37.8% this year and 35.9% for his career). Each of the past six seasons, Finney-Smith has posted Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus scores of at least 0.6 per Dunks and Threes, which confirms what you see on film: Finney-Smith is good at defense.

Because he plays solid defense and hit threes, Finney-Smith is the type of player who can find a role on any team. Adding Finney-Smith would give the Kings two plus perimeter defenders (with Keegan Murray), and provide a lot of versatility and pick-and-roll switchability on defense, which is extremely valuable in the postseason. Finney-Smith won’t provide much in terms of offense, but he’s a good enough shooter that he wouldn’t compromise the Kings’ floor spacing the way that a player like Kris Dunn would.

The contract situation for Finney-Smith is also pretty reasonable. He’s got three years left in his deal (the last of which is a player option) at $13.9 million this year, $14.9 million next year, and $15.4 million in 2025-26—not exactly a bargain basement prices, but definitely favorable. The Kings could do a deal for Finney-Smith by sending out draft compensation and one of Harrison Barnes ($17 million), Kevin Huerter ($15.7 million), or Trey Lyles ($8 million). Sending out just Lyles and a draft pick would let the Kings improve on the floor defensively and only sacrifice some size in backup line-ups; the Nets, meanwhile, would save money and get pick compensation.

Verdict: Do it (if no Caruso deal), and be willing to overpay a little! A Finney-Smith trade is pretty appealing given his reasonable contract and defensive capabilities. He would give the Kings a second plus defender with versatility, which would allow them to improve their perimeter defense and expand the ways they can play in the playoffs, all at a reasonable cost. If the Kings can get Finney-Smith for Lyles and some second round picks, I’d be ecstatic. I’d be willing to send out a first round pick too, but would want to add some protections. Getting much beyond that starts to get too pricey though, given Finney-Smith isn’t an All-Defense level player like Caruso and his offense is pretty limited.

Royce O’Neal / Lonnie Walker IV / Spencer Dinwiddie / Nic Claxton

The Nets also have a few other players who might be helpful to the Kings ahead of the trade deadline. None of them are likely to dramatically change the Kings’ playoff prospects on their own, but they could be part of a trade package that brings some defense and bench depth to the Kings. These are solid players who have roles on a functional NBA roster, but they’re only worth pursuing if they can be obtained at a reasonable price.

There have been a handful of rumors about the Kings being interested in Royce O’Neal, alongside Finney-Smith. O’Neal is solid defender, but at just 6’6”, he’s on the smaller side for a forward. On top of that, he is already 30 years old, a pending free agent, and offensively doesn’t offer much but hitting open threes (he’s a career 38% three point shooter). On his own, O’Neal probably doesn’t warrant a trade for much. That said, O’Neal has a $9.5 million salary for a contract that expires this off-season, so the Kings might be able to snag him for little more than a salary match and a second rounder, or add him to a potential trade for another Nets player. He would offer the Kings some defensive versatility, but I don’t think he’s good enough to get too excited about on his own.

In a lot of ways, Lonnie Walker IV is presents a similar trade scenario to Royce O’Neal. He’s also on an expiring deal, though at a salary of only $2 million. Walker IV is a better shooter and scorer than O’Neal, but he’s more of a traditional guard and offers pretty average defense overall. He’s not a player the Kings should target as a stand-alone, but if they do a deal with the Nets, he could be an interesting piece to pull into the deal to help bolster the Kings bench without incurring a big expense.

Spencer Dinwiddie is the best offensive player of this bunch, but he’s having a bit of an odd season overall. On the one hand, he’s a 30 year old guard who has never established a clear identity as a point guard or shooting guard. His shooting has also been awful (just 39.7% from the field and 33.2% from three this season). On the other hand, the Nets are about 3 points better with Dinwiddie on the court this season (per PBP Stats) and advanced metrics suggest he’s an above average player on both offense and defense. At the end of the day, Dinwiddie offers some reasonable scoring ability and shot creation (even if it’s inefficient at times) and decent perimeter defense. He’s also on an expiring contract and the Nets probably aren’t in a rush to bring him back given his age and positional ambiguity, so he can probably be had for cheap. The Kings would have to send out at least $13.8 million in salary to get Dinwiddie, and because they don’t have have that much in expiring salary (other than Malik Monk) that the Nets might want, they would probably ending up sending Brooklyn draft picks to get a deal done. Sending picks out for Dinwiddie is a little hard to swallow given the Kings needs, so presumably a deal for him won’t happen unless it’s part of a bigger trade. He would bring the ability to stabilize the Kings offense when Fox sits, though, so it’s OK to keep him on the radar.

Nic Claxton would be an interesting add for the Kings, although it’s pretty unlikely the Nets would actually part ways with him and he would be a short-term rental given he is in the last year of his cotract. Claxton is a 24 year old, 6’11” center, and he brings strong rim protection and shot blocking, effective rebounding, and a solid offensive game predicated on transition offense and rim-running. Claxton’s athleticism would make him a viable part of the Kings’ transition offense, but he’s a non-shooter, so it’s hard to envision how he would play with Sabonis right now. That, combined with the pending expiration of Claxton’s contract, makes him an imperfect fit for the Kings this year. The Nets also haven’t given any reason to think they want to deal Claxton, so he’s probably staying put anyway.

Verdict: Small deals for O’Neal or Walker IV would be good, but pass on Dinwiddie and Claxton unless it’s a bargain.

Blazers Trade Targets

Whether they acknowledge it or not, the Blazers went into rebuilding mode when they traded Damian Lillard this past offseason. Their record reflects that, as their 13-33 record is fifth worst in the NBA. They’ve retained some veteran players anyway in the hopes for a quick turnaround, but given the age of their future core and performance on the court so far, that’s probably wishful thinking. This team is probably 2-3 years away from competing meaningfully, but you wouldn’t know that looking at how they’ve allocated their resources. They should be looking to make deals to get future assets and young players, and to get off of some of their higher-priced vets.

Jerami Grant

Jerami Grant is a perplexing player to me. He’s an athletic forward with great size and length (standing 6’7” with a huge 7’3” wingspan), he can score, he moves well defensively, and he fills up the stat sheet. He’s averaging 21.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 0.7 steals, and 0.8 blocks per game with good shooting numbers: 45.9% from the field, 41.0% from three, and 79.8 from the line. He can score at all three levels and has the length, athleticism, and quickness to guard a range of positions defensively.

But his impact on the game too often feels too marginal. He’s not quite a looter in a riot, but Grant’s lofty numbers have come during four straight seasons on completely uncompetitive teams. Advanced metrics don’t paint a particularly rosy picture for Grant either. Now in his tenth season, Grant’s career Box Plus/Minus (per Basketball Reference) is just -0.4, and he’s never posted a BPM over 1.2; Dunks and Threes Estimated Plus-Minus tells a similar story, as Grant routinely grades out as an above average player, but nowhere near a star.

But Grant is certainly paid a lot like a star, in fact he just signed a 5 year, $160 million contract this off-season—borderline All-Star money. He’s never really lived up to that billing.

Still, Grant has some skills that would definitely help the Kings roster, and he wouldn’t have to be the best player on the team (he’s been miscast as a lead scorer in Detroit and Portland, although in fairness that is because he chose that purposefully).

Offensively, Grant is a versatile scorer who can knock down threes (36.3% from three for his career) and get to the rim, and he does a good job of getting to the free throw line (5.3 free throws per game). Although Grant can be a little sticky with the ball, he’s a substantially better scorer than Barnes, and he can get to his shots in a variety of different ways. Playing with Sabonis and Fox, it’s also likely that Grant’s efficiency would improve—he’s a little stifled on a Portland team that lacks consistent offensive threats and outside shooting.

Defensively, Grant would add a ton of length to the Kings’ front court. His 7’3” wingspan is enormous and he’s athletic enough to make a good impact defensively. These are things the Kings would benefit from in particular, as Keegan Murray is the only guy they have on defense with size, length, and the ability to defend out on the perimeter.

Unfortunately, Grant’s defensive performance can disappear at times and he’s not going to be a defensive tone-setter. It’s hard to blame him too much, as he’s played the past for years in Detroit and Portland, where defense is more of an option that an objective. Still, Grant has the tools to be an effective defender and he flashes it at times. The Kings would need Grant to lock in consistently on defense and bring intensity there on every possession, which he hasn’t done regularly since his early years in Oklahoma City. They would also need him to improve his rebounding, which has been a weakness in recent years despite Grant’s impressive physical ability.

Grant’s new contract has a few important effects on any potential trade. First, it means that Portland just recently decided they wanted to keep him for the long term, so getting a deal done might be challenging. Second, it makes salary matching difficult. Grant is getting paid just under $27.6 million this year, which means the Kings would need to send back about $20.1 million in salary to effectuate a trade. Doing so would require the Kings to give up either Barnes ($17 million) or Huerter ($15.7 million), plus another player like Mitchell, Duarte, or Lyles. That’s OK, and giving up Huerter or Barnes would mitigate the impact of taking back Grant’s substantial contract, but the team needs to keep in mind that Grant is already 29 years old—his current deal is going to take him into age 34 (assuming he exercises his player option in the last year of the deal, which he probably will).

Grant’s contract was probably a bit of an overpay the moment he signed it due to his age and come-and-go defense. But Portland probably won’t see it that way; the Blazers aren’t looking to get off Grant’s salary, so they will demand draft picks on top of whatever players come back in a trade. That makes doing a deal tricky, since Grant doesn’t live up to his defensive capabilities consistently enough to warrant giving up a lot of future draft capital.

Verdict: Only if the price is right (it probably won’t be).

Malcom Brogdon

Malcolm Brogdon plays ugly basketball, and I love it. He’s kind of slow, a little bit ground-bound, and plays a herky-jerky style that doesn’t look super great on film, but he can hoop!

Brogdon is a 31 year old point guard that plays an efficient, if not particularly appealing brand of basketball. At about 6’5” and 220 pounds, he uses his size effectively to bully his way to his spots offensively, even if it’s not particularly fast. He can drive reasonably well and is a knock-down shooter from distance, hitting 42.2% of his threes this season and 39.1% for his career. Brogdon also can run a reasonable NBA offense in most situations. He’s a good distributor who averages 5.3 assists per game and just 1.5 turnovers, and he has the ability to get to pick and rolls if all else fails offensively, although it’s not something he should do all the time.

Defensively, Brogdon does a good job of using his strength to stay in front of defenders. He lacks foot speed, so he can get beat by the league’s faster guards, but he has enough size and savvy to do a solid job defensively. Per Dunks and Threes, Brodgon’s been a slightly above average defender for his career—and he’s carrying a slightly above average 0.1 Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus this year (that’s in the 61st percentile of defenders).

Brogdon is in the first year of a two-year deal that pays him $45 million. While that salary is reasonable, the situation in Portland isn’t. Brogdon makes virtually no sense on the Blazers given their team’s timeline and the need for Scoot Henderson to develop as a playmaker and lead ball handler. He’s expensive veteran leadership, but he is also taking away minutes from the young players that the Blazers need to develop. The Blazers ought to be looking to deal him.

That presents an opportunity for the Kings. Sacramento could offer Huerter, who is also on a reasonable 4 year, $65 million dollar deal. Huerter is younger than Brogdon at just 25, so he’s more in line with the Blazer’s overall timeline. Plus, Huerter plays a complimentary offensive role that benefit the Blazers by allowing Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe to play with the ball in their hands. They’d be taking on more salary overall, but that’s a good thing given the Blazers aren’t likely to be competitive this year or next regardless.

For the Kings, Brogdon would provide better ball-handling and a reasonable back-up point guard option to Fox. There are too many times that the Kings offense gets sloppy with Fox out of the game in particular, and Brogdon’s methodical, careful style would be a good way to calm those situations down and take pressure off of Malik Monk and Sabonis to run all of the offense when Fox sits. And because Brogdon is a good shooter, swapping him for Huerter wouldn’t hurt the Kings much from a floor-spacing perspective.

Defensively, adding Brogdon would give the Kings another option to deal with bigger guards that can be tough for Fox, Monk, or Davion Mitchell to handle (a theme of this post). No one is going to confuse Brogdon for a defensive stopper at this point in his career, but he’d still offer some improvement in on-ball defense over Huerter, who gets beat on far too many straight line drives. It’s not a cure, but it would be an improvement.

Verdict: Worth it at a bargain price. If the Kings can get Brogdon for Huerter, perhaps adding a second round pick, it would improve their prospects this year. There’s a legitimate question of whether the improvement would be big enough for the Kings to make a run in the playoffs, but it would shore up their ability to get to the postseason and give them more lineup options. Other deals that don’t require giving up Huerter to bolster the team’s defense may be better long-term though, so this wouldn’t be my first choice.

Matisse Thybulle

Thybulle is definitely a defensive stopper. Although he’s only 6’5”, he has great length, strength, and athleticism, and he plays a hyper-intelligent game on defense. He gets his hands in passing lanes, always seems to play his help responsibilities correctly, and can effectively guard almost any 1 through 3 in the NBA without resorting to fouling. Four of out five seasons in the NBA, Thybulle has graded out as a 95th percentile or better defender according to Dunks and Threes, which is absolutely consistent with what you see watching him play (this year is a bit of an anomaly, as Thybulle’s defense rates in the 77th percentile).

The problem is on offense, where Thybulle offers almost nothing. As good as he’s been defensively, Thybulle’s offense has consistently ranked in the bottom quartile of players per Dunks and Threes. He doesn’t attack the basket, he doesn’t drive, he doesn’t cut, and he’s not a particularly adept passer, so it’s not like he keeps the offense moving all the time. He only really shoots when he’s wide open, but at least he’s managed to up his three point percentage in the last couple of years to 37.3% this year and 38.8% last year (he shoots 34.3% for his career). That’s made him more playable on offense, as he can at least provide some spacing, but it’s not like he’s turned himself into a threat as a floor spacer.

At age 26, Thybulle is still in his prime. There’s a chance he continues to develop his jumper, but at the moment he doesn’t fit well with Portland, which has a bevy of young guards and small forwards that need to get time on the floor. I’ve already mentioned Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe, but Portland also drafted 19 year old Rayan Rupert hoping he’d be a defensive stopper in the future, and Kris Murray should get time given the success his brother Keegan has had too. They should be willing to part with Thybulle for a reasonable cost.

