In the summer of 2024, the Sacramento Kings made a trade.
That is not remarkable in and of itself. This is a franchise that has never been afraid of activity. Have they usually lost the trades they have made? Absolutely. But that hasn't scared them off of making them.
That summer, the Kings were coming off of their best two-year stretch in a long time. Head coach Mike Brown led them to the playoffs for the first time in decades, and then followed it up with a solid 46-win campaign. They were a good team.
They were also an expensive team. They projected to be over the luxury tax and yet needed to change up the rotation to try and improve after (barely) missing out on the playoffs. They would shortly execute deals to re-sign Malik Monk and trade Harrison Barnes for DeMar DeRozan.
The Kings felt pressure to make a trade
First, however, they had the dead contract of Sasha Vezenkov clogging up their books. It was hoped that he would come in and be a rotation forward for them, but injuries slowed his adjustment to the NBA and they made the decision to move on.
The cost, however, was not cheap. They traded Vezenkov and valuable rotation guard Davion Mitchell to the Toronto Raptors for the small contract of Jalen McDaniels, and paid the Toronto Raptors two second-round picks for their troubles.
The Raptors made out like bandits. Vezenkov decided to return to Europe and worked out a complete buyout with the Raptors, clearing his money from their books. The two second-round picks were used on a pair of bulldog defensive guards, Alijah Martin (jury is still out) and Jamal Shead.
Shead just signed a three-year, $24 million contract extension that almost certainly underpays him for his impact. He is a defensive monster at the point of attack, with the strength to mix it up with larger players as well. On offense, his shot is below average, but he balances that with steady ball-handling, passing and finishing in transition.
Davion Mitchell, for his part, is now on the Miami Heat and looks like their starting point guard for at least this season, passing the rock to stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo. He is likewise on a bargain contract of his own and would have been a significant help to the Kings over the last couple of seasons.
The Kings did it again
The Kings could have had Shead on the roster, alongside Mitchell, alongside another second-round pick from a year ago - or executed better trades with more assets. Instead, they fired a pair of picks and a useful player into the sun, all to save money for deals that they shouldn't have made. And in the end, Vezenkov was going to walk away and give that money back -- the Kings only had to be patient.
When you rush into things, you make mistakes. When you target the wrong players, you build a bad team. And when you combine those two flaws, you end up paying through the nose to get off one mistake only to make the next one. It's a death spiral of transactions that could rightfully be called the "Sacramento Spiral".
Jamal Shead will be on a bargain deal for the next few years for a team that matters in Toronto. The Kings will continue to cycle through players, hoping to land competent role players like Shead -- a player they could have had themselves. Perhaps it will be Alex Karaban, a player they drafted in the late first round this year by trading up from the second round. The pick they gave up was used on Meleek Thomas, who led Summer League in scoring.
And so the spiral continues.
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