Are the Sacramento Kings bound to TRADE Domantas Sabonis? A Jonathan Kuminga swap?

Are the Sacramento Kings bound to TRADE Domantas Sabonis? A Jonathan Kuminga swap?

to have a connection. Are you going to have Michael Scottto on your show Monday? Perhaps follow up on I’m definitely trying to have him on next week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh he of course had a lot of things to say about the Kings today at Hoops Hype. One of the things he pointed out was Damon Sabonis has been according to Michael Scott frustrated with his role in the Kings new offense. Sabonis has been disappointed with Sacramento’s downward trajectory since reaching the playoffs and his usage at times under coach Doug Christie. League sources told Hoops Hype, “If this is the way it’s all trending, where the Kings are going to deemphasize Domas’s role in the offense, then to me, it would really be beneficial to move off of him if you can get something significant. I’m not saying dump him, but my point is you’re basically, if you’re going to run the offense through other people, you’re paying him for things that you’re not allowing him to do for you anymore.” Yes. And that is the Sabonis conundrum. Yeah. Right. That this team, wherever he goes next, if he stays in Sacramento, the team is probably gonna reach its apex if he’s doing less. But you decided to pay him like a number one, number two guy. And Yeah. And if you don’t allow him to do that, you’re overpaying him. And right now, he’s overpaid because he’s not doing that. Yeah. And his usage rate is down. Usage rate, by the way, is really uh not a great stat for a guy like him because did you know usage rate doesn’t take into account assists and he has a lot of assists. But anyway, uh he’s well less than he used to have. He’s getting the ball. He’s getting fewer touches, but so is Demar. So does Zack Lavine. So what’s going on? Well, you brought in two point guards who are going to be handling the ball. That’s what a true point guard does. So that’s all understandable. But Dom, you can see that he’s not entirely sure why his role isn’t what it was. And that’s all I’m saying. He can still help you and he’s a good player. But yeah, you’re paying him to do things that right now it’s like, yeah, we don’t need you to do that anymore. So, what’s the point of that? But Whitey, he was the one the first thing he said and I thought it sounded like a a shot. Honestly, I know him and Malik are are fairly close. I was just watching something and you know on NBA TV they’ll have the little uh it’s like when you go to a game they they do mini interviews and things and he said Malik is the funniest guy on the team. So I I’m not trying to allude to anything there but that po the post the postgame presser or the end of season presser he didn’t even let the reporter finish the question. He said point guard point we need a point guard we need a point guard. Now the problem is they got two. So maybe that was the disconnect. Maybe it was, hey, if we go get Dennis Shruder and Scott Perry said we felt like we needed two. I don’t know, Whitey. Maybe they go get Dennis Shruder and then you’re running more Domaentric things when it’s not Dennis Shruder time. Maybe that was the miss and you got to be careful what you wish for. It reminds me of as we’re coming up on the holidays, my dad sometimes would buy me stuff that I didn’t necessarily ask for, right? And I’m not trying to be, you know, a like a snotty-nosed kid or whatever. Yeah, that’s a flex from hell. No, I’m just saying I can’t buy me stuff I didn’t even want. But he would buy me shoes that I don’t like the shoes, right? But now, now I have the shoes and thank you for getting me shoes, but you could have asked me what shoes I wanted. Right. Right. So, so Domas, he says he wants a point guard. And Scott Perry says, “How about I get you two?” He says, “Well, I didn’t ask for two.” Maybe I didn’t ask for two. I for I still want to do some point guard stuff, but now there’s no time for him to do point guard stuff. But then they got two point guards. It’s impossible to know because we don’t actually know for sure how he feels, right? If we’re being honest. Yeah, he’s been disappointed with the downward trajectory. Well, of course he has. Let’s let’s hope so. Uh and his usage at times under Doug Christie according to league sources, you know, and then you have people that say, well, he’s always complaining maybe, but you know, let’s not leap to conclusions. I know that’s what we do here. I mean, the conclusions, Whitey, the conclusions going back to Mike Brown, they’ve they’ve leaped. They’ve they’ve already leaped. We were just talking about it. He is the re I think a lot of people believe he is. I mean, Matt George said no, he is the He is one of the reasons. He’s the face. Now, I’ve never I I’ve never talked to Damonte Sabonis and asked him, “Are you part of the reason Mike Brown is no longer here?” So, I’m not going to speak to stuff that I did not. It’s fair to say that is widely believed to be the case. That is a hund. There you go, Whitey. You sounded like a a tweet from an aggregator league. There is a belief growing, a widely held belief that he was one of the reasons Mike Brown is no longer the coach. That is perfect. Yeah. There is a feeling around league circles. Yeah. So, so now you have this and it’s easy to say, hm, sounds like maybe now he’s unhappy with this situation and we don’t know that for a fact, but it’s just clear based on the moves they made that yeah, his usage rate is going to go down. The interesting thing to me is his role in the half court when this offense is really popping. Sometimes it’s like five out, draw and kick, draw and kick. And you know, Domas is when they built the offense around him, you know, the DHO stuff and he would kind of read where the opposing center was going and