Thybulle is on a 3 year, just under $33.1 million deal that runs through 2025-26 if he exercises his player option in the last year. That’s a pretty fair contract that the Kings could carry with their core. Thybulle won’t provide anything on the offensive end that the team doesn’t already have, but he could fill the role of “break glass when needed” defensive stopper much more effectively than Chris Duarte and Kessler Edwards do, without much difference on the offensive end. Thybulle probably wouldn’t see huge minutes on the Kings, but for the handful of stretches per game when the Kings absolutely need stops, he would be a great option to have available.

Thybulle’s $10.5 million salary this year means the Kings could send out a small salary like Davion Mitchell’s or Chris Duarte’s, plus Kessler Edwards and a future second rounder (or slightly more) to get him. That would be absolutely worth it in my mind.

Verdict: Do it (if there’s no deal for Caruso or Finney-Smith). The Kings should make a run at Thybulle, especially if they can’t get Alex Caruso from the Bulls or Dorian Finney-Smith from the Nets. The Kings could trade any two of Davion Mitchell, Chris Duarte, and Kessler Edwards, plus a future second, and probably get this done. That would improve their roster options for this year without sacrificing players that are going to be around long term (I would miss absolutely Davion and try to avoid dealing him, for the record). They could also try to target both Brogdon and Thybulle, but getting salaries to match would be a bit tricky there—the Kings would need to send out Huerter or Barnes plus a couple other players just to make it work, which is probably too much.

Wizards Trade Targets

The Wizards are struggggggling. They’re not fun to watch, they don’t really compete, and they have only one player on the team that I would be excited about having on the team long-term, rookie Bilal Coulibaly (Deni Avdija also has some talent and will probably also be part of the long-term squad). They have a couple veterans on the roster that could contribute to other teams and the Wizards should be looking to deal them for whatever they can.

Kyle Kuzma

Kyle Kuzma has been linked to the Kings for quite a while at this point; there were rumors the team wanted to sign him in free agency, and several years ago, the Kings almost sent Buddy Hield to the Lakers for Kuzma.

I’ve never been a huge Kuzma fan (he feels too much like empty calories, but that might be my anti-Laker bias), but he offers some definite upgrades for the Kings. Kuzma is a 28 year old, 6’9” stretch power forward who is averaging 22 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game, which are good numbers. Kuzma flashes a ton of talent on offense, as he can create his own shots, attack the paint against slower forwards, spread the floor, and move the ball, and his numbers reflect that. But at the same time, imagining Kuzma as a key part of a good team offensively requires some projection. Kuzma’s shooting numbers are just OK (45.7% from the floor, 33.3% from three, and 78.9% from the line) and he can get a little loose with the ball on offense. He also takes his fair share of ill-advised shots and he can be prone to watching the action when he’s off the ball. Those are fixable issues, but they’ve shown up often in Kuzma’s seven year career.

On the defensive end, Kuzma is athletic and stout enough to guard fours and some fives, but other than a surprise showing last year, he’s typically been about average defensively. Dunks and Threes rates his Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus at just -1.7 this year, but that’s down from a career high 1.4 last year, and even down from previous years where he graded out around the middle of the league. Advanced metrics aside, Kuzma’s effort is rarely consistent defensively, and no one is going to confuse him for a stalwart on that end of the floor.

Yet for the Kings, Kuzma offers a clear ceiling-raising opportunity. He’s got enough offensive talent that he can provide meaningful firepower and play with either Fox or Sabonis on the floor. If the Kings were to unlock his willingness to move without the ball and cut to the basket, and get him to be more selective in the shots he takes, there’s a good chance his shooting numbers could improve significantly. He also brings more size and rebounding than the Kings’ current options at power forward (Barnes and Lyles), while shooting well enough to keep the floor spaced. If Kuzma can regain last year’s defensive form, he’d provide a significant improvement over Barnes and Lyles, too.

Kuzma’s talent and favorable contract means that the Kings will have to give up a hefty sum to get him. Kuzma’s getting paid $25.6 million this year during the first year of a four year, $90 million deal that declines year over year. That makes Kuzma’s contract quite valuable; by the last year of Kuzma’s contract, he will be 31 years old and be getting paid just $19.4 million, a very reasonable sum.

Just to make a deal for Kuzma work, the Kings would need to send the Wizards at least $18.1 million in salary. Practically speaking, this would mean trading away either Barnes or Huerter and a back-end rotation player like Davion Mitchell, Chris Duarte, or Sasha Vezenkov (there’s a world in which the Kings could trade Monk too, but that seems unlikely and probably not worth it for anyone involved). The Kings would also probably have to send at least one first round pick to the Wizards given that Huerter or Barnes won’t actually save them salary or give them a long-term piece they covet.

Verdict: Reluctant yes, if the price is right. I would personally be a little sad if the Kings traded Barnes, Davion Mitchell, and a future first for Kuzma—I like rooting for Dave, and Barnes brings a calm veteran presence that Kuzma won’t replicate. But I can’t dispute that adding Kuzma would improve the team’s potential and raise the heights they could get to in the playoffs. And Kuzma’s favorable contract structure also brings solid value going forward. That said, Washington isn’t going to be forced into a deal here given they just re-signed Kuzma, so they may try to demand a lot of draft capital in a deal. I would be super wary of that. Giving up multiple first rounders for Kuzma seems like an overpay that the Kings should avoid.

Tyus Jones

Tyus Jones is the type of veteran point guard that announcers love and teams often covet. There will definitely be interest in Jones from numerous playoff contenders as we head toward the trade deadline. But he’s also a pending free agent in the second year of a two year, $29 million deal, which caps how much the Wizards could get back for him in a trade.

Jones is undersized at around 6’1”, and he’s not a premier athlete. But he plays a very controlled and efficient offensive game centered on making the right decision all of the time, without fail, that can fit in well on almost any roster. He’s a good passer and ball handler, he rarely turns the ball over, and he has turned himself into a strong shooter (he’s over 50% from the floor and hitting a career high 41.4% of his threes). Jones isn’t going to burn people off of the dribble or attack the rim, but he does make the right reads and can run an efficient offense.

Defensively, Jones’ lack of size and athleticism really limits his potential. He doesn’t make a lot of mistakes on defense, but he doesn’t have the physical tools to really bother talented guards. He can be shot over and beaten off the dribble, and he’s not quite strong enough to hold up against big guards/forwards. The net result is Jones provides average to slightly below average defense, consistent with his career Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus, which has been between -1.8 and 0.7 for his career.

Jones would offer the Kings a reliable backup point guard to handle the minutes that Fox sits. Adding him would keep shooting on the floor and let Malik Monk give up some on-ball responsibility, which can be important during the occasional stretches where Monk starts to get wild with the ball. Jones could also work with Sabonis to get to an effective pick and roll offense when nothing else is working—Jones runs about 4.6 pick and rolls a game and generates 1.06 points per possession as the ball handler per NBA.com.

Jones is paid $14 million this season, so to get him the Kings would probably need to send out either Huerter, Monk, or Davion Mitchell + another player. Given Jones’ pending free agency, the return doesn’t seem worth sending Monk or Huerter out the door, so a deal involving Mitchell + Chris Duarte/Kessler Edwards/Javale McGee/Alex Len seems far more appealing for the Kings. But that would cost the Kings quite a bit on the defensive end and would limit the types of line-ups they could roll out in the playoffs. Plus, other than maybe Mitchell, it’s hard to see the Wizards really valuing any of those players in return. Thus, given there probably will be a solid market for Jones at the deadline, the Kings would likely have to give up a future pick (probably a second) to get a deal done.

Verdict: Pass on Jones. The Kings would have to give up too much to get Jones, including players that matter to the team’s line-up flexibility this year. Adding Jones would help settle the Kings down offensively when Fox sits, but Jones probably isn’t good enough to make the Kings’ late game line-ups, and it would cost the Kings in terms of defensive flexibility. I like Jones as a player, but this one doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Hornets Trade Targets

The Hornets are one of the NBA’s most forgotten teams. They’re not as bad as the Pistons or Wizards, so nobody really harps on them. They’ve also suffered from a ton of injuries, including to their only star player LaMelo Ball, so they’re not that interesting to watch either. Ball led the Hornets to 43 wins just a couple seasons ago, and young players like Brandon Miller and Mark Williams (if he can stay healthy) look like they can form part of a healthy core going forward. Everybody else should be tradeable, as the Hornets showed last week by dealing Terry Rozier to the Heat for Kyle Lowry (who probably won’t play for them) and a protected first rounder.

Miles Bridges

I’m going to preface this by saying Miles Bridges has been accused of several heinous acts of domestic violence and pleaded no contest to felony domestic violence charges in 2022. He missed the entirety of last season and was given a 30 game suspension by the NBA as a result (he was credited with 20 games for missing last year and missed another 10 games to start this season). He’s also been recently arrested just last October for allegedly violating a protection order, threatening his ex-girlfriend, and throwing pool balls at her car with children in the vehicle. That hasn’t been adjudicated yet, but the allegations are bad.

As a defense lawyer by trade, I’m generally in favor of second chances, but I am not in favor of trading for Bridges based on his off-the-court behavior alone. I’ll reserve judgement on the latest arrest warrant, but it is absolutely something to be concerned about. The repeat nature of the domestic violence allegations and Bridges’ lack of public contrition are dealbreakers for me (even though I understand why he isn’t talking about these issues publicly). I want to state that up front.

I’ll go through the on-court piece quickly. At 25 years old, Bridges has all the tools to be a hugely productive SF/PF in the modern NBA. He’s just 6’7” but he has a powerful, 225+ pound frame; he’s a better athlete than the vast majority of NBA players; he’s an effective three-level scorer; he rebounds at a high level for his position; he keeps the ball moving on offense. Advanced metrics paint him as an above average defender, too. Dunks and Threes gives him a Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus of about 0.0, which is the 64th percentile, and you could imagine that figure improving if he were on a more competitive team and gave more consistent effort.

Bridges is the kind of on-court player that the Kings would really benefit from adding, as his skill set would improve their defense and rebounding without sacrifice much offensively. But it’s impossible to ignore that the only reason Bridges is theoretically available is because of his off-court actions. Players like him don’t normally become available at age 25 otherwise.

Bridges’ off-court issues have also put him into a difficult contract situation that makes trading for him very challenging even if the Kings were willing to give him a second chance. Bridges signed a 1 year, $7.9 million contract this off-season following his no contest plea, missed season, and lengthy suspension. We don’t need to cover all of the rules surrounding one-year deals, but there are a few important points that stem from Bridges signing that deal:

• Bridges can veto trades;

• Bridges’ Bird rights won’t travel to any team that trades for him (the details of Bird rights aren’t important here, but I described the concept in part two already); and

• Because teams trading for Bridges will not have Bird rights, they would only be able to re-sign him using cap space or a cap exception—for example, the largest available cap exception is the non-taxpayer midlevel exception (which I discussed in part three), which was only $12.4 million this season.

These factors combined would make it very hard for the Kings to pull off a deal for Bridges even if they wanted to. The Kings are already over the cap next season, so they’d be limited to re-signing Bridges with a cap exception. The most they could even theoretically offer Bridges is a contract with a starting salary of about $12.4 million (the non-taxpayer MLE should go up slightly next season) and 5% annual raises. It’s hard to know what the market for Bridges will be like as a free agent given his off-court issues, but that is probably the floor of what Bridges will seek in free agency (he was looking at a contract worth upwards of $25 million a year before the domestic violence issues came to light).

In all likelihood, Bridges wouldn’t agree to a trade to a team with no cap space like the Kings. Even if Bridges didn’t veto a deal, the Kings wouldn’t have any way to ensure they could re-sign him next season, which significantly limits how much the Kings could justify giving up in a trade. Add to that the off-the-court issues and PR nightmare that would result from dealing for Bridges, and there’s just no way to make a trade for Bridges make sense.

Verdict: Don’t even think about it.

PJ Washington

Charlotte does have a more desirable trade target on its roster in 25 year old, 6’7” power forward PJ Washington. He’s on the short side for his position, but he’s a good athlete who can play with force on offense and defense, though he needs to bring that force much more consistently.

Washington brings solid versatility on the offensive end. He’s a decent three point shooter (just 34.8% this year, but he shoots 36.3% from three for his career) and knows that he needs to shoot from distance to be at his most valuable, so he focuses on those shots. He’s strong and athletic for his size, so he can hit a high percentage on shots inside 10 feet and threaten on the offensive glass. But he lacks the handle and creativity to really get quality interior shots on his own, and he doesn’t have a back-to-the-basket game to lean on to otherwise generate consistent interior scoring himself.

Defensively, Washington has the strength to hold up against most forwards and be an adequate rebounder for his position. He doesn’t offer a ton of rim protection, but he still posts decent block rates and he does a reasonable job of keeping his hands active and generating steals. Most years, he’s graded out well as a defender, though it is notable that this season his Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus has dropped to below average this year at just -1.2, per Dunks and Threes.

Washington signed a 3 year, $46.5 million contract this off-season that actually declines year over year. That’s a pretty favorable contract that offers a good value opportunity if Washington can return to his defensive form from previous seasons. To acquire Washington, the Kings could send out either Barnes or Huerter, whose salaries come pretty close to matching Washington’s $16.9 million salary for this season. Barnes doesn’t really make sense for Charlotte, but they might benefit from adding a floor spacer like Huerter. There are a few other salary matching alternatives given the Kings would only need to send out about $9.35 million in salary. The Kings could trade some combination of Trey Lyles ($8 million), Sasha Vezenkov ($6.3 million), Javale McGee ($5.7 million), Davion Mitchell ($5.1 million), and Chris Duarte ($4.1 million) and the deal could work.

Charlotte would presumably seek draft compensation back too. The Hornets don’t need to trade Washington and his contract is not massive, so they’re probably going to want meaningful draft compensation—like a first round pick or multiple seconds—regardless of what players come back to them in a deal. How much draft capital they’d be willing to take will depend on how much interest Washington draws ahead of the deadline, whether the salary they get back is expiring (e.g., McGee), and whether they think younger players they get back like Mitchell or Duarte have future value. Given Charlotte probably will end up keeping Bridges next year (they’re the only team that has already taken the PR hit from having him on the roster and the only one that has Bird rights), they will have a good amount of front court depth already, and might be willing to part with Washington in favor of finding guards to supplemental Ball, Miller, and maybe Nick Smith Jr., also a first round pick this year.

