Sacramento Kings General Manager Scott Perry’s message in his post trade deadline press conference was centered around patience and not making any moves “out of panic.” He framed the De’Andre Hunter trade as filling a need for size and balancing out the roster and brought up how Hunter’s contract is expiring next season, providing flexibility.
Perry said, “we’re at the extreme early stages of laying the foundation,” and it will be the 2027-28 season when the Kings will have “a window to start having a little more [financial] flexibility in making some more moves.”
The timing he mentions aligns with DeMar DeRozan’s and Zach LaVine’s contracts coming off the books.
While all of this may be true, the fact remains the Kings are 12-41, going through an unintentional tank, and have a lot of salary wrapped up in a bunch of veterans other teams are not jumping at to take off Sacramento’s hands. Perry gave up Keon Ellis and a second-round pick while getting rid of the big offseason signing in Dennis Schroder to get Hunter.
Perry had this to say about Schroder: “As the season unfolded, and you just see the fit didn’t work and so that happens sometimes,” he said. “He didn’t change as a person at all, he did what he was capable of doing. Unfortunately for him and us we had a lot of our guys we thought he was going to play with miss a lot of time too, so then you pivot.”
And losing Ellis?
“We had a lot of guards on the team this year,” and with inconsistent minutes Perry said Ellis was never able to get a strong foothold in a role with the Kings. “You’re going to lose solid players in the process of making deals. And so again, we needed to get bigger, we needed to get some more size and length here. That is what De’Andre brings.”
Perry said he understands the frustration of Kings fans (as every Kings general manager says at some point).
“You’re talking years of drafting, developing, trading, guys working, not working – there’s a lot of moving parts. And I understand the frustration of the fanbase. We’re in a society where people want things now, you want to win, but what I would submit is that what we are doing, again, is we’re not going to just chase shiny objects for the sake of doing it, or make deals for the sake of it to try to stay in the middle. This process that takes a little longer with the drafting and developing is the more solid foundation, in my opinion. We’re not trying to become a team that’s hanging in the Play-In realm every year,” he said. “That’s probably the worst place to be when you are just stuck in the middle.”
And while the team is on a great trajectory right now to secure a top pick in the NBA Lottery, Perry said he doesn’t believe in tanking.
“We’re not doing this, so let’s be clear on that to what I would call institutionalizing losing. No, that’s not in our vocabulary: tanking. You’re not going to see a team that’s going to go out in these final 30 games and say we’re trying to lose. Absolutely not. Because the lottery system itself, look the team that won it last year had the 11th best odds, Dallas. They weren’t trying to lose last year and they won it. I think in the last 20, 25 years, 3 or 4 times the team with the worst record won the lottery. So, there is no guarantee. It’s not like football,” he said.
In Friday’s loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Doug Christie only played DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, and Russell Westbrook 20 minutes or less and rookie Dylan Cardwell took more shots than DeRozan and LaVine combined. Whether that is tanking or not is up for debate considering Sacramento has been losing a lot with the veterans playing a lot of minutes. Regardless of who plays on this roster, they will probably lose. At least with the young guys playing more they will be more interesting to watch.
Perry confirmed during his press conference that there will be no buyouts of the veterans this season.
You all ready for more patience in the hope of sustained playoff success? Where have we heard that before?