When the Sacramento Kings executed a sign-and-trade to land DeMar DeRozan, their goal was to make some noise in the Western Conference. Of course, that didn't happen, as the team missed the postseason for the second straight year (and the 18th time in the last 19 years).
Now, the Kings have a new front office, a (mostly) new coaching staff, and the hopes of re-shaping their current roster. However, the DeRozan trade they made last summer has put a hard deadline for the latest possible time the Kings can wait to be good again.
The 2031 First Round Pick Swap With The San Antonio Spurs
To get DeRozan, the Kings needed to part ways with Harrison Barnes, Chris Duarte, a couple of second round picks, and, most importantly, a 2031 first round pick swap. The pick swap went to the San Antonio Spurs.
How a pick swap works is the team that acquires the swap is allowed to decide which of the two teams' spots they want to have. So, in this instance, if the Kings were selecting 19th in the 2031 NBA Draft and the Spurs were all the way down at 29th, San Antonio could decide to switch picks and move up ten spots.
So, the goal when you are the team to trade the pick swap is to be the one with the worse record of the two. This gives the Kings about six years to build a team that is better than the Spurs so that they won't give them the luxury of taking their superior pick.
This goal will not be an easy one to achieve. As it stands, the Kings are a team sorely lacking direction/highly tradeable assets. Meanwhile, the Spurs have a bunch of tradeable picks and young players. Plus, they roster arguably the most promising player in NBA history (you may have heard of one Victor Wembanyama).
At the end of the day, the DeRozan trade didn't end up the way the Kings had hoped. But if they hope to cut their losses and limit the damage done, Sacramento needs to finish this rebuild/re-tool before the start of the 2030-31 season.