The Sacramento Kings run will be over if they trade for Brandon Ingram or Zach LaVine

Recently, someone (yours truly) reported that the Sacramento Kings may not be done making moves after their recent signing of Doug McDermott. In fact, the Kings may still be looking to pull off one more blockbuster move to solidify their current core.

It appears that the Kings are still interested in trading for Zach LaVine or Brandon Ingram. But should they be?

Trading for Zach LaVine or Brandon Ingram would be a huge mistake

As you probably inferred from the title of this post, I am not a fan of the Kings trying to trade for one of LaVine or Ingram. Over the last two years, the Kings have tallied an average of 47 wins per season, making this their most successful stretch of the last two decades.

Both LaVine and Ingram are what I deem to be "flawed stars" – players who are very good on offense but not good enough to be worth the money they are making and not adaptive enough to fit next to other on-ball players.

You can still win big with a flawed star on your roster. But you need a very specific team construction for this. The Kings do not currently tout this build. They are a team that already has too much on-ball creation (in DeMar DeRozan, De'Aaron Fox, Malik Monk, and Domantas Sabonis). What they need is size, spacing, and defense – things that neither of those former All-Stars offer (LaVine does give you some spacing).

By trading for one of them, the Kings would be in a similar situation to the New Orleans Pelicans. For those unaware, the Pelicans are a team with a ton of raw talent but very little lineup cohesion. In this league, you need talent and lineup balance to win big.

This is all without mentioning what the Kings have to give up to trade for one of these stars. To make the money work, the Kings would have to move their cornerstone role player, Keegan Murray (who should be untradeable in most situations), and a key bench forward in Trey Lyles.

Yes, to get something, you need to give something. But the Kings wouldn't be better by sacrificing those pieces. They would be getting much, much worse – effectively ending this era of Kings basketball before it even really began.