Last night, Tyrese Haliburton cemented himself in NBA history with one of the craziest shots during one of the craziest playoff runs as the Indiana Pacers came back from 14 points down with under 3 minutes left to beat the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. It was just the latest big shot from Haliburton, who has already hit two buzzer beating game winners this playoffs as the Pacers have improbably put themselves just three games away from the NBA Finals for the first time in nearly 30 years.
It’s understandable how painful this is for Kings fans, especially after this latest season. For my part, I’m enjoying watching Haliburton have incredible success and I honestly hope they win the whole thing. These Pacers are fun to watch, and Haliburton was one of the sole bright spots of watching the Kings while he was here. Yes, it’s painful seeing him do it in another team’s jersey, but that’s not something he ever asked for as he has repeatedly said he had hoped to be the one to lead the Kings back to relevance.
Instead, he’s helping another small market do the same while the Kings are once again floundering.
There may not have been a trade more shocking than the Haliburton-Domantas Sabonis trade up until the Luka Doncic trade of this year. At the time, almost every NBA pundit stated that the Kings got fleeced. Sabonis was a fantastic player, but Haliburton was a young blue chip prospect on a rookie contract at one of the games most important positions. J.J. Redick famously called the trade “malpractice.” Three years later, I think it’s clear to say that while the trade itself wasn’t malpractice, what the Kings chose to do in the years after the trade was.
In The Years After The Trade
That first year was exactly what the doctor ordered. The Kings made some big moves in the summer to shore up the team around Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox. They also brought in Malik Monk and Kevin Huerter and drafted a rookie in Keegan Murray that was able to step in to the starting lineup and contribute immediately. The Kings put together an incredibly fast-paced offense and not only made the playoffs for the first time in 16 seasons, but did so in resounding fashion by winning the Pacific Division and claiming the 3rd seed. Their reward was an incredibly tough matchup against the battle-tested defending champion Golden State Warriors that went 7 games before Stephen Curry went nuclear. It was a tough loss but one that felt like a needed first step for a team that was still young and had its best days ahead.
It’s that summer where everything started to go wrong. Instead of trying to shore up weaknesses or go after other big fish, the Kings decided to just run it back while also losing assets. They used their first-round draft pick to dump Richaun Holmes’ salary. They traded away two seconds to Indiana to take a flier on Chris Duarte. Their biggest summer acquisition was signing 27-year-old Sasha Vezenkov to a multi-year deal, a player who even if he filled out his potential wouldn’t address any of Sacramento’s weaknesses.
Coach Mike Brown, originally brought in for his defense, decided to use some tough love with his team to try to bring them up to snuff on that end of the floor, but it’s hard to create a good defensive team out of thin air when you don’t have the pieces to do so. Vezenkov barely saw the floor because all he could do was shoot. Kevin Huerter saw his confidence disappear as his minutes were constantly messed with due to his lack of defensive intensity.
The Kings did end up being a better defensive team, but they also saw their offense go from best in the league to mediocre. They saw other teams in their conference get stronger; Dallas used Richaun Holmes and a 1st round pick (basically the same package the Kings used just to dump Holmes) to acquire Daniel Gafford from the Washington Wizards. Dallas also acquired PJ Washington, another guy the Kings could have used. The Kings were rumored to be in the running for both OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam as well, only to see themselves outbid by New York and Indiana respectively. The Kings were always on the “verge of a deal” but could never close it, and instead of taking a step forward, they took a step back. Where 48 wins was enough for the 3rd seed the year before, 46 wasn’t enough for even the 8th seed as the Kings were once again left on the outside looking in and failed to advance in the Play-In tournament after losing to the New Orleans Pelicans for the sixth time in a row.
The lessons of that disappointing sophomore season should have been clear from the get go. The Kings desperately needed more size and wing depth. Instead, the Kings once again used future assets to rid themselves of previous mistakes. The Kings used two 2nd round picks to move off of Davion Mitchell and Sasha Vezenkov, one a lottery pick rookie guard (taken over guys like Moses Moody, Alperen Sengun and Jalen Johnson) and the other the team’s “big signing” from the year before. With their lottery pick, they drafted yet another undersized guard in Devin Carter, knowing that he would also likely need shoulder surgery and would miss at least half the season to boot.
Then came Sacramento’s first actual big move since the Sabonis trade as they signed and traded for DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan just on name alone was one of the biggest names ever acquired in Kings history and that fact alone led many of us (not all, there were definitely skeptics on this side as well, although definitely more so in the general NBA audience) to overlook the significant issues of fit with the current Kings team. DeRozan, while extremely skilled, did not do anything to help the Kings with their biggest weaknesses of size and length. In fact, he made the Kings even smaller as Sacramento traded Harrison Barnes and an unprotected 2031 pick swap to San Antonio to make room for him. DeRozan was also not a three-point shooter, leading many to question how Sacramento’s spacing would look. Barnes had been a scapegoat for Kings fans for many years, especially with his disappearing act in many games during the previous season, but the one thing he could be relied on was to space the floor as he was a reliable outside shooter.
