Few teams reconstructed their roster the way the Sacramento Kings did during the 2025 NBA Trade Deadline. In the span of five days, the Kings made three trades – saying goodbye to five players (including a franchise icon) while also bringing in three new faces.
However, during this process, the Kings may have neglected a very important part of the game.
Kings may not have enough defense to truly compete
In general, to make a deep playoff run, your team needs to check one (or more) of three boxes. The team needs to either have an elite offense, an elite defense, or be balanced (top 10) on both sides of the ball.
With Zach LaVine, Domantas Sabonis, Malik Monk, and DeMar DeRozan, the Kings have a ton of offensive firepower on their roster. However, even with all this great personnel on their side, the Kings are 25th in offensive rating since LaVine's arrival. Now, this will surely go up as LaVine gains more familiarity with his new teammates. Still, it seems unlikely that they reach the threshold necessary to be an elite offense (top 3).
As we hinted at in the last paragraph, this roster is very offensively slanted, and as a result, it would be very hard for them to be an elite defense. So, their best bet is to be balanced on both sides of the ball.
Unfortunately, the Kings' roster makes it tricky for them to accomplish this goal. Of the Kings' top 10 players (LaVine, Sabonis, Monk, DeRozan, Keegan Murray, Keon Ellis, Trey Lyles, Jonas Valanciunas, Jake LaRavia, and Devin Carter), only two of them are definitively above-average defenders (Murray and Ellis). Carter will eventually be a good/great defender, but it is hard to ask that of a rookie.
The Sacramento Kings really said who needs defense, huh? https://t.co/gxOOm6Tz7V
— Mat Issa (@matissa15) February 5, 2025
Anyway, it is very tricky to build a strong defense when only two of the ten guys in your rotation are strong defenders, especially when neither of them are rim protecting centers.
As I stated in the tweet above, the Kings made a lot of good moves during the deadline, but they failed to add more defense to their ranks. In fact, one could argue that they lost some defense when they traded Fox for LaVine.
Now, the Kings are in a tricky spot. They are a great, but not elite, offense with a shaky defense. Maybe the coaching staff can get creative and figure out a way to make it work, but that possibility is hard to imagine right now.