Is all hope already lost for the 2025-26 Sacramento Kings?

Is all hope already lost for the 2025-26 Sacramento Kings?

Question one. Question one. With Keegan out a month or two, what should the Kings overunder on on wins be for the first 20 games? Well, before I give my answer, uh I asked this in anticipation of this segment, I asked this of uh many of y’all that that follow on Twitter. And uh what I did is I actually posted uh the first 20 games in the schedule. No, excuse me, the first 17. Uh and here’s some of the answers we got. I don’t see one winnable game. Two-0 start, then 15game losing streak. One and 14, plus or minus three. Maybe four wins. Two wins. Hey, 10 and seven, three and 15. That’s not the right math. Uh, the Utah game is our playoffs. Otherwise, it’s 0 and 17. I would say this again with the caveat of this is the understanding that nobody no crazy injuries are going to happen between now and those games on somebody on on another team. Nobody else is getting injured on this team and uh no moves are made in between now and then. You those are the things you cannot account for. So, as it is right now, uh, your first 17 games, ladies and gentlemen. Well, Kyle, let me just run through it with you cuz I want to show my work. Very simple. I’m going to give you the game. You tell me win or loss. That’s it. Okay. We’re in a lightning round this. All right. Uh, opening at Phoenix. Uh, I’ll go win. Okay. Home Utah. Uh, win. Home Lakers, lose. Uh, at OKC, lose. At Chicago, win. At Milwaukee, lose. At Denver, lose. Home Golden State, lose. Home OKC, lose. Home Minnesota, lose. Home Denver, lose. Home Hawks, I’ll throw him a bone. I’ll say win. At Minnesota, lose. At San Antonio, uh, win. At OKC, lose. At Memphis, I’ll say win. At Denver, lose. Okay. So, you have them one game better than I do, and I think we can both admit you threw him a couple of bones. Yes. The Hawks one’s going to be tough. Um, I have them at 5 and 12 through the first 17. Um, you have them at 6 and 11. Uh, if you followed along at home, who knows what you’ve got, but I would imagine it’s somewhere in that neighborhood. Now, I will tell you one thing. I can I know for a fact, there’s at least going to be one or two of those losses that are going to be wins, and there’s going to be at least one of those wins that’s going to end up being a loss. That’s just how it works. Uh, but I think when it’s all said and done, that first 20 games is going to be um that first 20 games is going to be rough. So, back when I thought I would be doing the show with Allan today, I did some research based on your five and 12 hypothesis. So, in order for them to get to 48 wins, Yes. after starting five and 12. By the way, why why what is that just an arbitrary number? 48 wins. 48 was the eight seed last year in the West. I gotcha. Okay. So, that’s why we chose it. So, 48 got was Memphis in the West. In order to get to 48 wins, they would have to go 43 and 22 the rest of the season. Uh just for reference, these were the only teams that went 43 and 22 the last 65 games last year. Uhhuh. Thunder, Cavs, Celtics, Pacers. End of list. So, here’s where Well, you know what? Let’s move on because this will tie into question number two. Question two. Uh, okay. So, is it that bad? What? I don’t think they can hear you. Lower that music, would you? Let’s see. Okay. So, it it’s that bad. What if any do you expect? I’m sorry. I just What were you trying to say? Okay. Yeah. No, that’s not your fault. I wrote it weird. Okay. So, if it’s that bad, it’s that. Okay. That’s what I thought. It says it’s it’s it like the ice cream sandwich. I tried to power through and even I Good point. Okay. So, if it’s that bad, what, if any, do you expect the Fallout to be? Wow. Here’s what the Fallout should be. I want to be really clear about this and I want to do it ahead of time. Here’s here’s where the Kings are almost in a comically bad situation. If they were a a normal franchise, somewhat normal franchise, this is what based on what you laid out, which is accurate. if they were to be in the five and 12, 4 and 13, 6 and 11 range. Now, look, let me be clear. If they were to go through the stretch and somehow be uh uh 12 and five, uh 11 and six, hell, if they were if they were somehow uh going to be uh eight and nine, I would say, okay, this would change this whole parameter. What I’m about to say is based solely on the thought, and we just went over the schedule, that they will likely be somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 and 12, give or take a game after their first 17. if they were a normal franchise, you could actually arguably look at this Keegan Murray injury and say, you know, if there is a bright side to it, and it’s tough to brightside uh anyone being injured, much less Keegan, but if there was a bright side, it would be that this will send a message to the organization if