Opinion: Should the Kings Sign Jorge Gutierrez?
By Tyler Watts
The Sacramento Kings are lacking depth at the point guard position. This article examines if Jorge Gutierrez is the player to improve their depth.
The Sacramento Kings are a point guard needy team especially with the impending suspension of Darren Collison. The player they are looking for needs to be able to play an 8 to 15 minute per game role. A current free agent option for the Kings is Jorge Gutierrez. Below is a highlight video of Gutierrez to give you a glimpse into his on-court skills.
Why the Kings Should Target Gutierrez
Gutierrez can defend on the perimeter. Despite playing only 10.3 minutes per game for his career, Gutierrez has never produced negative defensive win shares in the NBA. He was D-League All-defensive first team in both 2013 and 2014. He averaged 2.2 steals per game in the D-League last season. Gutierrez can bring perimeter defense to the Kings which fills a need.
Jorge Gutierrez is a willing and capable D-League player. If the Kings snap Gutierrez up in free agency, he can have a role in the Kings organization all season. The role on the NBA club will disappear or be marginalized when Collison returns from suspension, but Gutierrez would be willing to head to D-League and help the Reno Bighorns. That would allow the Kings to bring him back to the NBA if a further need arose.
Why the Kings Should Pass on Gutierrez
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At 27 years old, Gutierrez has never been given a chance to play big minutes on an NBA team. He has only played a maximum of 15 games for one team in a season. He is clearly not an NBA point guard from his previous play.
Gutierrez lacks a 3 point shooting stroke. For his NBA career, he has only connected on 17.6% of his 3 pointers. The sample size is small (only 17 attempts), so I examined his D-League 3 point percentage as well. In the D-League, he has shot 23.7% from distance on 1.07 attempts per game in 122 games for his career. NBA stats and advanced metrics courtesy of Basketball-Reference and D-League stats courtesy of RealGM. Gutierrez is clearly not a floor spacer and lacks the ability to knock down triples.
The Verdict
I believe the Kings should pass on Jorge Gutierrez. He may inject a little defense into the team, but his play is better suited to the D-League. If the Reno Bighorns want to pick him up then by all means, but he is not the point guard I would want to fill a nightly role on an NBA roster.