After the Sacramento Kings were eliminated from the play-in tournament by the Dallas Mavericks, we wrote an article discussing players who should not be on the roster to start the 2025-26 NBA regular season.
The primary message of the piece was that the Kings had a flawed roster that needs a massive overhaul to become a contender in the West. Unfortunately, based on the early messaging from their new general manager, Scott Perry, this doesn't seem to be the direction the front office is going in.
Scott Perry plans on keeping misfit core together
In a recent edition of the Stein Line substack, Jake Fischer and Marc Stein dumped all the information they had on the Kings' offseason plans. The part of it that stood out the most for the focus of this post is included below:
"While this is certainly a flawed roster — one that Perry said requires an influx of "length and athleticism" in addition to the point guard that Domantas Sabonis has openly lobbied for — there is little expectation that Sacramento plans to take any further steps away from the playoff chase in the West. The Kings' playoff berth in 2022-23, remember, represents the only trip to the playoffs for this franchise (gulp) across the past 19 seasons."
This could mean one of two things. It could indicate that Perry plans to do as we prescribed, which is to re-tool this roster around Sabonis by trading guys like DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, and (maybe) Malik Monk. In return for them, the goal would be to acquire a true point guard and as much length and athleticism (and shooting) as possible.
The problem with this approach is that is far easier said than done. At this point, DeRozan and LaVine don't have a ton of trade value. So, it will be difficult for the Kings to move off them and add pieces that make them better in the near future.
The other way this excerpt can be interpreted is that Perry plans on keeping this core together and trying to do what the Phoenix Suns did this offseason and get better around the margins with veteran minimum signings.
Given how terrible this past year went for the Suns (somehow, it was even worse for them than the Kings), this is clearly not a winning formula, and if the Kings try to replicate this approach, they will be stuck in basketball purgatory for years to come. The reason for this is that their current core commands too much of the salary cap for the Kings to acquire players who can realistically fill this roster's most glaring holes. They can get lite versions of those types of players, but a half-measure like that will do little good for Sacramento in the short/long term.
Hopefully, if Perry does decide to go down the re-tool route, he understands that part of their current core four needs to go if they plan on truly building a contender in Sacramento.