BAD: 2015 Trade With 76ers
During his first offseason at the helm of the Kings, Divac orchestrated one of the worst trades in recent NBA history.
In July of 2015, in an effort to dump salary, Sacramento traded Carl Landry, Nik Stauskas and Jason Thompson to the Philadelphia 76ers for two European players who never saw any NBA action. It was the outgoing draft picks that crippled the Kings, however.
To add to the growing arsenal of draft picks and assets for the rebuilding 76ers, the Kings sent over the rights to a pick swap in 2017 as well as a completely unprotected first-round pick in 2019.
The players that the Kings signed with the money saved in the trade were underwhelming, as Sacramento had missed its targets in free agency and was forced to gather what was left. The Kings had mortgaged a significant portion of their future assets in order to slightly improve a team that was nowhere near contention.
Sacramento lucked out, however. The 76ers finished 5th in the Draft Lottery in 2017 and exercised their rights to the pick swap with Sacramento, who had come in 3rd. The 76ers traded a future asset and that 3rd overall pick to move up and draft Markelle Fultz, who is no longer with Philadelphia. The Kings had De’Aaron Fox drop to them who could very well end up being the star of the franchise.
The 2019 unprotected first-rounder was projected to be a top-3 pick, but the Kings ended up surprising the league by being a middle of the pack team. Sacramento ended up sending the 14th overall pick to the Celtics (who had acquired it from the 76ers), a far better result than what could have been for the Kings.