Too Soon For The Kings To Move On From Domantas Sabonis

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Domantas Sabonis. Domantas Sabonis.

[00:00:05]>> Well, you just put out that that you you put the list out.

[00:00:10]And uh and it says that he's, you know, in the the not an All-Star tier. Uh when you look at the Sacramento Kings, obviously, uh currently eighth, next year set to be in the top five if they don't make moves.

[00:00:23]Make a money moves. Uh you have Domantas Sabonis.

[00:00:27]And he's set to make 45 million next year and then his expiring 48 million the following year.

[00:00:35]Uh obviously, Zach Levine expires 49 million uh next year. So, that's going to come off the books. Again, assuming they do nothing.

[00:00:45]Um it's said that Scott Perry is uh vigorously trying to move both, but something occurs to me.

[00:00:55]Okay. In the art of possession and negotiation and ultimately commerce, there is a universal rule, of course, which is buy low and sell high. Now, you can't always buy low and you can't always sell high, but maybe you can buy middle, sell middle.

[00:01:09]Mhm.

[00:01:11]In the case of Domantas Sabonis, I'm not entirely sure, Jason, that barring some sort of uh career-threatening injury or off-field uh whatevers, I don't know that his stat his value could be lower than it currently is. He turned 30 a couple of weeks ago. He's still He's still got a minimum of three or four years left of his prime. And I'd like to remind everybody, moving on from uh last season, which of which he only played in 15, excuse me, 19 games.

[00:01:49]You're talking about a guy that uh coming over here uh had played in 79, 82, and 70 of the Kings' games for the three full seasons he was here.

[00:02:00]Averaging pretty much exactly 19 points.

[00:02:04]Uh, 2 years ago 8.2 assists and for three consecutive years led the league in rebounding. And by the way, in the five years before that had 12 12.3 12 12 and 12.4 rebounds a game.

[00:02:21]You're talking about a guy that in every aspect pretty much Oh, yeah, his field goal percentage is always near 60.

[00:02:29]You're talking about a guy that pretty much in every stretch of the imagination is what I like to call diet Jokic. He is not Nikola Jokic.

[00:02:37]But if you added, and I know this is a big butt, but if you added, you know, eight points a game, you pretty much have Nikola Jokic, who is a perennial MVP contender. They're about the same defensively.

[00:02:49]If his salary's already coming off the books the year after next, if I'm Scott Perry, I'm fine with moving him, but I'm not moving him for nothing.

[00:03:02]There's no need to have that money available this second.

[00:03:07]There's no free agent they're looking to acquire that's going to move the needle on this team. Plus, we can't sign free agents anyways.

[00:03:15]I I mean, good ones.

[00:03:17]And you've got Zach's 50 milli coming off the book at the end of the year.

[00:03:21]Now, the exception to that, of course, is if the idea is to move Sabonis and LaVine's basically a combined $100 million off the books in order to absorb contracts to effectively buy first-round picks, then sure, but the old thinking of, well, also Sabonis is going to make us better. He's going to take minutes away from Max Rain. No, certainly both are true.

[00:03:54]And normally I would say, "Well, I don't want us to be better." But I don't think Sabonis is going to make us playoff better or even play-in better next year.

[00:04:02]With the lottery odds flattening, is it time for us to start rethinking and just thinking financially here and in the sense of commerce, as I mentioned earlier, maybe the last thing we want to do. Now, Zach Levine's value, I don't see it going up with that contract, no matter what he does this year.

[00:04:20]But with Sabonis, he come There's no reason to think he's not going to come back healthy.

[00:04:24]There's no reason to think he's not going to play 70 to 80 games.

[00:04:28]There's no reason to think he's not going to average 19 points and 13, 12, 11 boards a game with six, seven, eight assists a game.

[00:04:35]I don't I I don't know that trading him this summer, unless you get some sort of weird out of the blue, there's another dumb team besides us making a Godfather offer, and I don't think so. I think the offers they're getting are laughable.

[00:04:50]Maybe you keep him and play him and wait for somebody to have an issue and try to sk- Yeah, I don't know that there's a rush, Jason.

[00:04:56]I mean, in the end, playing him and having him is not a disaster. He's we I think he would be considered the team's best player, but I think I'm going to go to Scott Perry's final, you know, exit interview day, when he basically said, "Where they the season they had and where they're going, they need to one, get younger, two, clear up the money a little bit." I mean, you don't want to be basically his words, I think, you know, not an exact quote, but you're not going to If you're not a playoff team, there's no reason to be close to the the threshold, the aprons. Right.

