Should the Sacramento Kings trade for DeMar DeRozan?
By Mat Issa
Reason #1 Against Trading For DeRozan: Spacing
While DeRozan will almost always be on the court, teams won't always defend him when he's there. DeRozan has always been money with the ball in his hands (more on this in a bit), but when he's playing off the ball, it's a completely different story.
Last season, DeRozan shot 33.3% from downtown (30th percentile, per Dunks & Threes). For his career, he's only shot over 35% from three once (2021-22), and he's had nine years where he's shot under 30%.
In the NBA, you can live with having one bad spacer on the floor. But Sabonis and Fox aren't great spacers, either. That means that when the Kings are playing their best players, they will have three below-average spacers on the floor.
This will make getting to the paint incredibly difficult and force the Kings to rely heavily on midrange jumpers. Fortunately, DeRozan is a master of the midrange (99th percentile in midrange attempts last year).