Rating The Sacramento Kings Off-Season
By Bryan Rose
I’m fully aware that it’s only August and we’ve got a little over two months to go before the regular season tips off. But, for the most part it appears any significant roster moves that were in the Kings plans have been completed.
The roster currently sits at 14 so they’ve met the minimum roster requirement and they currently have 43,700,483 (not counting Ime’s hold) on the books. The minimum team salary allowed by the NBA for the 2010-2011 season is bankrolled at 43,533,000 – so they’re good there too (at least for the time being as Donald Sloan’s contract isn’t fully guaranteed). Either way, a minimum contract here or there and they’re safe, so it doesn’t really matter.
So in short, for the most part, it appears the 2010 Kings offseason is over barring an unexpected trade or free agent signing prior to training camp. Let’s take a look at what the front office has accomplished in these past few months:
- Traded Andres Nocioni and Spencer Hawes to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Samuel Dalembert
- Drafted DeMarcus Cousins with the 5th pick in the 2010-2011 NBA Draft
- Drafted Hassan Whiteside with the 33rd pick in the 2010-2011 NBA Draft
- Signed undrafted guard Donald Sloan of Texas A&M to a one year, non-guaranteed deal
- Signed and traded Jon Brockman to the Milwaukee Bucks for forward Darnell Jackson and a 2011 second round draft pick.
- Signed guard-forward Antoine Wright of the Toronto Raptors to a one year deal
- Signed guard Pooh Jeter of Hapoel Jerusalem to a one year deal.
- Hired framed prep coach (and former high school coach of DeMarcus Cousins) Otis Hughley to an assistant coach position
Some people will look at the Brockman trade in disgust, but with the addition of both Cousins and Whiteside (not to mention Dalembert), Brockman simply didn’t have much floor time in his future with the purple and black. Milwaukee was interested and they had enough money to sign the Brockness Monster outright if they so desired. So with more money and playing time to offer, Brock, despite his love of Sac-town, was leaving. So getting anything for him was a plus.
As to the overall salary situation, you can find that below:
Thanks to some solid in-season moves made by Petrie and company, along with the Dalembert trade earlier this June, the Kings greatly reduced their cap number for this upcoming year and cleared out a large amount of potential money for the 2011 off-season and beyond. It’s hard to argue that financially, they did anything short of spectacular.
So with all of this said, put on your ESPN huggies and pretend you’re a woman, err, “analyst” for a moment and rate the Kings 2010 off-season.