Verdict: Only if it’s a bargain—and don’t give up anything unprotected! I think Washington would be a better defensive fit for the Kings than current starter Harrison Barnes. While he suffers from some of the same flaws defensively as Barnes (lack of size/length and little rim protection), he is a better athlete and rebounder. Washington can hold up a little better than Barnes against quicker forwards, he does a better job of handling pick and roll defense, and he offers a little bit more as a rebounder. There would definitely be a step-back in shooting, but Washington is good enough as a shooter and active enough on offense to hopefully mitigate the impact. That said, this isn’t a home run deal, and getting a trade done probably means the Kings would end up with two undersized forwards: Washington and Barnes. Thus, a trade only really makes sense if you can work out the right deal and not overpay in terms of future draft equity. If the Kings could send out Trey Lyles, Chris Duarte, and multiple second rounders, a deal could make sense as a “diet” version of a trade for Kyle Kuzma.

Raptors Trade Targets

The Raptors have gone into sale mode already, as they’ve already moved on from two of their best players in OG Anounoby and Pascal Siakam. They still have a couple players on the roster who are pretty obvious trade candidates, so there’s a good chance they do at least one more deal. They’ve shown at least some preference for on-court fits, but they did take picks back for Siakam. Either way, their best trade candidates have either already been traded or are effectively untouchable (Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley ain’t going anywhere).

Gary Trent Jr.

Gary Trent Jr. is the most obvious next trade candidate for Toronto given he’s a pending free agent.

Trent Jr. is a 6’5” shooting guard whose calling card is his three point shooting. He’s a career 38.7% three point shooter on good volume (the last four seasons, he’s taken between 10.5 and 11.6 threes per 100 possessions), and most teams can find a place for that kind of floor spacer. Trent plays to his strengths and stays within himself. He understands that his job is to create space, play off of more prolific scorers, and not turn the ball over—he plays that role well.

Trent Jr. is also capable of playing effective defense, though he’s slipped a bit this season. He’s never been elite on defense, but when Trent Jr. locks in, he does a good job of chasing shooters, closing out, and staying engaged. In past years, he’s done well generating steals, although that’s dropped off some this year. A relative lack of length and so-so NBA athleticism means that he can get beat at times on dribble-drives, and he’s not tall enough to bother every perimeter shooter. That’s usually fine since only a handful of players can do that consistently.

That said, there’s some reason to be concerned that Trent Jr.’s defensive performance has dropped off a bit this year. I’ve already mentioned his drop in steal rate, but multiple other defensive metrics also point to a small drop off. For example, Trent Jr.’s Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus has dropped from 0.2 to -1.3 per Dunks and Threes and his Defensive Box Plus/Minus has dropped from 0.0 to -1.3 per Basketball Reference. The Raptors are also giving up about 5.2 points per 100 possessions more with Trent Jr. on the floor this season, which is up from previous years. He’s also getting fewer deflections and contesting fewer shots compared to the last two years, which is only partly explained by him playing fewer minutes. Per NBA.com, Trent Jr. is getting about 1.7 deflections and contesting 1.3 shots per game this season, down from 2.7 deflections and 2.3 shot contests per game last season and 3.4 deflections and 2.9 shot contests per game in 2021-22.

Still, Trent Jr.’s age (25) and shooting ability are enough to get the Raptors back something of value in a trade. Teams always need shooting, and there’s at least a chance that his defense improves back to where it was the last couple of seasons.

Trading for Trent Jr. is where challenges come up for the Kings. Trent Jr.’s salary this season is just under $18.6 million, so the Kings would need to put together about $11.1 million in salary to have a workable deal. The easiest way to get there is trading Huerter, but that would see the Kings basically dealing a shooter for a shooter. Sure, Trent Jr. has a chance at being better defensively than Huerter, but that hasn’t really been on display this year, he would have to regain his previous defensive form to do so. Huerter also has two years left under contract after this season, whereas Trent Jr. may just end up a short-term rental. Unfortunately, there also isn’t really another good option to match salary. The Kings could compile a bunch of miscellaneous salaries under $6 million (McGee, Mitchell, Duarte, Len, and Edwards) and hope to get to the minimum of $11.1 million, but it’s not clear why Toronto would want to take back so many players that they can’t even roster, especially when some of them will carry extra salary into next season when Toronto will have to pay Immanuel Quickley a raise. If the deal were Trent Jr. for Huerter, it’s possible Toronto would say yes without asking for any draft capital—but for a mishmash of back end rotation players, they’d probably demand at least a second round pick. That’s not unreasonable, but the Kings might be better able to put those resources to use on targeting a player with stronger perimeter defensive skills—shooting hasn’t really been the issue in Sacramento.

Verdict: Pass on Trent Jr. Even though Trent Jr. would be a nice addition, he’s no guarantee to stay with the team and his salary situation makes designing a deal for him challenging. He would probably bring better defense than Huerter, but he’s not a strong enough defender to warrant trading away a similar offensive player on a medium-term, manageable contract in Huerter.

Bruce Brown

Bruce Brown (27) would probably be a better trade target for the Kings. Brown has a bit of a unique role in the NBA—he’s one of a handful of 6’5” and under players who basically play like power forwards.

Brown made his way into the NBA as a non-shooting guard, so he had to make his money by hustling, playing defense, rebounding at a high level for his position, and generally being a pest on the floor. It’s a useful role for any team, and Brown fills it perfectly.

In the last couple of years, Brown has evolved to at least become a passable three point shooter. Last year, he hit 35.8% of his threes and took about 3.2 threes per game. That helped him secure a two year, $45 million deal this past off-season (there is a club option for the second year, which is valuable flexibility for teams). Those numbers have dipped a bit this year to 32.7% from three on 3.0 threes per game, but that’s still within the realm of “expected” for Brown. He’s still got the same motor, and he’s still operating as a effort glue guy on offense.

Defensively, Brown has always been good though short of elite. He's always active, bull-strong, and he isn’t afraid to guard anyone (though at 6’4”, he can be at a significant height disadvantage at times). He’s not a defensive stopper, but he will do all of the little things that teams need—rebounding, getting to loose balls, getting his hands in passing lanes, and just generally pestering opponents.

Brown has been with Toronto for less than two weeks; he arrived as part of the Raptors trade sending Siakam to Indiana. He’s not attached to the team and they haven’t really integrated him into their roster. There’s a good chance the Raptors deal Brown this season they would need to shell out $23 million next season to pick up Brown’s team option on top of having to pay Quickley.

As with Trent Jr., the tough part about the Kings trading for Brown is who they’d have to give up. To match Brown’s $22 million salary, the Kings could trade Barnes or Huerter. Trading Barnes would be tough to do, as it would make the Kings even smaller in the front court than they already are. Trading Huerter could work, but there’s a question whether Brown is a big enough improvement over Huerter to justify paying an extra $6-7 million in salary next season and giving up a contract year in 2025-26. The Kings could again try to piece together back-end roster pieces to get to the requisite $14.5 million in outgoing salary, but that’s going to be even harder to do than getting to $11.1 million for Trent Jr.—I’m not sure Toronto would want to play ball.

Verdict: Only if the Kings can’t swing other trades for defenders. Ultimately, I think it would take too much to get a deal for Brown to work. I like Brown’s game, and swapping Huerter for him could help the Kings enough on defense to justify the deal, but there are probably better trades options available that either yield bigger improvements or less disruption to the current roster. The Kings could give up a little more draft equity than they would have to give up for Brown and bring back better defensive fits like Alex Caruso or Dorian Finney-Smith. They could also look at smaller deals for guys who can add to the defense, like Kris Dunn or Matisse Thybulle, yet wouldn’t force the Kings to send out starters/rotation pieces like Huerter and Barnes.

Other Possible Targets

Naji Marshall

I really like Naji Marshall’s game. He’s on the back end of the Pelicans rotation, but when he comes in, he plays hard on defense and bugs the hell out of everyone on the court. He’s got size and he uses it well to play hard-nosed defense. He plays a bit like a bigger Bruce Brown, although not quite as impactful. He’s not a great offensive player, though he can do just enough to stay relevant. He’s willing to mix it up on the offensive glass and he’s upped his shooting this year to 37.6% from three, which would be enough to keep defenses honest if he can sustain it (that could be a bit of a mirage, he doesn’t take a ton of threes).

Because the Pelicans have crazy depth on the wing, the 26 year old Marshall doesn’t see a ton of minutes, only about 18 per game. He’s a free agent next year too, and it’s pretty unlikely the Pelicans can bring him back—they’re already paying $119 million to Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum, and Herb Jones combined, and they need to think about re-signing Jonas Valanciunas this off-season and extending Trey Murphy III after next year. So he’s ripe for a trade.

Marshall’s salary is tiny by NBA standards at just $1.9 million, so there’s no real salary match concerns. The biggest question is whether the Pelicans would let him walk to a competitor this year (although the Pels have owned the Kings so far this year, so maybe they don’t care).

Verdict: Do it! If the Kings can snag Marshall for a second round pick, they should do it. At the very least, he’s a defensive option the Kings can go to when they need to muddy up games.

Bojan Bogdanovic

I feel obliged to at least mention Bojan Bogdanovic. He’s a good player on a bad team in Detroit, and his name comes up more often than maybe anyones in trade discussions.

I don’t think he’s a good target for the Kings. Bogdanovic is a good scorer and very strong perimeter shooter, but he offers little on defense, where the Kings need to improve the most. He’s also on a salary that would presumably require the Kings to send back Barnes or Huerter in a deal, and that doesn’t seem worth it given Detroit is probably going to ask for at least a first rounder to send Bogdanovic anywhere. I would concede that he’s probably a better player than Huerter or Barnes in a vacuum, but swapping Huerter for him would make the Kings perimeter defense slower and swapping him for Barnes would actually hurt the Kings rebounding.

Verdict: Not worth it.

Andrew Wiggins

This one is fascinating. The Warriors are 19-24 and sitting in 12th place in the Western Conference—over halfway through the season, it’s not clear whether they’re going to even make the play in. Obviously, the Warriors have rebounded from subpar seasons before, but there’s a glaring issue this time on top of their age. According to Spotrac, the Warriors’ payroll for this season is just over $206.9 million and they are facing a luxury tax bill of $186.3 million. In other words, the Warriors are going to have a roster that costs over $393 million just to maybe miss the play-in. That would be an ignominious record to hold, and presumably something that the Warriors’ ownership isn’t thrilled about.

Things would naturally improve for the Warriors next year if they let Klay Thompson walk in free agency, but they may not want to do that. While Thompson isn’t the player he used to be, he’s still one of the franchises greatest players, so they probably don’t want to push him out the door if they can avoid it.

Assuming they do want to keep Thompson, the Warriors have limited options. The three obvious ones are:

• Try to improve the current roster. This path could be really hard, as the Warriors have a lot of salary already on the roster and a limited about of young players and future draft picks to send out in a trade. It’s also an uphill battle given the Warriors’ current seeding.

• Trade Chris Paul. Paul is under contract through 2024-25 at a salary of $30 million, so sending him out the door would give the Warriors the ability to pay Thompson without going too far back into the luxury tax.

• Trade Andrew Wiggins. This is the scenario the Kings care about. Wiggins is under contract through the 2025-26 season and has a player option in 2026-27 at a salary of $30.2 million. He’s being paid $24.3 million this year.

Wiggins is a 6’7” wing with tremendous physical ability. He’s got great size, length, and athleticism, and during the 2022 season and playoff run, he put together a remarkable stretch of defensive play that helped lead the Warriors to an NBA championship. He always had the physical tools, but it appeared that Wiggins had finally unlocked his defensive potential. At the same time, he was also improving his three point shooting, hitting a then-career high 39.3% of his threes on 5.5 threes per game in 2022. Combined with a versatile offensive skillset, it looked like Wiggins was coming into his own and becoming a really good wing player.

Wiggins played similarly in 2022-23, though with a slight decrease in efficiency. That didn’t seem like a huge deal at the time—he was dealing with undisclosed off-the-court personal matters, and he was still playing effectively enough. But this year, Wiggins has run into a brick wall. To put it bluntly, he’s been awful.

Wiggins has regressed in virtually every aspect of his game. His scoring is down, his shooting has been poor from the field, three point range, and the free throw line, he’s rebounding less, he’s dishing out fewer assists, he’s turning the ball over more often, and he’s getting fewer steals and blocks than he has in his previous two seasons with the Warriors. This drop off is perhaps best encapsulated by a precipitous fall in is Estimated Plus-Minus, which has gone from a career high 1.5 in 2022-23 to a career low -4.2 this season according to Dunks and Threes (Basketball Reference’s Box Plus/Minus stat tells a similar story: Wiggins has gone from 0.4 in 2021-22 to -5.2 this season).

You see the drop-off watching Wiggins play this year. He’s missing shots regardless of how open he is, he’s playing timidly on offense, and he’s barely exerting any influence on games defensively. Wiggins has played well in maybe a half-dozen games on the season (one happened to be against Sacramento in November, but luckily the Kings won), which is a minuscule number for a starter, much less a guy getting paid upwards of $25 million per year.

Wiggins has always been demure on the court, but over the past few seasons, he’d really found his footing as a player. Now, it’s like he’s reverted to how he played his rookie season—it’s baffling.

So why might he be of interest to the Kings?

At his best, Wiggins offers quality shooting, some one-on-one scoring ability, and enough size and quickness to put pressure on the rim from cuts. He also is capable of being a strong head-up defender, and he has the sort of length and quickness to offer really strong help defense, even offering respectable rim protection as a weak side helper despite not being a natural power forward. Combining Wiggins’ length and perimeter defense (when he’s right) with Keegan Murray would go extremely far in solving the Kings’ difficulties defending the perimeter, and he could even offer reasonable interior defense against forwards.

The Kings have to be curious if this year’s version of Wiggins is a fluke. The Warriors are wondering that too. That ambiguity makes it pretty hard to decipher whether the Warriors will ultimately move Wiggins but their cap situation is going to force them to think about it.

If Wiggins does come available, the Warriors would presumably be looking for salary cap relief first. They probably won’t, and shouldn’t, look to rebuild while Steph Curry is still playing at an All-NBA level, so they may be interested in taking back players who can provide on-court help (at least compared to Wiggins’ production this year) at a lower salary, even if they have to give up the potential that Wiggins returns to form.