[00:05:28]>> So, I I think Sabonis just one-for-one.

[00:05:33]If you're trying to trade Sabonis or you're trading Levine this summer, don't you think you can get more for Sabonis? I do.

[00:05:41]>> Or cross those barriers more?

[00:05:43]Absolutely. Yeah, so I think I think, you know, Levine, the argument now might be cuz he's in the final year. It's like, well, I mean, if you trade him, you trade him if you get a good deal, but if you don't, he will come off the books and you'll naturally get younger.

[00:05:56]They're going to get younger via the draft, no matter what. But I think you still want to do a bigger bulk of the roster because if they come back with the same roster, I think they're playing those veterans. And those are their best players. So I think it it it gets you started down a road, but I'm with you know, you don't do it just to do it. But if you can get a right deal, I think I think it's got to be looked at for sure. I I I think so. I think if you can get That's the key. If you can get a right deal.

[00:06:19]And yes, I I think Sabonis' value is is very much higher than LaVine. It's not even necessarily from a player standpoint, which you could argue, but uh obviously from a contract standpoint.

[00:06:31]Uh but you get that money off the books this year, which will allow you to It really, let's be honest, bringing Zach LaVine's money off the books will make a huge difference, but it's not like it's going to bring him down to $90 million.

[00:06:41]You're still going to have uh you're still going to have some money on the books. You'll get DeRozan's money off, and I think that's really the key there is by 27-28, you're getting Hunter, DeRozan at the latest, uh LaVine, and Sabonis. That's almost 150 million of their 202 million. And that, by the way, includes Keegan Murray's extension. And that Yeah, he jumps up to 24 and then 26. But also, that assumes that Malik Monk will opt into his player option. He probably will, but that you can't trade him.

[00:07:20]You're going to have whatever your draft pick is this year, adding another, you know, 10 millionish cuz of where they're drafting him, but uh Davion Carter's a playoff play a player, excuse me, a team option, as is Reign and Clifford, who I imagine they will renew both of those.

[00:07:37]So there is light at the end of the tunnel. I just If if if for any reason they make any moves where they're extending extending their cap commitments and not getting draft capital. I mean meaningful draft not not a couple of second rounders. For example, if you end up trading Levine this year and you bring somebody in that's making 40 50 million dollars this year and next year there better be at least two first round picks attached to that deal.

[00:08:15]Yeah, or the player we all just go okay, I get why they did that. That player is going to help.

[00:08:20]Maybe not even immediately, but you can see where they might keep that player.

[00:08:24]But yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, well likelihood of that's really low though.

[00:08:27]And even exploring what you just said, I think there's nuance to that because they might bring back a player that's fantastic, but if they're bringing back somebody who's 31 and signed for the next two years, I don't care what kind of numbers they're putting up. There's no point in having good players over the next two years. It's all about acquiring and developing. It's the only reason I would look at again, if they can get the same guy in their mind at 12 that they can at seven. It's the only reason I'd look at the OKC deal. Getting seven what is it? Seven 17 14 whatever and 30 something cuz more more more youth, more darts at the board. That's what the Kings need right now. They need to get rid of salary.

[00:09:06]They need to get younger. They need to get better. But there's no rush as much as I know fans hate to hear this and I don't blame you, but ain't no rush.

[00:09:15]There's no there's no point in the next two three years and and and trying to build a contender for the next two three years cuz you're not going to beat San Antonio. You're not going to beat Oklahoma City. You're probably not going to beat Utah like I said in two years and I don't know who the hell else. Denver, Houston, the Lakers.

[00:09:35]Yeah, I don't know, but hey, it is what it is. We'll take a break. When we come back uh final segment of this hour before we get to the final hour of the week. Little spouts uh spouts I I am I having a stroke? Sports potpourri.

[00:09:51]Or is it potpourri, Jason? I like that better. Yeah. Uh we'll talk about a coach that a couple of coaches actually making the rounds that might be back in the NBA. One in particular. Uh speaking of Daniel Snyder's $49 million mansion, I know one guy in the NFL who that can absolutely afford that just off of 1 year's worth of labor. And uh we'll get to what's hot, what's not, and we'll go streaking. All right, after this.