The Fit Of DeMar DeRozan And Defense Problems
The DeRozan move was deemed big enough by the Kings to consider themselves done for the summer as no other real additions were made from that point on. It didn’t take long for issues to arise. DeRozan’s fit in particular was awkward, as he dominated the ball and Sacramento’s three-point rate and percentage plummeted. It’s hard to see a team succeeding in today’s NBA without being excellent from three. Taking a look at this year’s conference finalists, only the Knicks shot fewer attempts than the Kings, but they were 8th in percentage made and all four teams were in the top 10 of 3P%. The Kings finished 19th this season.
Sacramento’s defense also wasn’t much improved, partly because of a lack of any new personnel to help out on that front and partly because of some weird coaching decisions by Mike Brown. One of the few bright spots from the previous season was the emergence of Keon Ellis, who looked to be exactly the type of two-way player the Kings needed. Ellis had taken over the starting shooting guard spot after injuries to both Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk and looked to be the perfect backcourt partner for De’Aaron Fox going forward. But that preseason, Brown decided to give Huerter the starting job back for game one of the regular season despite Huerter missing most of the summer and training camp due to his injury recovery. Despite all the evidence that the Kings were better with Ellis on the floor, Brown didn’t start him until Game 17 and then only did so for three games before deciding that Monk would then join the starting lineup, adding yet another ball-dominant offense only player to the starting lineup. It’s no wonder Keegan Murray suffered from back spasms toward the end of the season when he so often was the only defensive-minded player on the floor at times.
The Beginning Of The End
Brown was fired after a disastrous 13-18 start and while that marked the beginning of the end, it wasn’t the last bit of malpractice the Kings would go on to do. Brown’s firing caused irrevocable harm between the front office and Fox, who apparently had clearly stated to the team that he didn’t want to deal with yet another coaching carousel after years of dealing with it already. While Brown definitely needed to go, the Kings didn’t need to immediately make a decision on Fox, but instead they chose to get that situation resolved before the trade deadline by moving him to San Antonio, his preferred destination. Instead of bringing back a blue chip prospect like Stephon Castle or even any of San Antonio’s young wings (Devin Vassell, Jeremy Sochan or Keldon Johnson), the Kings opted to make it a three-team deal where they also dumped Huerter to Chicago and got back 30-year-old shooting guard Zach LaVine instead. Sure, the Kings also got a couple of future picks, but at best this was a sideways move for a team so desperate to try to sneak into the playoffs once more that they couldn’t wait until the summer to make a decision on their franchise player.
What makes this move so indefensible in my mind as well was the fact that both Monte McNair and Wes Wilcox both left the Kings shortly after this. The fact that these men were allowed to make arguably one of the biggest decisions in this franchise’s history despite the fact there was the very real possibility they would not be on board to deal with the consequences is inexcusable. That’s on Vivek Ranadivé (and may very well have been his own decision given his well documented desire and previous attempts to acquire LaVine). What’s even more annoying is that the Kings then made a couple moves to finally address the weaknesses they had had for two years now in acquiring Jonas Valanciunas and Jake LaRavia at the deadline. How different might this team have looked if the Kings had been able to acquire those pieces in the offseason or earlier in the season? Maybe it wouldn’t have been enough but it’s not like either was very expensive to acquire.
It’s hard to see where the Kings go from here. It’s almost unfathomable to me to think of the path they were on just two years ago having come to this point. Three years ago the Kings had a choice to make between building around Tyrese Haliburton or De’Aaron Fox and now they have neither. The Kings are now older and more expensive with no real long term assets. DeRozan is likely on his way out after just one season if I had to guess, but LaVine is likely here to stay at least for the next couple of years with nearly $100 million owed to him. Sabonis also has three years, $140 million left on his deal and the Kings will also need to consider what a new contract for Keegan Murray might cost next summer.
My worry for the Kings is that like with the Haliburton/Sabonis trade, they keep seeking short-term solutions to long-term problems. This team is desperate to be consistently relevant and avoid another record-setting drought, but the irony is that this short-term thinking continues to set this franchise further and further back. Hopefully, Scott Perry can avoid the mistakes of the past and navigate this team to a better future, but he certainly has his work cut out for him with the mess left by the last front office, and the bigger issue is that the man truly in charge can’t seem to get out of his own way and is still here for the foreseeable future.