3 Most overpaid Sacramento Kings players on next season's roster
By Mat Issa
T-3. Domantas Sabonis; Kevin Huerter
Average Annual Value: 46.5 million dollars; 16.3 million dollars
Production Value: 38.4 million dollars; 8.2 million dollars
Difference: -8.1 million dollars
Coming in at number three, we have a two-way tie between two of the Kings' five main starters from 2023-24: Domantas Sabonis and Kevin Huerter. What are the odds that two players on the same roster could be overpaid by the exact same amount!
Anyway, Sabonis is a great player whose best ability may be availability (he played all 82 games last year). Last season, his EW was 11.3 (95th percentile), putting his production value in rarified air. Unfortunately, that amount (38.4 million dollars) still isn't enough to match up with the lofty five-year, 217-million-dollar extension he signed during the 2023 offseason.
As for Huerter, our formula believes that he is getting paid twice as much as his production value suggests. However, what the formula fails to account for is that Huerter was having a down season in 2023-24 (something that is not atypical of great shooters).
If Huerter performed the way he did in 2022-23 when he had an EW of 6.5, Huerter's production value would be 22.1 million dollars in 2024-25, which is 5.8 million dollars more than the average annual value on his current deal (that would make him the fifth-most underpaid player on the team).
Let's see if he can rekindle this 2022-23 flame in 2024-25.