Sacramento Kings: Grading the Kings’ deadline trades one month later

Grades:

Dallas Mavericks – A

Sacramento Kings – A

Here we are, the crown jewel acquisition of Vlade Divac’s tenure as general manager. This move was not very well-liked on the Kings side by national media analysts. USA Today gave the Kings a ‘D-plus’ largely due to this trade, the Washington Post gave them a ‘C’ and more search results yield more average or failing grades on this trade — Bleacher Report, one of the few that viewed this positively for Sacramento, gave them a ‘B’. I gave them an ‘A’ now, over five weeks later and there’s one key reason for that, but first let’s break down the Mavs side of this trade.

Unlike the return for the Sacramento Kings, most liked what Dallas did. By sending out Barnes, they opened up a path to creating enough cap space for a max-contract to pair with Luka Doncic, though it’s possible a large part of that will be taken up if the Mavericks decide to match an offer sheet on Kristaps Porzingis. Still, they cleared up a lot of cap space without giving anything or anyone that has long-term value to the team — a commendable act the Houston Rockets would have loved to emulate.

It also seems that those covering the NBA on a national-level are wholly unaware of Justin Jackson’s game and some view him, right now, as a quality, young role player. He very well may develop into that, but he certainly didn’t show that ability with Sacramento and has yet to do so with Dallas, much to the chagrin of Mavericks fans. Regardless, the Mavericks made a trade that’s great for them and based off Barnes’ first month with Sacramento this could certainly be a win-win trade for both sides.

Now, back to that “one key reason”, any guesses? It’s defense. It’s no secret that Iman Shumpert was too small to guard opposing small forwards nightly, it wasn’t his fault, of course, he was playing out of position. But the liability on defense was there nonetheless. Of the 148 players to play at least 40 games this season, Iman Shumpert’s defensive rating of 110.2 ranks 123rd. In the Kings’ first 54 games, they ranked 21st in the NBA in defensive rating, while also posting a defensive rebounding percentage of just 70.2, good enough for 27th in the league.

With Barnes, a legitimate small forward, in the lineup, those numbers have skyrocketed. Since he made his team début, the Sacramento Kings are a top-three defense in the NBA, with a defensive rating of 106. The Kings also jumped to 15th in defensive rebounding percentage — something you can almost attribute entirely to Barnes and his seven rebounds per game and increase of 3.9 rebounds per game over Shumpert.

It should also be mentioned that since his acquisition, the Kings’ most played three-man lineup of De’Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield and Harrison Barnes (321 minutes played) has posted a net rating of plus-2.1. A large part of that is due to the teams heightened play on defense — a change that only began when Barnes came aboard. Oh, and just for fun, the five-man lineup of Fox-Hield-Barnes-Harry Giles-Bagley has posted a net rating of plus-25.4, albeit in just 13 minutes. Also of note with that lineup, they play at a pace of 119.04 and grab an asinine 78.9 percent of defensive rebounds. Again, small sample size, but intriguing nonetheless.

If the Kings can keep building on the momentum they’ve built this season, playoffs or not, and use that to vault into the playoff conversation next season, similar to what the Denver Nuggets have done this year after missing the postseason in 2017-18, then this trade becomes one of the greatest in Sacramento Kings history. If the Sacramento Kings are going to become one of the Western Conference heavyweights, it’ll be because of their young core — and Divac’s move to trade for Barnes in February. Mark it down.