Opinion: The Sacramento Kings Should Trade Belinelli and McLemore
By Spencer Ault
He might not have gotten a whole lot right as the head coach of the team, but George Karl does have a point when it comes to the Sacramento Kings’ roster.
The Kings have an awful lot of guards on the current roster, something that Karl pointed out in an interview with Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee a few weeks back. The recently-fired coach claimed that he warned former decision-maker Mike Bratz about the guard glut several times, but no action was ever taken.
"“I kept telling Mike [Bratz], ‘Darren Collison, Ben McLemore, and Marco Belinelli are too similar,’,” Karl said. “‘Trade one of them because you can’t keep three shooting guards happy.'”"
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Add Rajon Rondo, Seth Curry, and James Anderson and you’ve suddenly got a guard potpourri that makes it virtually impossible to keep each player happy. After years of being unable to find one good shooting guard, it seems that the Kings have opted to try to find several decent guards.
That strategy didn’t work last year, and it won’t ever work in any year. Now Vlade Divac and his new number two, Ken Catanella, need to figure out how to best break up the logjam. The solution is to take Karl’s advice one step further and deal both Marco Belinelli and Ben McLemore, not just one of them.
First up on Divac’s list should be finding a way to get Marco Belinelli out of Sacramento. Belinelli disappointed mightily last season, after being brought in as a veteran sharpshooter. Instead, the nine-year veteran shot just 31 percent from three-point land and was 448th in the league in Real Plus-Minus at -4.7, only three spots ahead of the putrid Nik Stauskas.
With stats like those, Belinelli might be hard to trade. But NBA teams, particularly those looking to contend for a title, are always on the lookout for shooters, even those that didn’t shoot all that well last year. Belinelli was lights-out for two seasons with the Spurs recently, something that might give a team like the Clippers or the Heat the confidence to pursue him.
The Kings probably won’t get a whole lot in exchange for Belinelli, but a guy like Luc Richard Mbah a Moute would be a good, and fairly realistic return alongside a second round pick. Mbah a Moute is a strong defender and locker room presence – two areas the Kings are lacking in – and most importantly, he wouldn’t contribute to the guard logjam.
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Trading Belinelli frees up more playing time for guys like Darren Collison – an excellent sixth man – and Seth Curry, something that Karl alluded to in his interview. It does not, however, leave the Kings with a true starting option at the two guard spot on the roster.
I’ve already made the case for Kent Bazemore to be the Kings’ top free agency priority to fill that hole but signing Bazemore once again jams up the guard position. Thus the need to deal Ben McLemore.
Sacramento drafted McLemore with the impression that he would do the things that Bazemore does – play good defense and shoot the three-point shot effectively – but that hasn’t been the case. He still has a significant amount of value on the trade market, however, thanks to his youth and the fact that he can shoot when he’s not too timid to do so.
Those two attributes will allow Divac to bring in a solid haul for the Kansas product. Trade targets could include Chicago’s Nikola Mirotic (optimistically), or Atlanta’s Mike Muscala (more realistically), as well as some much-needed picks.
Those two trades, Belinelli for Mbah a Moute and McLemore for Mirotic/Muscala, can turn the Kings into playoff contenders, provided Divac also make some positive moves in free agency. George Karl might not have been the man to coach this Sacramento Kings squad, but that doesn’t mean that his insight can’t help build a better one.