The Sacramento Kings had a busy 2024 offseason. They signed a litany of minimum contracts, re-signed their beloved combo guard, and drafted Devin Carter with the 13th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.
But by far and away, the biggest transaction that they made was agreeing to a sign-and-trade to acquire six-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA forward DeMar DeRozan. However, this recent report from NBA Insider Jake Fischer suggests that DeRozan wasn't the only Chicago Bulls player that the Kings had their eye on.
Sacramento Kings were interested in Zach LaVine
As a team that has been good, but not great, over the last couple of years, the Kings were a team that many people thought needed to upgrade their roster this past offseason. As a result, the team was linked to multiple high-level players. Along with DeRozan, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Jerami Grant, and Cameron Johnson all had their names connected to the team. And according to Fischer's report, it looks like Zach LaVine was also on their radar. Here is what he had to say about it:
"By any measure it has been a tremendous bounce-back season for LaVine after a foot injury limited him to 25 games last season. Even while sidelined, mind you, LaVine did manage to generate some trade interest from Detroit (before the February 2024 trade deadline) and Sacramento (in the offseason) before the Kings opted instead in July to complete a sign-and-trade deal for LaVine's Bulls teammate DeMar DeRozan."
As Fischer stated, the Kings were looking at adding the All-Star slasher to their core. However, after adding DeRozan, the team no longer felt a need to also trade for LaVine, and rightfully so. The team already has too many mouths that need to be fed (and not enough quality role players), and adding LaVine would have only exacerbated matters.
But this does raise an interesting question: should the Kings have traded for LaVine instead of DeRozan?
A quick look at their Estimated Plus-Minus (EPM) outputs – arguably the best publicly available one-number metric on the market – shows that LaVine is having a much better season than DeRozan. LaVine is 48th in the NBA in EPM, while DeRozan is 119th (per Dunks & Threes).
Now, to be fair, hindsight is 20/20, and at the time all this was happening, LaVine's stock was at an all-time low. LaVine was coming off a rough season where he was limited to just 25 games, and he still had another three years left in his monstrous five-year, 215-million dollar contract (per Spotrac). Given his injury-riddled past and how much his game is predicated on athleticism, it didn't seem like the rest of that deal would age well.
Meanwhile, DeRozan has a history of being something of an iron man, and the Kings were able to sign him to an affordable 3-year, 74-million dollar deal.
So, while now it seems like adding LaVine would have been the better play, the sign-and-trade for DeRozan was the right play at the time.