Ranking the 5 most important players on the Sacramento Kings Heading into 2024-25
By Mat Issa
When discussing NBA rosters, there is a critical difference between "best" and "most important." Best is relatively straightforward: who has the most impact on winning on the average team? Meanwhile, most important has more to do with value relative to one's specific team construct.
For instance, Kevin Durant was clearly the better player for the Golden State Warriors between himself and Draymond Green. However, since the Warriors already had Stephen Curry as their offensive centerpiece, Durant's skillset became redundant. So, Green's defensive versatility and playmaking made him more important to that specific Warriors team.
Anyway, for this article, we are going to look at the five most important (remember, not best) Sacramento Kings' players heading into 2024-25.*
(*Sidebar #1: If you are looking for an article about the Kings' best player, check out this post here.)
But before we do that, there are two players who didn't crack the top five that I want to mention really quickly. Those two gentlemen are DeMar DeRozan and Malik Monk. Before you start shouting at me about them not being in the top five, hear me out.
Clearly, DeRozan and Monk are two of the five best players on the Kings. But in terms of importance, the two kind of diminish one another's value. Think about it. Both of them serve a similar role – secondary on-ball creators who have to buoy the offense when De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis are taking a rest. Since the Kings have both of them, they only need one of them to show up on any given night, which decreases each of their individual importance.
Now that that's out of the way, here are my top five...