The Sacramento Kings’ Domantas Sabonis problem was obvious enough in September that a trade got offered and rejected before the season even tipped off. The Detroit Pistons had a shot at Sabonis for Jalen Duren back then and said no.
That rejection is the real story here. The Kings are now 0-6, Sabonis wants out, and the market for a Sabonis trade looked thin even before Sacramento lost a game this year.
That detail comes from Brett Siegel’s reporting at the time: Sacramento put its All-Star center on the table for a 22-year-old Detroit was never going to part with. The Pistons wanted Duren for the long haul, and the conversation ended there.
Now the Kings are 0-6.
Every loss but one has come by double digits: 25 to the Clippers, 11 to Memphis, 27 in San Antonio, 12 in New Orleans, and a 31-point finale in Memphis to close out the month. The lone game Sacramento kept within single digits, an eight-point loss to Portland, was still a loss. Nothing about the product on the floor has improved since Sacramento shopped its best player two months ago.
ESPN’s Tim MacMahon reported this week that Sabonis wants out: “Sabonis wants out of there, and if they can move him, they would. … So he’s not happy. It’s a bad situation.” Brian Windhorst added the financial piece on ESPN, saying Sacramento would move him if the numbers worked for the franchise.
Windhorst’s qualifier points at the real obstacle: money. Sabonis is owed roughly $94 million over this season and next, a number that narrows his suitors down to teams with actual cap room.
He’s also averaging 16.0 points, 15.8 rebounds and 7.3 assists a game, production that would start a bidding war almost anywhere else.
I wouldn’t count on that bidding war showing up before February.
Everyone is covering this like a star who got sick of a bad situation, which happens most offseasons and barely qualifies as news on its own. The part that actually matters happened two months earlier, when a rebuilding team with every reason to want a low-post anchor, a plus passer, and a 20-and-10 guy by habit took one look at the asking price and walked.
A $94 million center who wants out and can’t be moved is a sunk cost dressed up as roster depth. Six more losing weeks won’t change the price Detroit already set in September.
Sabonis recently hired Aaron Mintz at CAA, the same agent who moved Trae Young out of Atlanta and Walker Kessler out of Utah this year. That’s a louder signal than any report with an anonymous source attached. Mintz doesn’t get hired to keep players where they are.
https://twitter.com/LegionHoops/status/2117274032643211323
Sacramento already trimmed its roster once this year, waiving DeMar DeRozan over the summer, and the record didn’t move with it. For the rest of tonight’s NBA fallout, there’s a full slate of teams searching for answers tonight too.
Detroit had every reason to take a healthy, productive Sabonis off Sacramento’s hands in September and still passed. Six weeks of 0-6 basketball hasn’t made that trade any easier to say yes to.
