After a depressing 13-19 start to the season, the Sacramento Kings have won nine of their last ten games. Now, they are 22-20 and eighth in the Western Conference. It is clear that the Kings are a good basketball team, but with the trade deadline looming, the path the Kings should proceed down is unclear.
Should the Kings be buyers, sellers, or watchers at the deadline?
On Monday, in an episode of the "Game Theory Podcast," hosts Sam Vecenie and Bryce Simon (two brilliant basketball minds) discussed the situation the Kings are facing at the deadline.
The big name that has been connected to the Kings is Brooklyn Nets veteran forward Cam Johnson. As Vecenie and Simon highlighted, there are three major questions that need to be answered here: 1) how would the trade work, 2) how would the starting lineup look after the trade, and 3) would the Kings be good enough to really compete after it is all said and done?
Let's just say, for the sake of simplicity, as Vecenie suggested, the Kings are able to land Johnson and Day'Ron Sharpe in exchange for Kevin Huerter, Trey Lyles, Keon Ellis, and a future first round pick. It would be a tough blow losing someone as valuable as Ellis, but it would also open up more minutes for rookie Devin Carter.
From there, the starting five would theoretically be De'Aaron Fox, DeMar DeRozan, Johnson, Keegan Murray, and Domantas Sabonis, and the main three guys off the bench would be Malik Monk, Carter, and Sharpe. But would Monk be okay with this? It seemed like he was really enjoying (and thriving in) his role in the introductory group. If Monk isn't okay with it, are the Kings really going to be able to justify putting Johnson (who they invested all these resources in) or Murray (their most promising young player) on the bench?
Even if Monk is cool with coming off the bench, the Kings will still have the lineup balance issue that has plagued them since the DeRozan trade. The most likely situation will be that Fox, Monk, DeRozan, Sabonis, and one of Johnson/Murray will be closing games for them. If the Kings really want to maximize this trade, head coach Doug Christie needs to be audacious enough to leave one of Monk or DeRozan (whoever is playing worse in that game) out of the closing unit.
And even if all this works out, is adding the sharpshooting Johnson enough to push this team into contender status? Can he be a good enough defender/attacker off the dribble to play big minutes in the playoffs?
These questions, and all the other ones we've posed in this post, are what makes this such a confusing trade deadline for the Kings.