then he could make the decisions and they’re they’re kind of trending away from that. Mike Brown built the offense on that and they’re going another way now. So, I could see how that would be difficult for him. Um, but he should have seen it coming. He didn’t like it clearly or he didn’t like something. Mhm. Maybe he thought I can whatever allegedly widely believed whatever was the widely believed. You know what he didn’t like about Mike Brown? Tell me you money. You had games where they would win Mike Brown. You were probably in there. Mike Brown would say, you know, people go, “Oh, Domos is great.” And you’d say, “Well, yeah, that’s what he’s paid to do. Him and Fox, that’s what they’re supposed to do.” I remember him saying that. And then there was another game they lost. What was a game where they didn’t box out at the end last year and Domas missed on box out and they got the other team got the offensive rebound and put back on a missed free throw and Mike Brown called him out on that. He’s got to be better than that. I don’t think Dom appreciated that being called out to that degree by his coach. Apparently De’ar Fox is like, “Yes, I want that. I don’t think uh that Domas appreciated it.” And that is not to allude to do not wanting to take accountability because some people will run there. It might just speak to we can be accountable to each other in the locker room. Yeah, right. Maybe it doesn’t need to be said. Yeah. In the postgame presser. Uh yeah, the the whole thing is confusing cuz like you said, Whitey, I mean, those were the days where the Kevin O’ Conors were having a field day on Damonte Sabonis being overrated because his numbers were insane. But yeah, there was something missing with him and Mike Brown allegedly. And now I I think maybe he felt like, well, if I get Doug in there, Doug knows me. We’re going to continue to do the same thing. But you never know how it’s going to look. He didn’t know that. Well, when Doug is going to be there along with Zack Lavine and along with Demar Rosen and two point guards for the price of one. Demanis Sabonis was really great in this offense. Uh first year of the Beam team when he had Kevin herder knocking down threes and he had Harrison Barnes knocking down threes. Look it up because a lot of people think Harrison Barnes never made a basket as a king. He did. He was pretty good actually. And you also had Keegan setting a rookie record for threes. So that gave him options and he got assists on all of those. The next year the shooting went down. It hasn’t come back up to that level. And so Domas has not been as effective when he doesn’t have uh guys that he can, you know, those spray threes when guys are not making those threes. When the team doesn’t shoot as well, he is not as effective. Well, and the other thing is too, even if they weren’t, even without the other point guards, it’s the other guys. Guys, I know Zack Lavine can shoot the three ball. Typically, he’s been struggling, but even if he had the ball, Dom based on now, I know Keegan Murray’s back, but there’s a bunch of guys out there. What am I do with this? Right, Precious Sua on on the wing. What am I going to do with this? Drew Eub, what am I going to do with this? So, even the guys that they brought in, it it didn’t make a ton of sense. I know Russell Westbrook has been shooting the three ball very well, but yeah, adding in the point guards and I said this before, Whitey, we’re sitting here, we spent so much time on these airwaves. We need a point guard. We need a point guard. And I know the Timberwolves are not a good example, but these other teams, you got Denny Abdia who’s running around, you know, he’s my guy. I know that 67, he’s handling point guard duties, and they still got Drew Holiday, right? And you got Dame coming back. All these other teams are kind of moving towards a a point guard by committee. And maybe the committee wasn’t right for the Kings, but the Kings are saying, “No, we need a hoorde point guards so we can get this done when they have one of the most passer friendly, intelligent, passer intelligent centers in the game.” It didn’t make sense. Last year, I thought Malik did a better job as a point guard than the team gave him credit for. And also a lot of times last year down the stretch basically Demar ran point and he did a good job. Yeah. Yeah. We talked to Malik about that and I said, “Hey Malik, you know, me and you, man.” Yeah. We’ve had some conversation and I said in that postgame presser, right, or end of season presser, he said he said, “I I feel more com comfortable at the two.” And a lot of people ran with that saying, “Oh, he doesn’t want to be a point guard. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want that.” I when I asked Malik on media day I said when I heard that I thought I feel more comfortable at the two that doesn’t mean I can’t handle point guard duties and he said thank you that is exactly what I meant everybody else along with Scott Perry they all took it as if Malik can ever no Malik don’t bring the ball up and they got a and they brought in no hey Malik don’t don’t let go of the ball only pass half court and then they bring in two point guards and now the whole thing is clunky and you’re you you got two guys why he $33 million coming off the bench between Malik Mugget and a shooter. And I know Malik’s been closing a little bit, but and you got $49 million on the bench when Zack Lavine doesn’t close, but it doesn’t make sense. Whitey, one of my thoughts was, okay, they want a point guard because they’re still trying to make Demard Rosen and Zack Lavine work and they never work. They respect each other. They didn’t work together except for a brief period in Chicago. When what? And I I think Demard Rosen even told me this once when I asked him about this like, well, we had Lonzo Ball. So, okay, they think