Because Wiggins has a salary of just over $24.3 million this year, salary matching will be a bit tricky for the Kings—they would most likely have to include either Harrison Barnes or Huerter in a deal. The Kings could offer (1) Barnes plus light draft assets (think second rounders or a protected first) or (2) Huerter plus a back-end rotation player like Chris Duarte or Kessler Edwards, perhaps again with light draft assets.

Those offers, objectively, don’t give amazing return for the Warriors, but it would get them the cap relief they need and bring back at least one player that can contribute right away in Barnes or Huerter, and both of them have been better than Wiggins this year anyway.

Verdict: Only if the price is right. Ultimately, if Wiggins becomes available, the Kings should check in on it. They can make an offer that would be useful, but there’s definitely a solid chance other teams would top it. That said, the Kings shouldn’t go crazy trying to get Wiggins. Wiggins has been shockingly bad this year, but if that is the new reality for him (he was bad at the start of his career too), he’s going to be a salary cap problem for several years, as he has at least another three years under contract—probably four if he is really this bad, as he would pick up his player option for 2026-27. Trading for Wiggins would be such a high risk/reward play that the Kings shouldn’t pay handsomely to do it.

Kings NBA Trade Deadline (Part 3): The Kings’ Current Roster Dictates Potential Deals

[This is part three of a series of posts on the Kings ahead of the February 8 trade deadline.]

In the first post from this series, I looked at what areas the Kings have struggled with so far this year that need to be improved upon. Like many observers, I think the biggest issues are the team’s struggles defending the rim and the three point line, but they also need to find ways to generate more offense when De’Aaron Fox sits to rekindle their top-notch offense from last year (while shooting from 2 point range and free throws still need to improve, those issues aren’t as easy to address through trades). Part two of this series looked at what the Kings can send out in potential trades and how the NBA’s rules governing player- and draft-pick trades will affect what the Kings can actually deal, which in turn governs what they’ll be able to potentially get back in a deal.

Now, we’re on to part three, where it’s time to start thinking about the Kings’ own roster situation and what it means for trades they might consider. To do that effectively, I want to think about two things in this post:

1. What is the Kings salary cap situation right now, and what should they expect in the near- and medium-term?

2. What are the on-court needs the Kings should be looking to fill?

For simplicity, I’ll go in the order above.

The Kings’ Salary Cap Situation

I wrote about what the Kings have available to trade last week, including draft capital. Those matter to the team’s long-term future, but the Kings are actually in a pretty good position going forward, as they own all but one of their future first round picks and they have plenty of future second rounders. But retaining future cap space and staying under the luxury tax (as well as the first and second aprons) are important considerations.

The CBA Rules: Caps, Taxes, and Contracts

NBA teams always have to think about their roster in terms of the salary cap as well as the NBA’s luxury tax line (and the more restrictive aprons above the luxury tax line, the first apron and the second apron). I’ve explained the basic rules on this before, but since the last post I made got really into the weeds, I will only quickly summarize things here for convenience.

The basic rules of the salary cap are simple: teams can’t sign players above the salary cap unless they find an exception that allows them to do so. Those exceptions cover things like extending players already on the team’s roster, signing players the team drafts, trading for players, and signing free agents at certain specified salary levels. The net result is that teams above the cap are restricted in how they can operate.

The basic luxury tax rules are also pretty simple. If a team’s salary for the year is at or above the luxury tax line, they pay an additional tax per dollar they are over the line, and that tax is redistributed to the teams below the luxury tax line. Those taxes get increasingly onerous as the team moves higher and higher above the luxury tax line or if they are repeatedly paying luxury tax in multiple years.

Teams above the first and second aprons face increasingly restrictive rules about how they manage their roster. For simplicity, suffice it to say that teams generally want to avoid being above the first or second apron so they can continue to make roster moves easily.

In any given season, the salary cap is set by the league based on basketball-related revenue from the prior year, while the luxury tax line, the first apron, and the second apron, are all calculated based on the salary cap. For this season (2023-24), the salary cap is $136.21 million, the luxury tax line is $165.294 million, the first apron is $172.346 million, and the second apron is $182.794 million. It’s impossible to know precisely what each of these thresholds will be in future seasons, but we can expect that these thresholds will increase most years by up to 10% (the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA) dictates that the salary cap can grow by up to 10% per year, but cannot decrease in any given season).

There are also several player salary levels that have to be calculated based on the salary cap. Simply put, the starting salary that teams can offer to players depends on what kind of contract they offer, and the starting salary amounts of many types of contracts are calculated based on a percentage of the salary cap. This is really important, as it dictates how teams can re-sign their own players, sign free agents above the salary cap, and whether the team can make trades for players whose salaries would put them over the salary cap (or the first or second aprons).

This has huge impacts on the trade market and free agent market.

The key types of contracts that are dictated by the salary cap are listed below, but they fall into a couple buckets: max contracts, rookie extensions, and salary cap exceptions. HoopsRumors has pretty good articles on max contracts and salary cap exceptions if you want extra detail there.

• “Max” contracts: Max contracts get complicated and it’s not necessarily worth going into all the detail here, but at a basic level, teams can offer players “max” salary contracts that allow the player to be paid up to a percentage of the salary cap based on the player’s level of NBA experience (or, if greater, up to 105% of their previous season’s salary).

  These “max” salaries can be equal to up to 25% of the salary cap for players with less than seven years of experience, 30% of the salary cap for players with seven to nine years of experience, and 35% of the salary cap for players with 10+ years of experience. For the 2023-24 season, this equates to about $34.0 million, $40.8 million, and $47.6 million respectively.

  These contracts can be up to five years long and include raises of up to 8% per season for players re-signing with their current team (5% for players signing with a new team).

• “Supermax” contracts: In limited situations, teams can also offer players what are informally known as “supermax” contracts (which actually covers a few different “designated veteran” situations).

  Simply put, star players who meet certain eligibility and performance criteria can be offered contracts (or contract extensions) of up to six seasons at starting salaries up to 30% or 35% of the cap. Normally, players are only eligible for five year deals, and the max salary can only get to 35% of the cap for players with 10+ years of service.

  These supermax contracts are generally only available to players with 7-9 years of experience who haven’t changed teams (with some limited exceptions, including if a player was traded in their first four years).

  To be eligible, prior to being offered a supermax, the player also has to meet the following supermax performance criteria:

  • win an MVP in any of the three preceding seasons;

  • be named to an All-NBA team or be named Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) in the immediately preceding season; or

  • be named to an All-NBA team or be named DPOY in any two of the preceding three seasons.

  This is highly relevant for the Kings, as De’Aaron Fox may become eligible for a supermax extension soon. In fact, Fox turned down a “max” extension before the 2023-24 season in the hopes that he will become eligible for a supermax deal before his current contract expires after the 2025-26 season.

• Rookie extensions: Certain rookie extensions can function similarly to the supermax (conceptually).

  Normally, rookies selected in the first round receive two year deals with team options for the third and fourth year, and they’re only eligible to receive contract extensions after their third season. These extensions get capped at of 25% of the salary cap (or, if greater, 105% of the salaary in the last season of their contract) because they have less than seven years of NBA service.

  But rookies who meet the “supermax” performance criteria that I described previously can receive a salary in the first year of their extension of up to 30% of the salary cap.

  This probably won’t apply to any of the Kings’ players on their rookie deals.

• Non-taxpayer mid-level exception: referred to here as the “non-taxpayer MLE”, this exception allows teams above the salary cap, but below the first apron, to sign a player at a first year salary of up to 9.12% of the salary cap—set at $12.4 million for the 2023-24 season. Non-taxpayer MLE contracts can be for up to four years and may include salary raises or decreases of up to 5% per year.

  Teams can also split their non-taxpayer MLE to sign multiple players.

  The non-taxpayer MLE is only available to teams below the first apron. So if a team uses more than $5 million of its non-taxpayer MLE (the precise amount of the taxpayer MLE, discussed below), that team will be “hard capped” at the first apron. In other words, if a team uses more than $5 million of its non-taxpayer MLE in 2023-24, it cannot have its team salary go above the first apron for that season even another exception would normally be available.

  Practically speaking, the non-taxpayer MLE often becomes the de facto starting salary “price” for free agent rotation players, as several teams can usually offer it in free agency.

  Teams below the salary cap (referred to as having “room”) can’t use the exception because they’re below the cap.

• Taxpayer mid-level exception: referred to here as the “taxpayer MLE,” this exception is similar to the MLE but less favorable. It is available to teams above the first apron but below the second apron.

  Like the non-taxpayer MLE, teams can still split their taxpayer MLE between multiple players and offer salary raises or increases of 5% per year, but the amount available and maximum contract length are lesser. The taxpayer MLE was set at $5 million for the 2023-24 season (even though not set as a percentage of the salary cap for this season, the taxpayer MLE will increase based on the salary cap in future seasons).

  Teams can’t use the non-taxpayer MLE and the taxpayer MLE at the same time.

  Similar to the non-taxpayer MLE, because the taxpayer MLE is not available to teams above the second apron, if a team uses its taxpayer MLE, it will be hard capped at the second apron.

• Bi-annual exception: the “bi-annual exception” is another exception to the salary cap that teams can use . . . wait for it . . . every two years. The bi-annual exception is set as a percentage (3.32%) of the salary cap; for the 2023-24 season, teams could offer starting salaries up to $3.382 million, with the same 5% raises per year, for up to two seasons.

  Teams can’t use the bi-annual exception to exceed the first apron.

• Room exception: officially titled the “mid-level salary exception for room teams” but better known as the “room exception,” this exception can only be used by teams whose salary falls below the salary cap in a given year—it’s essentially an alternative to the non-taxpayer MLE and taxpayer MLE.

  Once a room team uses up its salary cap space, it can use the room exception to sign a player (or multiple players) for a starting salary equal to up to 5.678% of the salary cap, about $7.72 million for the 2023-24 season. In other words, if the team has salary cap space, it can use that space to sign free agents and then get a room exception to sign additional players above the salary cap. Room exception contracts can be up to three seasons long and can include the same 5% raises per year as the other exceptions described above.

  Teams can’t use the room exception and any of the non-taxpayer MLE, taxpayer MLE, or bi-annual exception in the same year—so essentially if the team is eligible for the room exception, it’s not eligible for those other exceptions.

• There are other exceptions, but they’re not as relevant here and/or not inherently tied to the salary cap’s changes.

How Do Cap & Contract Rules Affect the Kings?

For the 2023-24 season, the Kings already have about $150 million committed in salary and other cap hits (we don’t need to go into detail on dead cap holds and other cap holds, but they combine with the actual roster salary to count against the salary cap). That puts the Kings about $14 million above the salary cap ($136.21 million) and little more than $15 million below the luxury tax line.

As a small market team that can’t rely as much on huge revenues from other sources (concert fees, parking fees, etc. typically get retained by the team), the Kings are likely to try to stay below the luxury tax whenever they can, unless they’re truly in championship contention. Staying below the luxury tax line ensures both that the Kings won’t pay luxury tax and that they are eligible to receive luxury tax distributions, which can be worth over $10 million for each non-tax team. By the same token, the Kings are generally likely to stay below the first apron and second apron in most years, saving them some additional headaches with roster construction and cap compliance.

Regardless, the Kings have to manage their salary cap in future seasons and be mindful of the luxury tax line (and the aprons) from year to year. To do so, they have to be mindful of what contracts they have and how long they run, and what contracts they expect to give out. The team surely has its own internal trackers, but for us members of the public, Spotrac has nifty trackers showing the contract and salary situations for each team—a year by year tracker of the Kings salary cap situation by year is available here.

The Kings are projected to be over the cap in each of 2024-25, 2025-26, and 2026-27. [Note: Spotrac is doing something funky with the cap projections. They project 4.4% growth in the salary cap in the 2024-25 season, which the NBA has projected, but they assume a 10% growth rate in all subsequent seasons. I don’t know how realistic that is (I suspect it over-predicts the rate of cap growth), but I will use it for now.].

The chart below shows the Kings roster count and team salaries by year, compared to the projected salary cap and luxury tax lines using Spotrac’s growth projections, with some assumptions. Specifically, the chart assumes that all team options are exercised and all cap holds get renounced; the chart also excludes all 10-day and two-way player contracts, which are short-term and for negligible sums. Numbers in red show the Kings will be over the salary cap or luxury tax line, as applicable.

[Chart 1]

What jumps out from Chart 1 is that the Kings will be about $7.4 million over the cap next season (2024-25) before filling out their 15-man roster, and they will be just $16.8 million under the cap two seasons from now (2025-26) with just seven players.

Kings Salary Cap in 2024-25

The Kings will be $7.4 million over the cap in 2024-25 with only 10 players on the roster. They would also be able to add only $23.1 million of salary before creeping into the luxury tax. But that total salary doesn’t account for the Kings re-signing Malik Monk, who will be a free agent after this season, nor does it account for any 2024 draft picks the Kings might need to sign or other roster spots they might fill at the veteran’s minimum.

In other words, if the Kings want to re-sign Monk at a starting salary of $17.4 million (which they can offer him), they’re going to be at least $24.8 million over the cap with an 11-man roster. Assuming they fill out the rest of the roster for the veterans minimum of about $2.1 million (this value will also change based on the cap, but we’re fudging here for simplicity), the Kings would be about $33.2 million over the cap. At the same time, they’d push over the luxury tax line by about $3.1 million.

Any trade the Kings make needs to keep this reality in mind. If they make a trade that takes back salary, the team will need to manage the roster so that they can trade players to get under the luxury tax line if needed. If the team is super competitive, ownership may be willing to stay above the luxury tax line for a season or two, but any prospective trade analysis needs to keep a path out of the luxury tax in mind. Players like Trey Lyles, Davion Mitchell, and Chris Duarte can all be free agents after the 2024-25 season, meaning there would be some value to keeping one or more of them on the roster as a way to trade out of the luxury tax during the 2024-25 season if it becomes necessary.

Mitchell and Duarte are also both eligible for extension prior to the 2024-25 season, but given they’re not fixtures in the starting line-up, it’s not clear that they will be offered substantial extensions.

De’Aaron Fox also becomes eligible for an extension at the same time, which could be enormous. I’ll talk about that more later.

Kings Salary Cap in 2025-26

Based on Chart 1 (above), the Kings could actually be about $16.8 million under the cap for the 2025-26 season (two years from now), albeit with only seven players under contract (Fox, Sabonis, Barnes, Huerter, Murray, Sasha Vezenkov, and Colby Jones). But there are a few qualifiers to keep in mind.

