Both the Sacramento Kings and the Minnesota Timberwolves are at a bit of a crossroads and are in need of a shakeup. Sacramento Kings on SI recently proposed a trade involving Julius Randle and Domantas Sabonis that definitely works out better for the Wolves than it does for the Kings.
What's interesting about the finals for Sacramento and Minnesota is their shared perspective. Both teams had to watch former players and coaches compete for and win an NBA Championship this year. It's also not the first time fans of the Kings and the Wolves have experienced this phenomenon.
Sacramento is in the midst of a full rebuild of the team that started with the 2025 NBA Draft and continued with the 2026 NBA Draft. Free agency will be difficult this season as the Kings are caught between a few big-money contracts, including Sabonis, who has a couple of years left.
The Wolves started their soft rebuild with the drafting of Anthony Edwards in 2020. They were briefly a force with Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert around him, but their lack of a true point guard lowered their ceiling. Then, trading KAT for Randle helped the Knicks far more than Minnesota.
Bringing in Randle wouldn't have done much for the Kings
The essential premise of SI's proposed trade was that the Wolves would get Sabonis and Devin Carter. In exchange, the Kings ended up with Randle, Donte DiVincenzo, and Minnesota's number 28 draft pick. Being that the Wolves just sent Randle to the Nets, none of this is happening.
This would have worked out for the Wolves. Sabonis is the exact kind of center Edwards needs, and Gobert more than makes up for Sabonis's defensive deficiencies. Plus, Carter is an underrated young point guard with potential. Minnesota could have developed him into the point guard they needed.
Randle wasn't an improvement at all. He's a fine big, but the Kings have no shortage of them. His contract is slightly less expensive than Sabonis's, just not enough to make a real difference. And Randle wouldn't be going anywhere until after 2028, same as Sabonis. It just didn't make sense.
This move had potential for the Wolves, but the benefits for the Kings just weren't there. SI more or less acknowledges this in their article. Keeping that in mind, it might not hurt Sacramento to make a change like this just to get the trade train going. They might have had less trouble moving Randle.
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