anybody left that was on the fence. Uh it would send a clear message that uh okay uh you’re not competing this season and you can either try to do all this crazy short-term stuff to squeeze out a playin or a first round exit which is what we thought the ceiling was anyways or you can just accept that you’re not going to be as we said last Friday almost certainly like this year and we haven’t even started it yet so I get why people are frust frustrated. This year’s a throwaway year. Sorry, it is. And we’re going to stay consistent with that. It’s this year there’s no hope. There’s I’ll say it again. There is zero hope this season. You any hope you claim to have and I it’s fine if you do. You’re absolutely fooling yourself. There’s no hope of any relevant competition this year. The best you can hope for is a playin or a first round exit. That’s it. That if you’re if that’s what you’re hoping, you may get that. Odds are you’re missing the whole slew of everything. So that would be the signal that we’ve been hoping many of us because we don’t speak as one unit that we’ve been hoping the franchise would get and go, “Okay, well then we need to operate that way.” which means that all of our all of our focus needs to be on trying to move Demar D. Rozan, Zack Lavine, and I’m I I understand being on the fence on this one, but perhaps even Deonta Sabonis in an effort to clear everything out, get our youth in there, reset with players that are on our timeline. I’m not talking about tank. I don’t think they’re going to need to tank. I think that that they’re already going to be bad, but to put themselves in a financial position to start gathering youngs and picks and try to Detroit, San Antonio, Houston, OKC, whatever their way back into contention in a couple of years because when we looked at the salary uh tables on Friday, we pointed out that they don’t have any breathing room as it stands right now, any significant breathing breathing room for another two years. And you might say, “Well, what good is that going to do? We don’t draft well. What good is that going to do? The draft isn’t a guarantee.” You’re right. I don’t have a good response for that because there isn’t a truthfully good response. What I can tell you is that a a 10, 20, 30%, whatever percentage you want to put on us hitting in the draft with even a career NBA player that’s going to have a 10-year career, much less be an all-star or a superstar, those odds are far far better than this team competing for a title at any point. There’s absolutely no chance. And yes, it sucks because you would think, well, we should have started this earlier or the De’Aran Fox trade should have kicked this whole thing off or we Yes, you’re right about all of that. You’re 100% correct. But if you don’t start now, you’re going to be saying in two years we should have started two years ago. And Keegan Murray being out, Keegan is arguably, now Jason and I, well, I wouldn’t say we disagree. We’re both on the fence here. You could make a great argument that Keegan Murray is actually even more important than Sabonis when it comes to who can you least stand to lose. My only Sabonis is a better player. He’s a better player full stop all around right now. But Keegan Murray is our best 2-way defend uh best two-way player. He’s arguably our best well Keon is but he’s our best all-around defender. In other words, Keegan can defend more positions than Keon Ellis. But we, and this has been a problem since I sat with Monty McNair at training camp last year, and you guys, some of you will remember us sitting face to face and me asking Monty cuz who the hell was it? Jordan Mclofflin or whatever we were coming to the year with, whatever his name is, what are we doing at the four? We have nothing legit at the four. We have a problem at the four. Here we are two two years later. Well, okay, to be fair, a year later and a de’arren Fox trade later and a draft later and we have no more depth. We’re so poor at power forward that we’ve been playing poor Keegan Murray out of position and putting him at the four. And before that it was Harrison Barnes who is also not a power forward. But he’s more of a power forward than Kagan is. As it stands right now, if you just move everybody down, you would have Keon Ellis moving into the starting lineup and then you would have Zack Lavine at the three and Demar D Rozan at the four. To be clear, Demar D Rozan is 66220. Zack Lavine is 65200 and obviously Keon Ellis and Dennis Shruder aren’t doing it. Also, I’m a nerd so the nerd stats say like Zack Lavine was like one of the worst defenders in the NBA last because he is but like you don’t understand people. He was like really bad and now you’re asking him to defend threes which is probably the most difficult of all five positions to has the most talent at that position. the two and the three guard Kevin Durant. Yeah, good