Tier #6: Could Get A Haul
Kings Players In This Category: Keegan Murray, De'Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis
At long last, we have arrived at the sixth and final tier. These are the players who move mountains. The kind who, after they are traded, spark hours and hours of debates on Twitter (I refuse to call it "X"). The players that secure the team that trades them the illustrious haul that helps you kickstart your rebuild.
In this group for the Kings, we have Keegan Murray, De'Aaron Fox, and Domantas Sabonis. At first, seeing Murray's name at the top of the list may leave you scratching your head. But as we saw with the Bridges trade, when you can get an elite role player (or, at least, a player with the potential to become an elite role player), you do everything you can to get them.
Murray has the skillset to develop into a Bridges caliber player. And that says nothing about his contract situation. Whereas DeRozan is underpaid by six million dollars based on my formula, Murray is worth 19.5 million dollars more than he's getting in 2024-25 (roughly 8.4 million). Then, he has a whole other year where he's getting paid less than nine million dollars in 2025-26. In this current salary cap landscape, that could easily be worth three or four first round picks.
Fox and Sabonis are better players than Murray (hence their presence in this tier). But they are also flawed stars who get paid a lot of money, which hinders their value to a degree. Fox is ranked above Sabonis because he has a higher production value (and generally the easier building block to build around between the two).