Just before the trade deadline, the Sacramento Kings sent point guard Dennis Schroder to the Cleveland Cavaliers after only a few months with the team. Based on recent comments, Schroder is still a little annoyed by the situation, and it's really not hard to understand why.
The weird part about Schroder is that there are two distinct versions of him. When FIBA Schroder is playing basketball in Europe, he's an untouchable legend. Unfortunately, NBA Schroder is a bit different. He's good enough to play in the league, just not as impactful as in international play.
Because of this, Schroder's NBA career has seen him bounce from team to team to team. He's been associated with at least one-third of the franchises in the league and tends to get traded frequently. These rapid trades got rolling in earnest after he didn't re-sign with the Lakers years ago.
During the 2025 offseason, the Kings brought Schroder in as their new starting point guard. That experiment ended after a few weeks when he was replaced by Russell Westbrook. After that, it was only a matter of time before Sacramento used him as trade fodder, and that's what happened.
Schroder did not enjoy his time on the Kings
The same trade that sent Schroder to Cavs shipped Dario Saric to the Bulls. That began a short chain reaction of moves that led to Saric no longer having a spot in the league. Naturally, he wasn't particularly positive about his Kings experience. Now, Schroder has added his name to that list.
On a recent episode of the Golden Hoops Podcast, which is in German, Schroder discussed how he felt the Kings did not keep their word in their dealings with him. While he didn't go into details, Schroder made it clear that whatever the plan was going in, Sacramento didn't follow through.
That's not exactly surprising. Again, Schroder was brought in as the starting point guard and was then relegated to the bench in favor of Westbrook. On top of that, the youth movement in the rebuild was focused on players like Maxime Raynaud and Nique Clifford over him.
At the same time, Cardwell didn't really excel as the starting point guard and did play better off the bench. Sure, Sacramento is a tough scene right now for any player, but it's hard to ignore that Schroder's performance there was on par with the rest of his time in the league.