luck. Personally, I’m not saying hey, look, I’m there is no good answer here. But before you and by the way, I don’t know the Kings are going to do this. I’m just I’m just looking at what could happen. Um before I did any of that, I would either move I’d move Darius Sarich at the four and give that a shot. Uh, at least Sarich is 610. See what he’s got left. Um, I’d take a look at Isaac Jones. Again, these are not great. These are not great options. Then I’d also take a chance or take a look at playing Sabonis and Reo together, which I I know they I know they’re taking a look at that right now. There there have been some things in practice uh where they’re they’re both on the floor at the same time. I again, none of these are great options unless Maxim is going to end up being the next insert your tall man here. Sure, Daniel Gaffford. Sure. And that’s a lot to put on a rookie, but hell, I take it. I would so much rather have them starting both Nick Clifford and Max Reo and Keon Ellis. And I just don’t even care. Like, I do not care. If in my perfect world, I would probably Here’s here’s my perfect imperfect lineup for the Sacramento Kings this year, I would put either Keon Ellis or Malik Monk or Devin Carter at the one. Let’s say Devin Carter at the one. Okay. Then I’d probably put Keon at the two. I’d put Reo at forward, Sabonis at center, and Nick at the three. Let’s Let’s just Let’s have fun. Just see what happens. It’s going to be a bad team, but I want to see what Reo does with 30 Minutes tonight. I want to see what Clifford does with 30 Minutes tonight. I want to know what the hell Devin Carter is finally. He hasn’t even played a full year. Uh I want to give Keon Ellis a chance to shine. And then obviously when Keegan Murray comes back, plug him in for whatever the weak spot is. You can move whatever around and play Keegan and build around him and make him the number one option. But I said earlier that I said earlier this is if the Kings are a normal team or or have somewhat they are in such ridiculously terrible shape because even if they got the clear message even if they got the clear message to that guys we we we gota we got to reboot here. Uh, this ain’t this ain’t working. This ain’t working. Even if they even if they decided to go with that. Okay. Well, now what? It’s not that easy because there’s there’s a thing called salary. And there’s the problem with trades is you need two to tango. Now, Zack Lavine makes 47.5 million dollars this year, which jumps up to $50 million next year on a player option, which he will absolutely take. Can we cross our fingers? Maybe you Hey, go ahead. Maybe not. If I’m Zack Lavine, I the only way I see him not taking that is if somebody steps up and maybe gives him like a a a fiveyear $180 million, $200 million deal where they’re they’re they’ll pay him 35 or 40 a year. They’ll and they’ll extend it. They’ll just, you know, that’s better than paying he ain’t getting 50 million a year somewhere else. I think the only way I see him declining it is if Aspiration steps up and pays him $25 million under the table. For real. For real. So if you’re saying, “Well, of course we should move these guys so that you can play the youth.” Uh, okay. Who Who are you trading Zack Lavine to? Who’s who’s who’s as I said last week at this point, no disrespect to Zach, this is never any disrespect to him or his game. He’s he is a really unbelievably talented offensive player. He really truly is. And he seems like a good dude. This is just all about salary and at what and what point of the journey the Kings are on. But what there there is one team in the NBA dumb enough to trade for Zack Lavine and they did it last year for De’Aran Fox. There’s there’s literally the the Bull You have to remember the Bulls before they traded Zack Lavine were calling teams and offering sweeteners like we’ll attach a first round pick if you take him. When I said last week I would trade Zack Lavine for a second round pick, I wasn’t joking. like a conditional 2031 second round pick highly protected. A 2031 conditional second round pick protected 29 to1. I would trade Zack Lavine for that right now because it gets him off the books. There is no way on God’s green earth unless Scott Perry is the second coming of Jeff Petri and Sam Prey and Red Hourback combined that you’re getting basketball for basketball talent back for Zack Lavine. It’s just no chance, dude. You’re probably gonna have to give up some draft capital. You’re probably gonna have to take on some some other cap filler that hopefully expires before. So, you’re unless massive injuries happen or maybe a team and I don’t wish injuries on anyone, but may I don’t know, maybe a team like the Celtics is like, “Yeah, we’re not getting Tatum back. We need something here.” Or, uh, a team like Indiana is we need score. the Lakers, something like that. You’re probably stuck with Zack Lavine for