Late in the third quarter of the Sacramento Kings’ loss to the Indiana Pacers, Rudy Gay went down with a seemingly non-contact injury. He appeared to be in a ton of pain and had to be helped off the court by teammates and staff. Gay suffered a torn Achilles, an injury that will sideline him for the rest of this season and potentially into the next.
Rudy Gay will undergo surgery to repair his Achilles in the next few days. Clearly he is out for the remainder of the season.
— James Ham (@James_HamNBA) January 19, 2017
This injury is huge for a multitude of reasons. For the current season, the Kings have lost their second best player and a guy who helped carry the scoring load on many nights.
Sacramento was already playing without Omri Casspi who is expected to miss two weeks with a calf injury and Ty Lawson who left the game against the Thunder on Sunday with a tweaked ankle.
This will likely mean a minutes upgrade for Garrett Temple who likely takes Gay’s spot in the starting rotation. It also means we will see more minutes at small forward for both Anthony Tolliver and Matt Barnes.
This may finally lead to the unleashing of Malachi Richardson who has been rumored to get minutes since being called up from Reno.
This injury also puts to bed any trade talks involving Gay, who has been rumored in to be moved in multiple deals since the summer.
The team may be more inclined to move some of their expiring contracts including Casspi, Darren Collison, Ben McLemore, and Lawson.
As we start to think about what the roster could look like next season, it’s reasonable to assume that Gay will pick up his $14.2 million player option for the 2017-2018 season. This would be a dramatic shift based upon expectations prior to Wednesday night.
An Achilles injury typically takes around a year to rehab. Even when back, it still takes players time to build their strength back, especially for a player on the wrong side of age 30.
This will also put the Kings in a bind in terms of what they will be able to do in free agency. It would put them at about $71 million assuming they don’t re-sign Tolliver. If they do, add in another $6 million.
They would have around $30 million for four spots and that is before Cousins signs his max extension, which is expected to be on the table for him this summer. Depending on how the money is broken down, his cap figure next season should go from almost $17 million to north of $30 million.
Assuming they max Cousins and bring back Tolliver, the Kings would be at $95 million in their payroll and would only have around $7 million to spend on three spots. The roster would look very similar to this season except they would likely be without Collison, Barnes, McLemore, and Lawson.
Between blowing a 20 point lead to Indiana, losing Gay, and dropping further out of the 8th spot in the Western Conference, January 18th was a pretty bad night for the Sacramento Kings and its fans everywhere. The organization will need to take a good, hard look internally and figure out what their game plan should be going forward.