We’ve already covered the first two: the Kings will probably want to re-sign Malik Monk and they need to fill out their roster regardless. Assuming the Kings re-sign Monk, he’s likely to be paid around $18.3 million in 2025-26. But that alone would eat through the $16.8 million of theoretical cap room that the Kings would have.

Using Spotrac’s projected growth rates, in 2025-26, the salary cap would be about $156.2 million, the luxury tax line would be about $189.8 million, the first apron would be about $197.9 million, and the second apron would be about $209.9 million. With Monk, the team’s salary would be about $157.7 million; adding seven more players at the veteran’s minimum would bring the team salary to about $173.1 million—over the cap but under the luxury tax.

The other issues are pending free agency for Trey Lyles, Davion Mitchell, and Chris Duarte. Trey Lyles will be an unrestricted free agent before the 2025-26 season, so the Kings will need to decide whether to bring him back. Maybe Lyles would come back at the veteran’s minimum, but more likely he’d seek more money elsewhere. Meanwhile, Mitchell and Duarte will be restricted free agents assuming they don’t agree to extensions beforehand. The Kings would need to decide whether to renounce their matching right for any contract that Mitchell and/or Duarte sign with another team (before free agency starts). I suspect that will happen, but if the Kings were to keep their matching rights, the team would then need to decide whether to let them go if an offer sheet gets too rich.

After the 2025-26 season, the Kings will also need to decide whether to offer an extension to Keegan Murray and what that looks like. Given he’s a core player, it’s likely the Kings would agree to a big extension with Murray, but it’s tough to predict exactly what that will look like—it will depend a lot on his growth the rest of this season and in the 2024-25 season. Murray getting an extension worth $35-45 million per year (starting the 2026-27 season) is well within the realm of possibility given his age, elite shooting, defensive potential, and positional flexibility—this would actually be a pretty great scenario for the Kings, as it would mean Murray has continued to develop into something like a top 50 player in the league overall. This won’t affect the team’s salary cap situation much during the 2025-26 season, though, as the team has a $11.1 million option for Murray that they’re going to exercise.

Kings Salary Cap in 2026-27

This is where things get a little wild.

Only two players are technically under contract for 2026-27, Domantas Sabonis and Colby Jones (assuming the Kings exercise his team option), and the team is projected to be about $121.3 million below the cap.

But as I’ve noted, the Kings will probably have re-signed Monk and agreed to extensions with Fox and Murray. Monk’s contract will probably be around $20 million by 2026-27 and Murray (assuming he continues to develop) is likely to be paid around $40 million.

That would put the Kings at $51.3 million below the cap, with just Sabonis, Jones, Monk, and Murray under contract.

But what about the team’s star, De’Aaron Fox? As I noted, Fox turned down a two year, $105 million extension that would have carried his contract through the 2027-28 season in the hopes of becoming eligible for a supermax. If Fox makes an All-NBA team this year or next year, he can sign a five year extension starting in 2026-27. That extension would have a starting salary in 2026-27 worth up to 35% of the cap, which equates to about $60.1 million. If he doesn’t make another All-NBA team, Fox would still be eligible for a four year extension with a 2026-27 salary worth up to 30% of the cap (about $51.5 million).

The net result is that if the Kings extend Fox and Murray and re-sign Monk this off-season, their 2026-27 salary is going to put them at or above the cap with only five players under contract; the team’s salary would be around $180.6 million if Fox makes another All-NBA team, and around $172 million if he doesn’t). They would still need to fill out a roster with 10 more players, which will probably cost another $25-30 million and push the Kings’ roster salary to as much as $210 million.

Using Spotrac’s projected growth rates, in 2026-27, the salary cap would be $171.8 million, the luxury tax line would be $208.8 million, the first apron would be $217.7 million, and the second apron would be $230.9 million. That means that if the Kings trade for someone today whose salary is still on the books in 2026-27, the team could be facing extremely steep luxury tax bills and restrictions from passing the first (or even second) apron—if they want to do a trade for a star with 3+ years left on their deal, the team needs to be thinking seriously about how it’s going to cost them in dollars and flexibility down the road.

2027-28 and Beyond

This is four plus years out, so I’m not going to write much about it here since so much can change. By the 2027-28 season, the projected salary cap could be up to $189.0 million, the projected luxury tax line to $229.7 million, the projected first apron to $239.5 million, and the projected second apron to $254.0 million.

Fox and Murray, if extended, would still be on the team, as would Sabonis (whose current deal expires after the 2027-28 season). Every other roster slot is hard to project, as whomever the Kings might sign or trade for, may not be on a deal long enough to make it all the way to 2027-28.

Sabonis’ salary is set for 2027-28 at $51.2 million, but we have to do some projection for Fox and Murray. I’ll assume that Fox made his second All-NBA team before being extended and signs a supermax extension—that would put his salary at about $64.9 million in 2027-28. If Murray’s extension were to start at $40 million per year, by the 2027-28 season, he’d be paid around $42 million. That means the Fox/Sabonis/Murray trio would make over $158 million in 2027-28, hopefully still in their primes with Fox at age 30, Sabonis at age 31, and Murray at age 27.

The Kings’ On-Court Needs

Basketball is a fluid sport, and every player has an impact on both ends of the court. As a result, even after identifying areas for improvement, teams have to think about how adding and subtracting players in trades will impact their performance offensively and defensively.

Which weaknesses have to improve and which can we live with? What kinds of players can address the issues on the floor? Will addressing those flaws create new flaws, or will addressing the big weaknesses allow the team as a whole to clean up other areas too? What strengths can the team take away from to bolster a weakness, without losing so much that it creates a new weakness? These are critical questions that should drive the team’s decision-making, but how they all shake out is hard to pin down with precision.

As I noted in part one, there are three big weaknesses that I think the Kings should look to address—perimeter defense, rim protection, and how to generate offense with Fox off the court—but the Kings don’t necessarily have to address all three to improve meaningfully. On top of that, it’s probably impossible to find a single player, or even two or three players, who can address all three without taking away from what the Kings already do well. You can’t bank on getting back someone who can play strong perimeter defense, protect the rim, and create offense while not taking away from the Kings’ core strengths, Fox and Sabonis—that list is basically made up of Kawhi Leonard or Kevin Durant, and they’re not on the trading block (and Keegan Murray is already on the roster . . . ).

Rather than dream up players who can fill all three holes, one thing I usually try to do is think of player archetypes that could address a couple problem areas without causing too many issues elsewhere. I’m thinking more of a style of player than anyone in particular—for example, traditional passing point guards, rim protecting centers, 3-and-D wings, etc.

Player Types That Fit

What player archetypes make sense to add depends a lot on the players who definitely will play even after any trades. For the Kings, that list is pretty easy. De’Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, and Keegan Murray are the team’s core and are exceptionally unlikely to be traded, and Malik Monk is such a pivotal part of the bench unit that they’re unlikely to move him either (Monk is also set to be a free agent next season, so his value to the Kings is probably going to be higher than for teams they’re likely to trade with).

Combined, these four players have a ton of strengths, especially on offense.

The Core: Fox, Sabonis, Murray, and Monk

The Fox/Sabonis/Murray core can create effective offense regardless of who else is on the court, as there is plenty of scoring talent, shot-creation, deep shooting, passing, post-up play, and screening. Fox can create his own shots easily, Sabonis can be the hub of an effective offense when paired with shooters, and Murray’s shot-making and burgeoning midrange game slots in perfectly. Monk is also a good enough offensive player to lead an effective bench, as his shooting pairs well with either Fox or Sabonis (whose minutes are often staggered), and he also has enough shot-creation and passing ability to create offense at times, too.

But there are also some readily identifiable holes defensively. Fox and Monk are both undersized for their position and can be over-powered at times on defense. Although Fox plays effective defense for stretches and does a good job of creating steals, his offensive workload is so high that it’s no surprise you don’t want him guarding the opponent’s best backcourt player. Monk’s calling card isn’t on defense—he gets beat too often off the dribble despite good quickness and his small frame makes it hard for him to defend bigger guards. Murray is becoming a better and better defensive player, so he has been regularly tasked with guarding opposing teams’ best perimeter players, but he’s still learning how to guard a star offensive player and provide effective help defense. As a result, he’s sometimes unable to provide help and close out to top-tier perimeter players without fouling. Meanwhile, Sabonis is a great rebounder, but he offers very little rim protection, and his lack of length sometimes forces him to choose between contesting shots and rebounding position.

Offensive Archetypes

The offensive archetypes that fit with the Kings’ core depends a lot on who is playing. With Fox and Sabonis on the court, the Kings benefit most from having strong perimeter shooters. Fox can attack the paint on his own or with help from a screener like Sabonis, and Sabonis can function as the hub of the offense while Fox waits for opportune times to attack. Adding Murray also provides some bail-out protection if defenses can stop Fox, as he’s started to add mid-range and step-back jumpers to already elite shooting from three point range. When these three are on the court together, the Kings really just need guys who can hit open shots, keep the ball moving on offense, cut, and occasionally slash to the rim or handle the ball on the perimeter.

When Fox sits, though, it’s a different story. In those situations, the Kings tend to rely heavily on three offensive strategies:

1. Sabonis as the “offensive hub” at the top of the paint/elbow. The Kings run this all the time, even with Fox on the court. Sabonis has the ball in his hands up top to drag bigs away from the basket, and the Kings run good shooters around the perimeter to force defenses to focus on the three point line. Murray, Monk, Harrison Barnes, and especially Kevin Huerter do a great job of playing off of Sabonis in these sets, and they’re good enough shooters that it forces defenses into hard rotations. But the downside is there’s often no real threat to the paint because Sabonis is away from the basket (even though sometimes Sabonis will attack the paint off of the dribble), the Kings’ shooters mostly aren’t great at attacking off the dribble from this look, and the Kings don’t always do a good enough job cutting to the rim to put pressure on the paint.

2. Sabonis on the block. Sabonis is a good post-up player, especially against smaller frontcourt players who he can overpower. He relies on quick feet and strength to get good looks, as his lack of length doesn’t just allow him to go over guys. Against sturdier, strong bigs, Sabonis post ups aren’t as effective since he’s forced to rely on his quickness alone. On top of that, even though Sabonis is typically an elite passer, he has a tendency to focus on scoring from the low-block. Combined with the Kings’ other players lacking size and preference to shoot threes, when opponents double Sabonis and focus on denying the immediate three point shooters in the corner or at the wing, there’s often no other threat (such as a paint cutter or weakside attack from the opposite wing).

3. Pick and roll with Sabonis as the screener. The Kings also will run pick and rolls with Sabonis as the screener, but right now, only Monk and Davion Mitchell are really strong enough ball handlers to initiate it (the Kings have tried this with Chris Duarte but it hasn’t worked). Monk is still learning how to play the pick and roll efficiently, as it wasn’t a huge part of his game in previous seasons. He can get to shooting spots effectively and has some incredible underhand passes coming off of the screens, but he also gets too loose with the ball and hasn’t mastered where to go when the roller (Sabonis usually) is covered. Mitchell, for his part, isn’t yet a strong shooter, so defenders just duck under screens when he’s in the game, clogging up the lane and cutting off his biggest strength as a driver.

Shooters work okay for these scenarios obviously, but the Kings would really benefit from having at least one player on the roster who can do things besides provide spacing.

The Kings would benefit tremendously from adding a player who shoots well enough to act as a decent floor-spacer but who also has the size and athleticism to cut to the paint and finish, either when Sabonis is up top/at the elbow or from the weak side when Sabonis is on the low block. This would help the team threaten the paint area more when Fox sits, regardless of what big is on the floor defending Sabonis, and in turn open up shooting opportunities for the rest of the perimeter players. Murray can sometimes serve this role, but he is such a threatening shooter that it would be nice to find someone else who can add that threat while Murray acts as a spacer.

Alternatively, the Kings should find someone to help make the Sabonis pick and roll more effective when Fox is on the bench. There are basically two options here. The first is finding a player who can alternate with Monk as the pick and roll ball handler, which would free Monk up to also operate as an off-ball scorer and outside shooter, where he is really effective (the Kings often use Monk in this way when Fox is in the game), rather than to run so many pick and rolls with Sabonis. The second option letting Monk continue to be the pick and roll ball handler and add a player who can operate as an off-ball attacker and shooter. There is some benefit to this second approach, as it would let Monk continue to develop his pick and roll game.

Defensive Archetypes

The Kings defensive struggles mean there are actually quite a few areas they can stand to improve by adding players ahead of the trade deadline. Per Dunks & Threes, the Kings have just three players with a positive defensive estimated plus minus, which estimates a player’s contribution in points per 100 possessions from defense: Keegan Murray (1.3), Chris Duarte (0.9), and Domantas Sabonis (0.2). Murray and Sabonis are a part of the regular rotation, but Duarte’s playtime has been up and down as a result of struggles shooting the ball.

Most of the team’s defensive issues are apparent watching them.

Frontcourt/Paint Defense

In the frontcourt, the Kings lack shot-blocking and rebounding. Sabonis lacks length for a center and carries such an enormous rebounding burden that he cannot be relied on to block shots. Even though Javale McGee and Alex Len theoretically could provide rim protection, they both play sparingly because they’re somewhat awkward fits for the Kings fast-paced and high-post offense and they’re lack of footspeed contributes to the Kings difficulties defending pick and rolls (admittedly, this happens because the Kings guards get stuck on picks too often, too). The Kings’ other forwards (Murray, Barnes, and Lyles) are better able to handle pick and roll defense as well as guard bigs that like to get out on the perimeter, but they are all undersized to play power forward and aren’t strong rebounders or shotblockers for their positions.

Of course, these kinds of defensive trade-offs aren’t unique to the Kings. Most NBA teams have trouble defending guard-big pick and rolls, and finding frontcourt players that can block shots and rebound effectively is tough (finding someone who can block shots, rebound, and play offense is even tougher—there’s not a team in the NBA that wouldn’t love love to have Bam Adebayo).

The Kings also have to be more mindful of spacing offensively than many teams, as Sabonis largely does not shoot from the perimeter. This really narrows the possibilities, as there are very few rim protectors that can space the floor offensively in the NBA. There are 25 only players this season averaging at least 1.5 blocks per 100 possessions, who shoot at least 2.0 threes per 100 possessions, and who hit 30% or more of their threes. Half of them are guards, and several others are effectively impossible to trade for (Brook Lopez, Chet Holmgren, Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid, Kristaps Porzingis, Jaren Jackson Jr., Scottie Barnes, and Kevin Durant aren’t being dealt any time soon).