the season, unless you get lucky. Demar D Rozan is infinitely more tradable than Zack Lavine for two reasons. One, he’s making just under 25 million this year. Secondly, next year’s contract is partially guaranteed. So you’re effectively trading and expiring sort of Demar De Rozan who’s still in the right in the right system with the right team in the right place. Uh can be very helpful. He’s he still has 20 plus points a game to give and he’s a consmate teammate, good locker room guy. So yeah, you probably can trade him. And and the other one would be Sabonis. And I think honestly I love Damont Sabonis. I defend him all the time. There was this big, you know, one of them stupid poll questions online last weekend. Who would you take for next year alone? Shenon or Sabonis. And for me, the answer is fairly. It’s Sabonis for next year. If it goes beyond that, I’ll probably take Shenon. But Sabonis has him in almost every single category. Period. End of statement. efficiency box plus minus value over replacement player everything everything pretty much I think I think Singon has 08 blocks to Sabonis is point4 and that’s about it but I truly don’t know what Sabonis’ trade value is I got to think it’s something it’s not going to be a Tyrese Hallebertton type of thing and I don’t think you can use Sabonis to trade Lavine unless it’s a three-way deal but if that’s what it takes that’s what it takes if you told me let me put it a different way. If you told me the only way to get rid to to be able to trade Lavine and D Rozan would be to trade Sabonis and you get all three, I’d do that in a heartbeat. For where this team needs to go, I’d do that in a heartbeat. An absolute heartbeat. Even if you’re not getting a long-term piece in return, like Sabonis’ value goes down because you’re attaching the other players. 100,000%. And I’ll explain why. Um I know that’s tough to take on the surface, but this is the new NBA. This is the way that this is the way it works. By trading all three of them, you’re knocking $120 million off your payroll next year. $120 million of a $161 million payroll. By the way, that 161 is before you extend Keon Ellis and before you extend Keegan Murray, who I think becomes extension eligible today, maybe tomorrow. So, take that 161 and really make it 200. You’re still knocking 120 off of that with three guys that are not getting you to the playoffs. In addition to that, because Kyle, this is how it actually works. It’s not tanking, it’s rebuilding. In addition to that, getting rid of that 120, which would allow you to do to do a number of things. It would allow you to trade for distressed stars, that teams in the Kings position right now, like Brooklyn just did. Like Brooklyn just did. Uh it would allow you to take on salary in exchange for draft capital that’s expiring. In other words, contending team needs to make a move. They can’t because they’ve got this dead weight. They bring in Sacramento three-way. Sacramento acquires this injured or way overpaid player that’s expiring at the end of the year in exchange for a couple of picks and you’re basically you’re buying effectively these picks. It’s like how the Luca trade technically was a three-team trade. Danny A was feing for second round picks. You’ve seen San Anton San Antonio’s been involved in a couple of our deals just facilitating. That’s how they got their our 2031 unprotected pick swap, which I will never ever forgive them for because they’re facil that that was just them facilitating. I think the Barnes trade that was just them facilitating. Yeah, that’s how they got the Rosen. Yeah, they just San Antonio just came in like, “Yeah, we’ll take on some of this and some of that.” Okay, cool. Oh, cool. Now we have an unprotected 2031 first. In addition to the cap space, in addition to giving yourself the ability to start gathering assets, it is addition by subtraction because now the Maximos, the Nick Cliffords, the Keon Ellis’s, the Devin Carters, all have room to play. And thirdly, by doing that, you’re going to get significantly worse on the floor. short-term paying, long-term gain, which also increases your ability to get a high lottery pick, which increases your chances, though we have definitely bucked that trend, but increases your chances of getting a star in the draft or trading that pick to somebody who knows how to draft for a star. There’s so many options you have by doing that. That is what the fallout should be. But of course, will the Kings try to outsmart themselves? We’ll take a break. when we come back.

The Sacramento Kings face an uphill battle before preseason has even ended, as they will play the first month-plus of the 2025-26 season without Keegan Murray (wrist).

Is all hope already lost for Sacramento? Carmichael Dave explains why he thinks the Kings are heading into a “throwaway year.”

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