if they get a point guard, then that’s going to work. It didn’t work. And that wasn’t why it worked before. No. And it was a a small sample size of it working. And And then you got to And then you got to hear everybody say, “No, no, no. They need a point guard.” No, no, they got two point guards now, Whitey. But now they still need a point guard that’s like Lonzo Ball. Right. Right. It’s ridiculous. Maybe they’re just not a good match. What do you think of this from Gracie approved? Could it be Domas is unhappy because we’re losing or we’re losing because he’s unhappy? Allen, which is it? Well, I think he’s unhappy because they’re losing. Yeah. Well, he going to be unhappy. They keep They won the last two games. I assume he wasn’t happy then and they still won. What if they go on a five game winning streak without Domos, right? Mhm. Would you be happy? Why? I know. If I was on the bench and the team won, we be Owls on three. I got my hand up there. What? Owl. Owls, man. Owls. If I wasn’t playing and my replacement went three for four. No, not you. Owls on three. One, two, three. Owls. Man, let’s get out of here. I’m not even playing. And we won. You know, it’s not the same. Yeah, but they have so much invested in them. They have to get something significant for him. I am not in any way suggesting you got to get rid of that guy. No, you got to get whatever it is. So, I still think he’s going to end up going to the Warriors and Kaminga’s coming here. Wow. I still think that’s happening. Wow. I don’t want it to happen and I don’t think it’s a good idea, but book it. You know, I think you’re on to something and I have reason to believe that you Yeah, saw somebody told Look, I’m just saying that figure out. Yeah. What are you talking about? What do you mean it’s not that hard to figure out? It’s just uh it’s pretty obvious that things have been trending that way. That’s all that’s all I’m saying. There’s interest on both sides. Yeah. I mean, he is he is exactly what’s the the more so the type of center that Steph has had in the past with the Bogats and smart passers, guys like that. Again, would he be worth the 40 whatever million dollars? No. But I don’t think Jimmy’s worth that. And they had to pay they’d pay Jimmy 60 a year. So, you got to do what you got to do. I I my understanding is that the Warriors now are thinking, boy, we got to play Quinton Post more. He’s playing well on him more. He is, you know, and look, somebody said, Allan, do you think Maxim can be Quinn Post? I said, look, man, let’s not do that. The hope is that, no disrespect to Quinn Post, but I I hope Quinn Post evolves in his game and improves. And the hope is that Maxim is better than Quinton Post. Maybe they meant this season to to contribute right now, but I said, “Come on, man. We We can’t do that. We got to shoot for the stars and you land amongst the moon. Widy or I think I said that backwards. Um I I knew where you were going. I know that his numbers haven’t been great in every game, but I think Maxim is a little bit he’s certainly not behind schedule. He’s either on schedule or maybe a little bit ahead of schedule. Yeah. And he’s getting forced into the physicality of the game, which I think is probably exactly what Scott Perry and Doug Christie wanted. That’s probably where the biggest gap was. I know offensively it hasn’t been pretty, but he really hasn’t had time to focus on his offensive skill set and I would like to see him shoot the three ball better, but he he’s drinking from the water hose right now, Whitey. And at least he is he’s getting welcomed to the show every single game. Yeah. Now, if you had a chance to trade uh Domas to the Warriors and get something back where you’d like it, would you have any trepidation about that? Would you be reluctant because the Warriors were going to see him three or four times over years right down the road? I think I I think your timeline that’s why you’re going and getting a he is 23 now not 22 you’re getting a 23 year old and Jonathan Kaminga you’re you’re changing your timeline the Warriors got about two three years left and with with Steph maybe a little bit more than that but you know if you take away Kaminga they’re still going to have to find something maybe they got one more trick up their sleeve but the larger point is that the timelines are different and you ain’t worried about Pajki or Moody the guy right Pajk No, he’s not my No, he’s definitely not my guy. I would have been your guy. No, I would have been show. That sounds more ridiculous. I was going to say than me going to the NFL, but I guess he’s in the NBA, so yeah. Yeah. Uh, the Keon news more significant than the Lavine news. We’re back with that next on Sackdown Sports. Sacramento weather is brought to you by Future Ford. I’m dirt.

On today’s edition of The Drive Guys, Allen Stiles joins the show to discuss a recent report that the Sacramento Kings and Domantas Sabonis could be growing apart.

Thank you for watching. Don’t forget to hit the thumbs up and subscribe!

#nba #sacramentokings #kings #kingsnba #domantassabonis #sabonis #scottperry #dougchristie #jonathankuminga #kuminga #goldenstatewarriors #warriors

Subscribe at: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sports1140KHTK/?sub_confirmation=1
Find Sactown Sports 1140 online: https://t.co/K0vdSg5o1w
Listen live to Sactown Sports 1140: https://player.listenlive.co/55401
Like Sactown Sports 1140 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SactownSports
Like Sactown Sports 1140 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sactown1140
Follow Sactown Sports 1140 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sactown1140
App download Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bonneville.khtk&hl=en_US&gl=US
App download iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sports-1140-khtk/id1314735220