Rather than looking for a big who can block shots and shoot, the Kings instead could look for a big who can fill the void when Sabonis is off the floor. This opens up possibilities. Such a player would need to be able to rebound, defend the paint, and handle pick and rolls on defense, but offensively, they can be more limited—setting screens for Fox and Monk, moving the ball, and diving to the basket.

Alternatively, the Kings could look to bolster their perimeter unit with stronger rebounders with length, which would alleviate some of the burden on Sabonis and at least provide some opportunity for more shot contests in the paint and at the rim. None of the Kings current perimeter players (Fox, Monk, Huerter, Duarte, Mitchell) or their forwards (Barnes, Murray, Lyles, Vezenkov) really provides that now due to size limitations.

Perimeter/Backcourt Defense

The Kings also have some significant issues with perimeter defense. This is in part due to the fact that many of the Kings perimeter players are undersized, but there are also times when the Kings’ lack of quickness on defense can hamper them. The Kings give up far too many straight line drives off the dribble, either because someone isn’t quick enough to cut off the drive or gets overpowered. This forces help defenders to bite down (on the strong side) or rotate over to help weakside, which leaves open shooters. Because this happens quite a bit, the Kings help defenders tend to cheat just a bit too far off of shooters so that they can be ready to help, but the result is far too many uncontested threes.

Other than Keegan Murray, the Kings don’t really have any plus one-on-one defenders on the wing. Barnes and Lyles lack the quickness to stay in front of attacking wings, so they can get beat off the dribble too easily and give up drives to the basket, which forces help defenders to come and comprises the defense against shooters. Their lack of quickness, combined with average height/length, also means that they can’t easily play help defense and get back out to shooters when other players get beat. Huerter is quicker and has decent length for his position, but he gets caught too high and flat-footed a lot as both an on-ball defender and in help defense. He also resorts to reaching too often, so he picks up a ton of fouls on defense. This lack of quickness and defensive prowess on the wing leaves the Kings very vulnerable to shooting guards and small forwards who can shoot and drive, which is a problem since so many guys in the Western Conference can rack up points that way (Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, Jalen Williams, Luka Doncic, Brandon Ingram, etc.).

At guard, the Kings have a couple players capable of playing better defense, but they have significant size limitations generally and a couple of them are really tough to keep in the line-up due to their offensive limitations. Fox, Mitchell, Duarte, and Monk are all on the small end, and none have great length for their position. Fox can be a solid defender when he’s focused on defense, but he carries such a big responsibility on offense that he rarely locks in defensively all game, and his lack of height and bulk can mean he has trouble handling bigger guards like Anthony Edwards and James Harden. Monk is extremely athletic, but he also lacks size and is too easy for opposing guards to go through on defense. His defensive attention waxes and wanes, he gets caught on screens too often, and his close-outs are frequently too aggressive, so he often gets caught out of position. Duarte and Mitchell are better defensively, but they both struggle so much offensively that it is hard for them to find consistent minutes. Mitchell is also really undersized, which limits how he can be used defensively when Fox and Monk are on the court.

The end result is that the Kings would benefit tremendously from bigger, more athletic defenders at guard and on the wing. In addition to adding size and athleticism, they need to find at least one player who is a strong defender to help Keegan Murray anchor the perimeter defense. There’s little chance that the Kings can resolve their rim protection issues during the Sabonis minutes without a major change at power forward (or a dramatic sacrifice to spacing on offense), so the alternative is to bolster the perimeter defense substantially in the hopes they can put up enough resistance at the point of attack to reduce straight-line drives and the number of difficult help rotations that happen each game.

The Fourth and Final Part Coming Soon!

In the next—and definitely last—part of this series, I’m actually going to look at some of the trade candidates that reporters/pundits say the Kings might pursue. Pascal Siakam and OG Anounoby are off the table sadly, but that’s OK and will hopefully make my life easier. I may also throw in a couple names of players I’d think about, even if they haven’t been talked about.

Kings NBA Trade Deadline (Part 2): In the Weeds On Trade Chips and Rules For Deals

[This is part two of a series of posts on the Kings ahead of the February 8 trade deadline. In part one, I wrote about some of the key issues that have crept up for the Kings so far this season, including issues on offense when De’Aaron Fox sits and on defense protecting the paint and three point line.]

The most exciting part about the trade deadline is imaging who your team might go get. Trade rumors, whispers about which players may want out, and hypothetical trades are all over the place this time of year, so it’s easy to get excited and jump right into playing with trade machines to build out your own hypos.

And honestly, who can blame you? Trade machines these days are pretty good! They’ll do most of the hard work for you. They have already listed out each player and their contract, identified draft assets held by each team, and figured out how to match salaries, all of which is critical to making any NBA trade work. Yet they still don’t do the harder work of figuring out how teams can protect against downside risk, address future cap issues, deal with looming contract decisions, and ensure roster flexibility. That part is still quite a slog.

Here, I’m going to go over what the Kings have to offer on the trade market, specifically current players and future draft picks, and I’ll try to flag the core, nitty-gritty issues that impact what can get done in a deal and the value of players and future picks.

So What Can the Kings Offer In a Trade?

The first thing that any team has to look at is what it has in the cupboard. Broadly speaking for basketball, there are two primary buckets: players on your roster and future draft picks.

The Players

On the player-side, the Kings have 14 players on the current roster, one player on a 10-day contract (Juan Toscano-Anderson), and three players on two-way deals so they can split time with the G-League Stockton Kings (Jordan Ford, Keon Ellis, and Jalen Slawson).

You can see a pretty comprehensive break-down of the Kings player contracts on Spotrac, but for convenience, the chart below shows the team’s player contracts (excluding 10-day contracts, two-way deals, and dead cap hits, which are pretty marginal and not worth charting for simplicity):

The Kings have two All-NBA caliber players under contract long-term in Fox and Sabonis, and there’s been no indication the team would even consider moving them. The team has also repeatedly shot down any notion of trading second-year player Keegan Murray, even in exchange for all-stars Pascal Siakam and Lauri Markkanen. That leaves the Kings with 12 roster players they can trade (plus one 10-day player, Juan Toscano-Anderson, and two-way players Keon Ellis, Jalen Slawson, and Jordan Ford).

Realistically, opposing teams are most likely to be interested in a handful of players—Murray (who the Kings refuse to trade), Harrison Barnes, Kevin Huerter, pending free agent Malik Monk, and Davion Mitchell—or future draft picks. The other players on the Kings roster could still be fit into a deal, either because someone wants to trade or to make salaries match, but their names don’t come up in trade rumors often because they’re not as appealing to other teams.

But we can’t just stop at listing the players the Kings might trade. We also have to look at a handful of key issues that influence who can be traded where as well as the value they have in a deal. The most important of these issues is salary matching, but I’ll also talk briefly about contract restrictions that could impact the trade value of players the Kings could consider dealing.

[The below sections on Salary Matching and Contract Restrictions are pretty granular. If you’re not interested, you can skip it, but I do want folks to understand two concepts: (1) the NBA’s CBA has detailed rules governing how trades can be constructed, which can significantly impact which players are included in trades, and (2) the CBA also has rules governing re-signing players and player extensions that can impact how much value they have in a deal.]

Salary Matching

Player-for-player trades in the NBA require "salary matching.” This can get complicated, but the basic idea is that if a team wants to trade a player, they can only receive back players with salaries inside of a certain band (or specified amount).

The amount of salary that a team can receive back in a trade depends on a few factors, the most important of which are the amount of the outgoing player’s salary and the team’s overall salary cap position. [HoopsRumors has a solid summary if you want to get into the details more, but I’ve tried to simplify things below. Relatively speaking.]

Let’s start with the team’s salary cap position to get familiar with some of the terms that will help with understanding the salary matching rules.

• The NBA’s salary cap is specified each year by the league based on a pre-set formula outlined in the league’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA). For the 2023-24 season, the NBA set the salary cap at $136,021,000—teams can thus operate below the cap, at the cap, or above the cap, and different rules can apply to them as a consequence. That said, there generally aren’t many restrictions for teams simply being at or above the cap.

  [In case you’re wondering, the NBA has a “soft” salary cap—meaning there are various ways to go over the cap. These exceptions cover trades, re-signing players that were already under contract with the team the previous season, signing draft picks, signing new players at the veteran’s minimum salary, and signing players using various other specified salary cap exceptions. As a result, most competitive teams end up operating above the cap in any given season.]

• The NBA also has a luxury tax threshold, which is based on the cap and set at $165,294,000 for the 2023-24 season. Luxury tax teams have to pay an additional luxury tax for any salary paid at or above the luxury tax threshold. For example, if a team’s 2023-24 salary is $170,000,000, in addition to paying their salary out to the players, they have to pay an additional $4,706,000 in luxury taxes to the league, which in turn gets distributed to the other teams who aren’t luxury tax payers.

  The amount of luxury tax is based on the amount by which a team exceeds the luxury tax threshold, and it gets increasingly onerous as a team spends more and more beyond the luxury tax threshold. I’ve included an explanation below, but note that all of the underlined amounts will increase in the 2025-26 seasons and beyond, per the CBA.

  • Between $0 and $4,999,999 above the luxury tax, teams pay $1.25 in luxury tax per dollar they go over the luxury tax threshold.

  • Between $5 million and $9,999,999 above the luxury tax, teams pay $1.75 in luxury tax per dollar they go over the luxury tax threshold.

  • Between $10 million and $14,999,999 above the luxury tax, teams pay $2.50 in luxury tax per dollar they go over the luxury tax threshold.

  • Between $15 million and $19,999,999 above the luxury tax, teams pay $3.25 in luxury tax per dollar they go over the luxury tax threshold.

  [Teams that repeatedly have salaries above the luxury tax threshold (based on CBA-specified formulas) can also be charged additional amounts as “repeater” tax. It’s the same concept as outlined above, but the prices get even higher.]

  The practical effect of the luxury tax is that as a team spends more and more above the luxury tax threshold, their roster becomes more and more expensive—and they effectively give more and more money to their competitors who stay below the luxury tax threshold.

  This can have a huge effect on the trade market, because teams that can afford to spend (think big market teams like the Warriors or the Knicks) are more willing/able to pay a tax on salary, while other teams often prefer to stay below the luxury tax threshold so they can get money back.

• The NBA also sets two salary cap thresholds above the luxury tax threshold called the “first apron” and the “second apron.” For 2023-24, the first apron is $172,346,000 and the second apron is $182,794,000.

  Teams with salaries at or above these two thresholds are subject to a variety of restrictions this season, and will be subject to additional penalties in future years of the current CBA. We don’t need to go into the details other than to keep in mind a couple concepts:

  • Next year, teams are going to face increasingly stiff restrictions and/or penalties for having team salaries above the first apron and the second apron;

  • Specifically at issue here, teams above the first apron (and of course the second apron) have to comply with stricter trade rules; and

  • Teams generally don’t want to exceed the first apron or the second apron unless they need to, as they will face significantly reduced roster flexibility once the rules take effect next season.

• Lastly, there is a minimum team salary threshold—often referred to as the salary floor. For the 2023-24 season, the salary floor is $122,418,000. The salary floor is an issue far less frequently than the salary cap and luxury tax threshold, and gets less attention than the first and second aprons, but the basic idea is pretty simple. Teams have to have team salaries above the salary floor, and if they don’t, they get penalized. Those penalties come in the form of having to pay up to the salary floor anyway (for example, players on the team will get paid more even though they signed contracts for less); the team will be subject to “cap holds” that prevent the team from taking advantage salary cap space below the salary floor; and the team will get 50% less money in distributions from teams paying luxury tax (this will go down to no money starting in 2025-26).

  The details here aren’t so important for our purposes. What is important is to understand that there is no real benefit to teams going below the salary floor, and they can suffer penalties for doing so.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the salary matching requirement.

The amount of salary a team can get back in a trade depends on the outgoing player salary this season and the team’s overall salary (specifically, whether the team is above the first apron). For teams below the first apron, the following salary matching rules apply:

1. For outgoing salaries up to $7.5 million, the team can receive back a player whose salary equals 200% of the outgoing player salary + $250k.

2. For outgoing salaries above $7.5 million up to $29 million, the team can receive back a player whose salary equals outgoing player salary + $7.5 million.

3. For outgoing salaries above $29 million, the team can receive back a player whose salary equals 125% of the outgoing player salary + $250k.

To help understand the concept, think about a few simplified examples.

• A team wants to trade away a player whose salary is $5 million, which falls under Category #1 above. The player they receive back can only be paid a salary that is up to $10.25 million.

  2 x $5 million + $0.25 million = $10.25 million

• A team wants to trade for a player that makes $25.5 million. The player they trade away must be paid a salary of at least $18 million—this is Category #2 above.

  $18 million + $7.5 million = $25.5 million

• A team wants to trade away a player who makes $30 million. The most they can take back in salary is $37.75 million—see Category #3 above.

  1.25 x $30 million + $0.25 million = $37.75 million

The rules are simpler, but more restrictive for teams at or above the first apron. For first apron teams, they can only take back a player whose salary is up to 110% of the outgoing salary no matter what the outgoing salary is. In practice, this means that teams at or above the first apron have less wiggle room in trades and have to match salaries more closely—they can’t take players who earn more than 10% of the players they’re sending out in a deal. This will go down to 100% starting next season.

Right now, teams generally can also aggregate salaries of multiple players in trades. Put simply, this means that teams can combine the salaries of more than one player for salary matching purposes in trades. For example, if a team wants to trade two players for three players, the salary matching rules described above still apply—the “outgoing salaries” would be the combined salaries of the two players the team is trading away, and the incoming salaries would be the combined salaries of the three players coming back in the trade.

Here’s a simplified example:

The Spurs want to trade Players A and B to the Wizards in exchange for Players X, Y, and Z. Player A has a $20 million salary and Player B has a $12 million salary.

Meanwhile, Player X has a $18 million salary, Player Y has a $8 million salary, and Player Z has a $7 million salary.

The trade is allowed, regardless of whether either team is a first apron team, because it meets all the salary matching requirements.

