With the Scott Perry and Doug Christie era of the Sacramento Kings now in full swing, it is time to focus on the 2025 offseason.
This will be a big period for Sacramento, as the team is coming off a disappointing season that showed just how flawed their roster is. The team clearly needs to move one of DeMar DeRozan or Zach LaVine, and Eric Sperlazza of Sports Illustrated has an idea of how they can move the former.
Kings could trade DeMar DeRozan to the Detroit Pistons
In a recent article for Sports Illustrated's Sacramento Kings page, Sperlazza suggests a sign-and-trade involving the Pistons re-signing Dennis Schroder and then immediately flipping him and Simone Fontecchio to the Kings for DeRozan.
If this trade actually did happen, how good would it be for both sides?
Sacramento Kings
Earlier, we alluded to the Kings having a flawed roster. What we meant was that they have too many on-ball creators (DeRozan, LaVine, and Malik Monk) and not enough ball handling, size, shooting, and defense.
In Schroder, the Kings get a true point guard with a strong history of defending at the point of attack. The 12-year veteran has had an up-and-down career, but he is coming off a strong postseason showing against the New York Knicks. In the series, he averaged 12.5 PPG and 3.7 APG on 62.5% true shooting while providing credible coverage of one of the best scorers in the league in Jalen Brunson.
Meanwhile, Fontecchio may be one of the more underrated three-and-D role players in the association these days. Fontecchio is 6'8 (size), finished in the 75th percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus in 2023-24 (defense), and is a career 36.3% 3-point shooter (shooting). However, for some reason, he fell out of head coach J.B. Bickerstaff's rotation – not seeing a single second in their first round series. This would be a great buy-low for the Kings.
You would like to get some draft capital to add to the treasure chest. But given DeRozan's age and specific fit, a re-tool without any negative assets is about the best you can do.
Grade: A-
Detroit Pistons
Now that the Pistons have proven formidable, the next step for them is to add a secondary creator to lessen the scoring/playmaking load that currently sits on Cade Cunningham's shoulders. This deal gives them that without sacrificing any significant assets (they could lose Schroder for nothing in free agency, and as we noted already, Fontecchio didn't factor heavily into Bickerstaff's rotation anyway).
The issue is DeRozan isn't the ideal second banana to pair with Cunningham. He's still a highly productive player, putting together averaging 22.2 PPG in his age-35 season (his 12th straight 20+ PPG campaign). Plus, he's on a fair contract with only two years left on the deal.
Unfortunately, DeRozan is not a good off-ball player or 3-point shooter, which has made it hard for him to pair with other high-level ball handlers in the past (as we noted in his season recap). He also doesn't provide much on the defensive side of the ball (a huge part of Detroit's newfound identity). DeRozan makes them better, but the degree to which he does that is marginal at best.