The Issue With The Sacramento Kings Moneyball Approach
The Sacramento Kings had two choices when the 2021/2022 season reached its finale — 1. Sell, Sell, Sell; 2. Buy, Buy, Buy. They chose the latter, and added two solid rotation players in Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk — both of which, one could argue, to great value deals (Huerter: four years, $16.25M AAV [acquired in a deal for Mo Harkless, Justin Holiday, protected 1st round pick]; Monk: two years, $9.5M AAV).
This fills the Kings roster out moving into the 2022/2023 NBA regular season as follows:
De’Aaron Fox, PG, Cap Hit: $30,351,780
Domantas Sabonis, PF, Cap Hit: $18,500,000
Harrison Barnes, SF, Cap Hit: $18,352,273
Kevin Huerter, SG, Cap Hit: $14,508,929
Richaun Holmes, C, Cap Hit: $11,215,260
Malik Monk, SG, Cap Hit: $9,268,293
Keegan Murray, PF, Cap Hit: $8,008,440
Davion Mitchell, PG, Cap Hit: $4,833,600
Terence Davis, SG, Cap Hit: $4,000,000
Alex Len, C, Cap Hit: $3,918,600
Trey Lyles, PF, Cap Hit: $2,625,000
Chimezie Metu, PF, Cap Hit: $1,910,860
The Kings have decided to allocate roughly 70% of their effective cap space towards six players — Fox, Sabonis, Barnes, Huerter, Holmes, and Monk — none of whom have a proven track record of leading a team during a playoff run, nor are projected to make an All-NBA team in the upcoming season. With that said, outside of Fox’s oversized deal and Barnes’ contract that’s set to expire this upcoming year, it’d be fair to argue that their cap allocations make sense. Holmes’ deal isn’t grossly over valued, and both the Huerter and Monk contracts are somewhere between good and great, and thus, their roster is objectively solid.
The Kings have done a great job adding value contracts to their roster. When looking at the team from the neck down the composition isn’t so different from two of last years Conference Finals teams, the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks, in that they’ve got three solid-value contracts (Boston: Robert Williams III, Marcus Smart, Derrick White; Dallas: Dorian Finney-Smith, Christian Wood, Spencer Dinwiddie; Sacramento: Domantis Sabonis, Kevin Huerter, Malik Monk). Unfortunately for the Kings, the glaring differentiator that separates them from the other two franchises is top-end all star talent. The Mavericks have Luka Doncic, and the Celtics have Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, whereas the Kings have… De’Aaron Fox?
Aside from the aforementioned dilemma, the Kings carry an earned reputation of organizational instability, as they currently hold the longest playoff drought in the history of the NBA (sixteen years!?!?!). One could argue that, at this point, making the playoffs would be a celebratory event for the Kings. The reality is, especially with the new play-in format installed by the league, even terrible teams make the NBA playoffs every season.
Setting a goal of making the NBA playoffs is the equivalent of a college kid skipping every class, showing face at office hours, and earning a last minute C, allowing them to keep getting their weekly allowance. Only at this point in our analogy, the kid would be in his 16th year of undergrad, and the parents would be in a nursing home…
What compounds the pain for Kings fans is the potential lane the franchise could’ve taken, in their rebuilding efforts, that would’ve given them a shooters chance at building something real for the future — let me explain.
Prior to last seasons trade deadline the Kings opted to trade young and promising point guard Tyrese Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers for Domantas Sabonis. In doing so they elected to stick with current starting point guard, De’Aaron Fox. The Kings knew they were far from allocative efficiency , and elected to perform a deal in the nature of staying ‘competitive’ rather than dumping Fox’s contract for future assets.
In the short term, the Kings missed the playoffs, and while they were able to get the fourth overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, they found themselves in yet another allocative-efficiency predicament. The best available player when their pick came around was point guard Jaden Ivey. Given Ivey didn’t even work out for the Kings, Sacramento had zero leverage in a trade-down situation, and were forced to pick forward Keegan Murray ahead of his projected spot.
These missteps have been a constant within the Kings front office over the years, as they notably picked Marvin Bagley III with the second pick of the 2018 draft over superstars Luka Doncic and Trae Young, as well as multiple players who currently hold more value than Bagley III, who is no longer with the franchise. The Kings vast history of blunders in top-end draft picks may play into why they’ve opted to aim for high-end mediocrity over tanking — yet the best draft prospect in years, Victor Wembanyama, will most certianly be declaring for the 2023 NBA draft.
One can’t help but think what if with the Kings situation moving forward…
What if the Kings held onto Haliburton, traded Fox, and Harrison Barnes’ expiring contract for future assets? What if the Kings decided to start over with two young players with real all-star potential, in Haliburton and Murray, simultaneously remaining bad enough in the interim to give both players real, low-pressure, NBA experience while placing the franchise in a front-running position to land Wembanyama next season? What if the Kings had a core in two years built around Haliburton, Murray, Wembanyama, Huerter, and Monk, with an additional ~$50 million in cap space to fill out the roster? What if the Kings realized that money ball only works when filling out a roster that already has championship-level talent built into its core?
I guess we’ll never know.