$20 million (Player A) + $12 million (Player B) = $32 million in outgoing salary

$18 million (Player X) + $8 million (Player Y) + $7 million (Player Z) = $33 million

General rule (non first apron teams): 1.25 x $32 million = $40 million, which is greater than the $33 million in incoming salary to the Spurs

First Apron Rule: 1.10 x $32 million = $35.2 million, which is also greater than the $33 million in incoming salary to the Spurs.

Both rules would also obviously be satisfied from the Wizards' perspective, as their $33 million of outgoing salary is greater than the returning $32 million in salary they are getting back.

Following the 2023-24 season, teams above the first apron and second apron will start to face more and more restrictions on the salary they can take back in trades and whether they can aggregate salaries for trades. Among other things, teams at or above the first apron won’t be able to take back more than the amount of salary they send out in a trade, and teams at or above the second apron won’t be able to aggregate salaries for trades (aggregation of salaries is described more below).

Teams can also send out a limited amount of cash per year in trades and/or include future draft picks in trades (which have no value for salary matching purposes).

There are a number of other minor salary matching rules that can apply in limited cases, but hopefully that covers the meat of it!

Contract Restrictions

There are a bunch of rules governing NBA contracts that are largely driven by how much time the player has served in the NBA, most of which don’t really impact trade considerations. For example, veteran players typically have fewer restrictions (although there can be exceptions and weird things like no-trade clauses exist sometimes, but they’re pretty rare).

Most of the Kings players have standard NBA deals, so there aren’t really special considerations for teams to look at when trading for them. But a few are worth flagging:

• Malik Monk is scheduled to be a free agent this off-season, and either the Kings (or any team they trade Monk to) would have his “Early Bird rights.” I won’t go into detail on Bird rights, but the gist is that Bird rights let a team re-sign its own players and exceed the salary cap. “Early Bird rights” rights are a more limited version of Bird rights, but they limit how much the team can pay the player in the first year of a new contract. In Monk’s case, if he were traded, a team would be able to offer him a contract for the 2024-25 season and beyond with a starting salary at about $17.4 million and also go over the salary cap.

  This could ultimately limit Monk’s trade value if teams think that Monk would be offered substantially more than $17.4 million as a free agent (which is certainly possible if not likely). This is because the team trading for Monk would be limited to offering him a below market starting salary if his contract would push the team’s salary above the cap, which in turn would make it less likely that Monk actually re-ups with them.

• Separately, a number of Kings players have contracts with team options: Keegan Murray and Sasha Vezenkov in 2025-26, and Colby Jones in 2027-28. This gives teams the right to choose whether to keep the player under contract during the option year, which gives the team added control and flexibility with the player’s future contract. This is generally seen as positive for the team and bolsters trade value—especially on (comparatively) low salary deals that may prove to be below market for the player.

• Keegan Murray, Davion Mitchell, Chris Duarte, and Kessler Edwards are also still on their rookie contracts, so they are slated to eventually hit "restricted free agency” rather than “unrestricted free agency” (like the rest of the Kings players) in different years. Without going into detail, unrestricted free agents can generally sign wherever they like, but the team gets the chance to match any deal a restricted free agent signs with another team—conceptually like a right of first refusal. This is generally favorable for the team, as it gives them more leverage in negotiations for players that out-perform their rookie deals in particular.

  As first round picks, Murray, Mitchell, and Duarte can also be offered extensions of their contracts for up to five years (by the Kings or an acquiring team).

Draft Picks

Everyone knows that future draft picks, especially first round picks, are extremely valuable in trades. Often, teams trading away players ahead of the trade deadline are trying to turn their focus to the future, so getting back future draft picks for current players is a natural strategy.

The chart below shows the draft picks that the Kings own (in black) and the draft picks they’ve traded away (in red).

The Kings Future Picks

* Sacramento owes its 2024 first round pick to Atlanta, but it is protected for the top 14 picks. If the pick does not convey to Atlanta in 2024, it rolls over to 2025, where it is protected for the top 12 picks. If the pick does not convey to Atlanta in 2025, it rolls over to 2026, where it is protected for the top 10 picks. If the Kings pick is in the top 10 in 2026, then Atlanta loses the right to receive a first round pick and instead will receive the Kings’ second round picks in 2026 and 2027.

The CBA Restricts Trading Future Picks

As you can see from the chart above, the Kings have all of their first round picks through 2030, except for a protected pick in 2024 that they owe to the Hawks (part of the trade for Kevin Huerter almost two years ago). That’s a good war chest for trades, as they have a number of picks that they can send out in exchange for players now.

But there are a few key rules to keep in mind that restrict what the Kings can trade away.

First, per the CBA, teams can only trade draft picks up to seven years in the future, hence why the chart above only goes out to 2030. Next year, teams will be permitted to trade picks out to 2031.

Second, there’s something called the Stepien Rule, which requires that teams have a future first round pick in every other draft. In effect, this means that a team can’t trade its first round picks in successive years. Generally speaking, this is pretty simple to figure out: if a team has traded away its pick in 2024, it cannot trade its 2025 pick, the team would only be able to trade its pick in 2026 and beyond. [The Stepien Rule only applies to first round picks because the perception is that a team trading all of its first round picks could really hamstring it in the future. Second round picks aren’t seen as quite so important.]

The combination of the two rules above means that a hypothetical team today could trade, at most, four of its future first round picks: 2024, 2026, 2028, and 2030.

Third, teams can place protections on the picks they send out. Pick protections are often structured so that they pick doesn’t convey if it falls in a particular draft slot. For example, the Kings 2024 first round pick will go to the Atlanta Hawks so long as it does not fall in the top 14 picks. If the pick falls anywhere between 15 and 30, the Hawks get the pick for the 2024 draft, otherwise the Kings keep it.

Trading a future unprotected first round pick will usually net way more back in a trade than trading a top 20 protected first round pick, for example. The unprotected pick has more opportunity to convey and of course has the chance to be higher in the draft, so it carries way more value to the team trading for it. Teams often use these protections heavily as a way to change the value of their picks so that each side to a deal gets appropriate value. Pick protections can bridge the gap between a team trading for a player who is not quite worth a future first round pick, but is better than a second round pick, and the counterparty who isn’t interested in getting multiple second round picks.

Teams have a lot of flexibility to negotiate protections on picks, so long as the pick conveys within seven years at most, if at all (there are other rules, but they’re not really relevant to pick value). In other words, the protection has to be structured so that the pick either goes to the other team within seven years or the obligation to give the pick extinguishes, or alternatively turns into some other kind of trade value (like multiple second round picks that convey right away). As you can probably guess, how much protection gets placed on a particular pick has an ENORMOUS impact on that pick’s value in a trade.

All together, this can really make trading future first round picks complicated.

Let’s look at the Kings 2024 first round pick set to be traded to the Hawks. As I noted above, that pick is top 14 protected in 2024, but if it doesn’t convey to the Hawks in 2024, it gets converted to a top 12 protected pick in 2025. Same thing if it doesn’t convey in 2025, it converts to a top 10 protected pick in 2026. And, just to add some more complexity, if the pick hasn’t conveyed and Kings are picking in the top 10 in 2026, the Hawks would instead get two second round picks in 2026 and 2027. The three rules listed above conspire to really limit what the Kings can trade right now.

Because the Kings have agreed to trade their 2024 first rounder, they can’t trade their first rounder in 2025 because of the Stepien Rule. But, because the Kings placed protections on their 2024 pick, there is no guarantee that it will actually convey to the Hawks in 2024—instead, the Kings let that pick effectively roll over to 2025. Because of that, the Kings also can’t trade their first round pick in 2026, as it’s theoretically possible they would have already traded away their 2025 pick. The same situation would apply for their 2026 first round pick: because the Hawks could theoretically receive the Kings 2026 first round pick, the Kings can’t trade their 2027 first round pick under the Stepien Rule.

[1/16/24 addition: There is one caveat that I should add for completeness. The Kings can theoretically trade their 2026 first round pick if they structure the pick to be conditional on the Kings 2024 first round pick actually being conveyed to the Hawks. In such a situation, the team that trades for the Kings 2026 first round pick would only be able to get that pick if the Kings 2024 first round pick actually falls outside the top 14, and thus is conveyed to the Hawks. Otherwise, the team trading for the Kings 2026 first rounder would have to get something else (such as second round picks, a later year first round pick, etc.) or nothing.]

So What Draft Picks Can the Kings Actually Trade?

This is something that I see lots of people mix up when talking about what future the Kings have available to trade.

As of today, for their first round picks, the Kings can either trade (A) two first rounders in 2028 and 2030 or (B) one first rounder in 2029. They cannot trade their first round picks in 2025, 2026, or 2027, even though they most likely will end up owning those picks, as a result of the current deal they have with the Hawks. All of the second round picks the Kings have, however, can be traded (other than the 2030 pick they owe to Indiana).

But that’s not the end of the story!

The Kings can, in theory, remove the protections on the 2024 first round pick they owe to Atlanta to ensure that it actually conveys in 2024. Doing so would allow the Kings to open up additional first round picks for trade, such that they could make up to three first rounders available (in 2026, 2028, and 2030).

There are two things that must be accounted for, though, before the Kings remove protection from the 2024 first round pick owed to the Hawks.

The first is obvious: removing protections is the same thing as giving away value. If the Kings were to remove the protections on the pick they owe to Atlanta, it would be the same as giving additional value in the form of a better pick in 2024—so, whatever potential trade for a player this year would have to take that into account.

The second issue is that the Kings can’t unilaterally change their deal with Atlanta. Instead, the two sides have to reach another deal to change the protections. What if the Hawks think that the 2024 draft is terrible, but the 2025 draft is great? If they think that, the Hawks may not want to remove the protections on the Kings’ 2024 pick because they think it is unlikely to convey (basically meaning they think the Kings won’t make the playoffs) and they’d rather take a shot at getting a first round pick in 2025. It’s unlikely the Hawks are betting on that now, with the Kings sitting at 5th in the West, but the 2024 draft isn’t very highly rated so they may want to gamble. Regardless, the real point is that the Kings may have to give up something to take the protections off of the 2024 first rounder they owe to the Hawks so that they can be more flexible trading first round picks this year.

[1/16/24 addition: I should also flag that the Kings can trade the unprotected portions of the first round picks they’ve conveyed to the Hawks, although they won’t have as much value as a stand-alone first round pick. The Kings retain the rights over their 2024 first round pick if it lands in the top 14 (same for the top 12 picks in 2025 and top 10 picks in 2026)—essentially the inverse of what they’ve traded away from the Hawks—so they can trade those pieces. In other words, even without changing the protections on the first round picks owed to the Hawks, the Kings are allowed to trade their 2024 first round pick protected for picks 16-30, and they could add on roll-over years like they did with the Hawks deal. First round picks with these kinds of protections can be hard to value, but a Kings trade partner could essentially bet against the Kings making the playoffs in 2024 (with rollovers to 2025 and 2026, for example) by taking the lottery-protected portion of the first round pick the Kings have already traded away.

It’s also worth noting that NBA teams also can do pick swaps. This isn’t the same as trading a pick, but teams can essentially trade away the option to swap picks with another team. In such a situation, the Kings would give another team the right to choose, after the draft order is set and before the draft, between the more favorable of the Kings pick and their own. This has much less value than a pick itself, as the trade counter-party has to send back their own first round pick if they elect to swap, but these swap rights do have trade value.]

Cash

Teams can also include cash consideration in trades. Cash consideration is often used for smaller deals to make sense, as sometimes a team wants to get off of a player’s contract because they don’t play much and aren’t in the team’s future plans. Unsurprisingly, there are rules in the CBA governing how much cash can be included to avoid rich teams throwing money at less wealthy teams for their best players, but because these are usually just used for smaller deals, they don’t come up a lot. I’m talking about them here primarily to acknowledge that these rules exist and have a small part to play in deadline deals of all sizes.

For the 2023-24 seasons, teams are limited to paying cash considerations to a total of $7.05 million for the season. Theoretically, this can be split up among several trades or included in one trade. The practical effect of this limit is that cash considerations are usually only relevant for small deals involving a player or two with relatively small salaries (at least by NBA standards), otherwise it ends up not making much sense. For example, cash considerations were part of the Kings-Nets deal last year that brought in Kessler Edwards—the Nets sent Kessler Edwards and cash to the Kings so that they didn’t have to pay his salary and lower their luxury tax bill.

Part Three Coming Soon!

In the next (and probably? hopefully? last) part of this series, I’m going to look at some of the trade candidates that reporters and pundits are suggesting the Kings might pursue. I’m hoping to look at these potential trade targets from a few angles: What areas of need would they help address (PLEASE DEFENSE!)? Who would the Kings likely have to send out the door in order to get them? And, what do the Kings need to think about with respect to future draft picks and salary cap space before actually making a trade?

Kings NBA Trade Deadline (Part 1): The Kings Have to Find a Way to Get Better

[This is Part 1 of a multi-part series of posts on how the Kings need to look to improve ahead of the NBA’s looming trade deadline; how their assets and cap space will influence who they can target in the trade market (if anyone); and whether any of the hot trade target names make sense]

The NBA trade deadline is February 8th, a little less than one month away. Just under halfway through the season, the Kings are sitting as the fifth seed in the Western Conference at 21-14, barely ahead of the sixth-place Mavericks (22-15) and seventh-place Pelicans (22-15).

Going into back-to-back games on the road against Detroit (tonight) and Charlotte (tomorrow), by the most important measure, the Kings are already doing slightly better than last year. Last year’s team went 20-15 to start the season before ultimately winning 48 games and finishing as the 3-seed in the West.

That said, there’s no real question the Western Conference has continued to improve overall this year. The Nuggets continue to perform, Timberwolves and Thunder are gelling, the Clippers have been healthy and near-flawless after a slow start following the addition of James Harden, the Mavs and Pelicans have been effective, the Rockets finally appear to be turning things around, and the Suns are finally healthy. Only three teams in the West won 48 games or more last year, but there are seven teams in the Conference on pace to hit that mark this season (as of today). A “slight” improvement on last year may not cut it as a result.

On top of increased competition in the conference, there are some headline issues that should raise concern for the Kings and their fans.

• This year’s Kings team has a negative point differential so far, scoring 0.3 points less than opponents per game. That’s 10th in the West and 18th in the NBA, and it looks more like what you would expect from a .500 team than a team with a 21-14 record.

• The offense has taken a small step back, especially compared to the rest of the league. The Kings are scoring 117.7 points per game (8th in NBA), down from 120.7 last season (1st in NBA). Similarly, their offensive rating has also dropped from a league-leading 118.6 (1st overall) to 116.0 (14th overall).

