It’s been just over one month since the 2018-19 NBA Trade Deadline has passed, giving us plenty of time to properly evaluate the moves made by the Sacramento Kings, has anything changed since they first went down?
The Sacramento Kings went into the trade deadline with one glaring need: a small forward. They got that and then some, as they were (surprisingly) one of the busiest teams at the Trade Deadline, making three trades and one free agent signing (Corey Brewer).
In the immediate aftermath of all these moves, Kings fans seemed divided on social media as to whether or not the Kings had a successful trade deadline or not.
On one hand, fans loved the addition of Harrison Barnes, if for no other reason than he’s an actual small forward on a team devoid of them. Some fans were (and still are) concerned about his fit with the team, but after a solid stretch of games where Barnes seems to have found his groove, those concerns have been eased ever so slightly.
On the other hand, however, the move to trade Iman Shumpert for Alec Burks was almost universally panned among Kings fans, even though most analysts and media viewed it as nothing more than a minor move without many risks.
Has anything changed since the deadline? We know Barnes appears to be fitting in much more nicely than when he first got here, but is there any difference in how we should view the Burks-Shumpert swap as compared to when it happened? Or the even more minor move to swap Skal Labissiere for Portalnd’s Caleb Swanigan? Let’s find out.
Grades:
Sacramento Kings – A
Portland Trailblazers – A
The Kings were certainly one of the most active teams at the trade deadline, but that doesn’t mean every move they made had an immediate — or any — impact. Count this swap with the Portland Trailblazers among those moves that fit in this category.
Skal Labissiere is an amazing story, having survived a devastating earthquake that struck his native-Haiti in 2010 when he was just 13-years-old , becoming one of the best prospects in country and eventually, a NBA player. He’s showed flashes of promise in his first two seasons in Sacramento, and appeared poised for growth in 2018-19. Unfortunately, reality took a different path, and Labissiere failed to break into the Kings rotation, playing in just 13 games (out of 54) and averaged just 8.7 minutes per game in his appearances.
Caleb Swanigan, who was also a late-first round pick, has similarly failed to deliver on his potential — though Swanigan has considerably less NBA experience, and far fewer games under his belt to suggest he will reach that potential when compared to Labissiere.
After news of the trade broke, FanSided’s Rip City Project told A Royal Pain over Twitter that Swanigan is a solid rebounder (career-high of 11 rebounds), but that his athleticism is lacking. Consensus among Blazers fans is that Swanigan is a good rebounder and even better person, whose ceiling might be Ed Davis.
Good rebounder, has struggled to shoot the ball, and has limited athleticism. He could be an energy guy off the bench. You hope he develops into a Reggie Evans/Ed Davis type.
— Rip City Project (@ripcityproject) February 7, 2019
Since coming to Sacramento, Swanigan has yet to suit up for the team, but he has played seven games for the Sacramento Kings’ G-League Affiliate, the Stockton Kings. Swanigan re-joined the Kings on March 1, but before that he compiled averages of 14.3 points, 13.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.1 steals per game on 46 percent shooting from the field (14.3 3PT%, 67.9 FT%) in Stockton.
Whether or not Swanigan can make that type of impact as a rebounder with Sacramento remains to be seen — if he does though, this trade quickly goes from ‘meh’ to a big win for GM Vlade Divac and Co.
Still, Swanigan is only 21-years-old and Labissiere just 22-years-old. It’s clear both players involved needed a change of scenery. Giving both of them just that, without sacrificing any draft assets means both teams get an ‘A’ for this trade, even if neither player makes a big impact in the NBA.
Grades:
Sacramento Kings – C
Cleveland Cavaliers – A
Houston Rockets – B-minus
There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s just get into it. From the Kings perspective this deal is a bit puzzling. Despite adding Harrison Barnes to take over the starting small forward role from Iman Shumpert, keeping Shumpert on-board would’ve been a wise move to provide some much-needed wing depth, especially since the Kings jettisoned Justin Jackson.
It’s important to keep in mind the Kings traded Shumpert to Houston before they acquired Barnes and sent off Jackson, so we don’t know what the thought process was for the Kings front office when they made the move. Still, it seems like a pointless trade at best.
Shumpert was a leader in the Kings locker room and championed “The Scores” and his trade left a lot of Kings players hurt and they weren’t the only ones. Kings fans from across the country panned the move, angry that Shumpert was sent off for Alec Burks, a veteran two-guard who owns career averages of 9.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists.
This, of course, isn’t a knock on Burks, but rather illustrating just how much Shumpert meant to this team and this fan base. And if we’re playing a bit of revisionist history, is it possible to the Kings are in a better playoff position if they still have Shumpert to fill in after Marvin Bagley III went down?
After Bagley’s injury, Harrison Barnes moved to power forward and Bogdan Bogdanovic joined the starting lineup as a small forward. This, to put it bluntly, has been a disaster. Barnes hasn’t been awful as a small-ball four, but Bogdanovic has struggled immensely. He’s being torched regularly on defense and his shot isn’t falling, this is mostly due to his role changing as a starter to 3 and D wing instead of a primary ball-handler with the second-unit, but the negative impact is there regardless.
Had the Kings kept Shumpert, they could’ve trotted him out as their starting small forward and kept Bogi on the bench where he should be, as a sixth man — but they didn’t. Shumpert is in Houston and the Kings are stuck with what they have.
Looking at the trade objectively, however, you can see some reason behind the move and even with the undefeated 20/20 hindsight suggesting this move is more deserving of a failing grade, it was a relatively low-risk trade that won’t hurt the Kings long-term and that much hasn’t changed.
Shumpert was going to have his minutes slashed immensely once Barnes was acquired, and the move to the Rockets not only insures he still has a role (16.4 minute per game in Houston), but that he also joins a contender. Burks also adds a veteran locker room presence to help fill the void left by Shumpert and Jackson, while also *potentially* adding more on-court production. Burks adds another shot-creator off the bench who can operate as the team’s second point guard, a role that Yogi Ferrell and Frank Mason III have both failed to seize despite ample opportunity to do so.
It hasn’t quite worked out that way, but the thinking behind the move seems sound. And for what it’s worth, Burks — like Barnes — has seemed to find his stride with the Kings as of late, performing well when called upon and helping orchestrate Sacramento’s near-comeback against the Washington Wizards on Monday night. As a result, this gets an average ‘C’ grade for the Kings.
For the Rockets, they had to send out a ton of draft capital, but managed to finagle their way out from under Brandon Knight’s contract while adding a solid veteran in Iman Shumpert. The Rockets aren’t going to get an ‘A’ just for attaching a draft pick to a bad contract, but they did as best they could under the circumstances, which warrants a respectable ‘B-minus’.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, however, are the real winners of this trade. Not only were they able to move some veteran players for draft capital, but they got a considerable amount of it. Sure a 2022 second rounder isn’t anything to lose your minds over (“The Process” notwithstanding), but adding a 2019 first is a big get for a team without a bright future, even if they have to take on two years of Brandon Knight.
Of course, it’s important to note that pick is lottery-protected, but the Rockets aren’t bottoming out this year anyway (obviously). And it could also be a good asset to attach to Kevin Love to move him after signing him to a massive contract-extension over the summer, though it remains to be seen if that’s what Cleveland wants to do. Still, they come away with an ‘A’ here, and for good reason.
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.