• The defense, which the team hoped to improve from last season, hasn’t made significant strides forward. Last year’s team had a defensive rating of 116.0 (23rd overall) and this year’s team has a defensive rating of 116.1 (21st overall).

Overall, the top-line stats above are suggestive of a team that hasn’t been able to generate enough offense to make up for its deficiencies on defense. Looking closer, though, is illuminating. The Kings have three big issues that they’re facing offensively—two of which may resolve themselves without changes to the roster. On defense, the same issues that have beleaguered them in the past are showing up, suggesting roster moves might make a difference.

Let’s jump in.

The Kings Offense Comes Back to the Pack

I am focusing on three offensive issues that have showed up consistently so far this season. These are issues that I’ve noticed watching (literally) every game so far this season, and the stats show they help explain some of the Kings’ offensive backslide, as the team has fallen from a record-setting offense to one that is just pretty good. Given the current roster, the Kings could look to improve their overall play by getting their offense back in shape without re-inventing themselves.

The Offense Craters Without Fox

The number one issue facing the Kings right now is what to do when Fox is out of the game. Every team is going to suffer when you take its best player off the court, but the Kings have tanked offensively when De’Aaron Fox is on the bench. When Fox sits, the Kings drops from 120.8 points per 100 possessions to just 111.8 based on data from PBP Stats.

Fox is also carrying the biggest offensive load of his career, which has allowed the Kings to maintain a top 10 offense overall. He’s averaging 28.3 points, 6.0 assists, and 4.4 rebounds in just over 35 minutes per game while shooting 47.0% from the field and 39.2% from three, and his usage rate is a career-high 32.4%. His numbers have dipped slightly in recent weeks in part because of the massive load he’s carrying.

While the Kings offense often runs through Sabonis at the top of the key whether Fox is in the game or not, there’s no question Fox is the driving the ship. Fox has been the team’s most prolific three point shooter this year, especially as other shooters have struggled. Keegan Murray struggled from deep early (although he’s recovering his percentages from last year). Kevin Huerter’s shooting has cratered to 34.1% from 40.2% last season, which has hurt spacing and rendered previously effective offensive plays like the Sabonis-Huerter dribble handoff ineffective. On top of his three point shooting, Fox is also the team’s most effective and frequent driver. Fox drives 16.7 times per game—the next closest on the team is Malik Monk at 11.9, per NBA.com. That penetration has opened up shots and driving lanes for the rest of the team, most of whom aren’t best hunting shots on their own.

Mike Brown has tried to mitigate the impact of sitting Fox by staggering his minutes with Sabonis—Fox typically comes out of the game with about six minutes left in the first quarter while Sabonis keeps playing, then comes back in when Sabonis rests—but that hasn’t solved the problem. Again per PBP Stats, when Fox and Sabonis share the floor, the Kings offensive rating is 120.0 and their net rating is 2.72, but even when Sabonis is in the game while Fox sits, that plummets to an offensive rating of 111.1 and a net rating of -6.54. With Fox in the game and Sabonis sitting, the Kings are still able to get by on the strength of Fox’s offense, as the team’s offensive rating jumps to 122.6 and the net rating stays at a respectable 1.59.

Having Malik Monk play with Sabonis has helped, but it’s not a cure. With Monk and Sabonis, and no Fox, the Kings have posted an offensive rating of 116.1 and a net rating of 0.74. Those line-ups rely heavily on two actions, Sabonis in the high-post (a staple for the Kings the last two years) and the Monk/Sabonis pick and roll. The Sabonis high-post game has been effective in the past, but Monk isn’t yet efficient as a pick and roll initiator despite his knack for making some electric passes. When Monk is the pick and roll ball handler, the Kings are scoring just 0.84 points per play and have a turnover frequency of 21.9% per NBA.com (the Kings don’t run pick and roll super efficiently even with Fox, but for comparison, when Fox is the pick and roll ball handler, they’re scoring 1.00 points per play with a turnover frequency of just 12.7%). Finding more efficiency out of the pick and roll when Fox is on the bench, whether from improved play by Monk (he’s still learning what passes are best as the pick and roll initiator) or through a trade addition, would go a long way in bolstering the Kings offense during the minutes he sits.

In the limited time the Kings roll with Sabonis and no Fox or Monk, the offensive is effectively non-existent. Lineups with Sabonis and no Fox or Monk are getting killed, with an offensive rating of 103.9 and a net rating of -14.9 (per PBP Stats).

Stats from PBP Stats

There isn’t a clear answer on the roster for the non-Fox minutes, either. Keon Ellis’ minutes without Fox on the floor have been productive, but they’ve been heavily influenced by low-leverage minutes. It’s tough to expect Ellis to takeover backup minutes for an All-NBA player in his first full season out of the G-League.

Stats from PBP Stats

The Kings need to find a way to prop up the offense when Fox sits. Monk has been solid, but adding another ball-handler (or pick and roll partner for Sabonis) could alleviate the pressure on Monk to create offense through pick and rolls, not his most effective tool, when things stagnate.

Trouble Shooting From Two

Even though the Kings mostly took high quality shots last year, they’ve still managed to improve their shot diet this year. Compared to last season, they’re taking more threes and fewer long-range twos. This year, the Kings are shooting threes at the third-highest rate in the NBA, 40.7 threes per 100 possessions (up from 36.9 per 100 possessions last season), and their three point shooting has held steady at around 37% (they’re shooting 37.2% this year versus 36.9% last year). A whopping 45.2% of their shots come from three point range, up an already healthy 42.3% last season. They’ve also dropped the percentage of their shots that are long twos—only 11.9% of the team’s shots are taken between 10+ feet from the basket but inside the 3 point line (compared to 13% last season).

All of that is great news! But that improved shot diet has been off-set by the team’s shooting troubles from two point range, where their shooting has dropped off meaningfully from basically everywhere.

Overall, the Kings’ two point shooting has fallen to 55.8% (9th in the NBA) from a league-leading 58.6% last year. That’s a big drop, even if it would be hard to match last year’s figure.

The drop-off has been even more noticeable (and problematic) in the paint, as those are shots that the team has hit with high frequency on the backs of Domantas Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox. The Kings are shooting a good-but-not-great 66.9% from the restricted area, good for 12th and 23rd in the NBA respectively, but down from a stellar 69.5% on 26.6 shots per game last year (per NBA.com). They’re also shooting 46.6% from the paint outside the restricted area, down from last year’s 47.7%. NBA.com also provides data by distance, which shoes that the team’s shooting from the midrange has been worse too. On shots between 10-19 feet (roughly, midrange twos), the Kings shooting has dropped to just 41.0% from 43.8% last season.

The Kings have several players shooting worse than last year from two point range. Fox and Sabonis are both down from last year, and so are Huerter and Monk. There is some hope that the two point shooting returns to last’s years form, but that is hard to bank on, as last year’s league-leading two point shooting percentage would be difficult to replicate under any circumstances without adding paint scorers or creating more space for Fox and Sabonis. Given the Kings’ issues keeping the offense afloat when Fox sits, adding a paint scorer could be the more effective answer.

Struggles With Free Throws

There’s no need to dig deeply on this one, the Kings’ free throw shooting has been plainly bad this year. They are dead last in the NBA shooting 72.9% from the line, falling from last year’s mid-pack free throw percentage of 79.0%. Fox and Sabonis dominate free throw trips for the Kings, but each is shooting worse than last year from the line. From the line, Fox is shooting 72.1% on 6.9 FT attempts per game (FTA), down from 78% on 6.0 FTAs last season; Sabonis is shooting just 65.4% on 5.4 FTAs, down from 74.2% on 5.5 FTAs last season (per Basketball Reference).

But the Kings are also drawing less fouls regardless. They were fourth-best in the league last year at drawing fouls (20.9 per game), but that’s dropped all the way to 19th (19.3 per game). This is partly the natural result of shooting more threes, but it has meant fewer trips to the foul line for easier scoring chances. With Fox’s FTAs going up and Sabonis’ FTAs staying stagnant, it’s meant that the rest of the team—generally stronger free throw shooters—have shot 3.6 less free throws per game overall compared to last year. Even if those players shot just 75% from the free throw line, that would be an additional 2.7 points per game—which has to be made up elsewhere.

Obviously the simplest way to improve at the line is for Fox and Sabonis to shoot better. Having another strong shooter who can handle the ball and draw fouls could help, but that would take the ball out of the hands of the team’s two best players. Given the team is asking its role players to shoot more threes, too, it’s hard to expect a dramatic improvement in their free throw rate, but those players have got to get to the line more nonetheless.

(Mostly) More of the Same on Defense

Top-Line Stats Say the Defense Hasn’t Changed From Last Year

The Kings have well-documented defensive issues dating back to last season (or longer depending on who you ask . . . but the team was also totally different). Last season, the Kings gave up 118.1 points per game (26th overall) with a defensive rating of 116.0 (24th overall). Despite another year under the tutelage of Head Coach Mike Brown, who is known for his defensive prowess, this year’s Kings defense is in most ways unchanged: they give up 118.0 points per game (22nd overall) with a defensive rating of 116.1 (20th overall).

A league-wide uptick in scoring does mask that the Kings have made some improvements on the defensive end. These improvements have come largely in the form of slightly more blocks, steals, and fewer offensive rebounds—but they’re small improvements at best. You can see from the chart below how some of the team’s key defensive metrics have stayed flat or regressed slightly, with the exception of opponent offensive rebounds and a slight uptick in blocks.

Stats from Basketball Reference

Still No Paint Protection

It’s never been a huge surprise that protecting the paint isn’t a strength for the Kings. Sabonis is on the smaller side of centers (perfect heights/wingspans aren’t available, but he’s listed at 6’10” with a 6’10.5” wingspan); Harrison Barnes, Keegan Murray, Trey Lyles, and Sasha Vezenkov are definitely on the small side for NBA 4’s; and Javale McGee and Alex Len don’t get enough minutes to defend the paint most of the game. Combined with perimeter players who lack ideal length—Fox, Monk, and Davion Mitchell are smaller, and Huerter, Chris Duarte, and Keon Ellis aren’t exactly pterodactyls—the Kings have to move their feet and nail rotations to defend the paint well.

There’s no denying that the Kings are once again struggling to defend the paint. Even though Sabonis in particular is a stellar big overall and has been pretty effective this year defensively (he ranks 17th overall in Basketball Reference’s Defensive Box Plus/Minus, above defensive stalwarts Rudy Gobert, Chet Holmgren, Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen, and Walker Kessler), that hasn’t fixed the paint issues. They don’t block shots, they aren’t particularly adept at getting steals, and they don’t get a ton of deflections, as noted above.

They have improved their defense at the rim somewhat. Opponents last year shot 73.3% on shots between zero and three feet (25th in the NBA), which they’ve improved to 69.8% this year per Basketball Reference. Yet whatever improvement they’ve made at the rim has been given back to opposing offenses in the form of short jumpers and runners. On shots between 3 and 10 feet, the Kings are allowing opponents to shoot 50.3% (27th in the NBA), up from 47.5% last year.

Simply adding a big to cover the paint probably can’t solve the issue. The Kings tried this last off-season when they added Javale McGee last year in free agency, hoping to help assuage some of the rim- and paint-defense issues. McGee hasn’t been able to improve the defense overall, as the team’s defensive rating is 2.5 points worse per 100 possessions with McGee on the court versus on the bench. McGee’s length has meant that opponents shoot about 7% worse at the rim with him on the floor, but that benefit gets eaten up by the fact that opponents end up shooting 5% better from three due to McGee’s difficulties switching onto perimeter players and the Kings’ general troubles with perimeter defense.

Bigs who can protect the paint and hold their own on the perimeter are kind of like unicorns, so finding one on the trade market would be difficult, if not impossible. On the other hand, adding perimeter players who can more effectively bite down on paint shots and still defend three point shooters and dribble drives is likely an easier path to address the issue.

Still Can’t Defend the Three

The Kings are also still struggling to effectively defend the three point line. They’re once again in the bottom tier of the league, allowing opponents to shoot 38.5% from three point range, a tick worse than last year’s 37.3% mark. Watching Kings games regularly, it’s hard to avoid noticing the number of missed rotations that result in wide-open threes.

One of the biggest issues remains that they give up too many corner threes, a shot that most teams try to hunt, far too easily, even though they’ve improved slightly in that department from last season. This year, their opponents shoot 24.2% of their total threes from the corners (19th in the NBA) and they hit a robust 41.1% percent of them (20th in the NBA) per Basketball Reference. That’s in line with last year’s marks of 26.0% of threes coming from the corner (24th) and 39.5% shooting (19th).

As a team, the Kings are contesting just 15.8 threes per game, tied for 24th in the NBA. Other teams around them either do a better job of contesting shots generally, like Minnesota and Milwaukee, or play at a slower pace, like the Heat and Sixers. The Kings also don’t get their hands on many passes (13.5 deflections per game, 26th in the NBA), which would be another way to mitigate the threat of open shooters.

As with protecting the paint, adding a perimeter defender could help address these issues quite a bit.

Still Need More Hustle

When it comes to hustle plays, the Kings need to do a better job. While admittedly anecdotal, too often, games this season have slipped away because opposing teams have ramped up the intensity and the Kings haven’t. Especially when they don’t shoot well, the lack of energy and infrequency of true hustle plays has a dramatic deflating effect on the team. It’s let some opponents go on big runs and has contributed to the Kings frequently getting blown out in losses (7 of their 14 losses has been by 15 points or more). While the Kings don’t have defensive stars like some other teams, they can still do a better job with getting their hands up in passing lanes, swiping at balls without fouling, taking charges, and generally making opponents uncomfortable, especially when they’re not hitting shots, to keep opponents from going on runs.

The stats say the same thing. The Kings are 18th in offensive rebounding, tied for 18th in steals, 27th in blocks, 26th in deflections, tied for 17th in loose ball recoveries, 18th in charges drawn, 25th in shot contests, 18th in the percentage of offensive rebounds they box out on, and 13th in the percentage of defensive rebounds they box out on. These rankings aren’t all bad, and they’re certainly based on more than pure effort, but they are areas that the Kings can improve internally or by adding defense-minded players at the deadline.

Part Two Coming Soon!

In the next part of this series, I’m going to look at what the Kings have to trade and how the salary cap this season and beyond should influence their thinking ahead of the trade deadline.