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Is It Time for the Kings to Rebuild Again?

_{CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – FEBRUARY 03: Domantas Sabonis #10 and Malik Monk #0 of the Sacramento Kings celebrate against the Chicago Bulls during the second half at the United Center on February 03, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)}

This is familiar territory for Sacramento Kings fans, isn’t it? Stuck in the middle, nowhere near close to championship and nowhere near close to having a chance to draft a future star.

As of today, the Kings are .500 on the season with a record of 33-33. That record perfectly sums up the tumultuous and rocky six months that they have had. Sacramento is wedged in the 9th seed, too far from the Clippers at 8th and ahead of the disastrous Mavs and Suns at 10th and 11th respectively. It feels like it’s a foretold prophecy that Sacramento will repeat their misfortunes of last season and win the 9/10 play-in game, get everyone’s hopes up that they will make the Playoffs, and then lose in the 8/9 game. Their first round pick will convey to Atalanta, and they will have the most mediocre season of all time. 9th place, play-in loss, no draft pick. The Kangz might just be back baby!

The season started off with a lot of hope for the franchise. Sacramento entered the season having signed their biggest free agent in franchise history, DeMar DeRozan, with expectations of returning to the Playoffs and maybe winning a series or two. Fast forward less than a year later and their recent Coach of the Year, Mike Brown, and long-tenured face of the franchise, De’Aaron Fox, are already gone before the season has concluded. In a combination of a coaching change, the Fox trade, several injuries and players underperforming, among other things, the Kings have not been able to get into a groove this season.

After an 0-5 homestand that concluded with a devastating loss to Detroit via a Fox foul on a Jaden Ivey three, Brown was relieved of his duties. This was the moment Fox knew his time with the Kings was just about over. If his furious press conference was any sign, Brown knew his time in Sacramento was up, as well. In an ESPN article, Michael Wright mentions how Fox had directly told the front office, “I’m not going to play for another coach,” so management knew firing Brown meant trading Fox at one point or another. The team’s turnaround from a 13-18 start under Brown to an 11-6 record under interim head coach Doug Christie was not enough to sway Fox’s mind. Fox wanted to leave, and he wanted to go to San Antonio specifically.

With Fox’s trade value deflated, the Kings were only able to net a handful of lukewarm first rounds picks, some second rounders, and Zach LaVine. While LaVine may be a good NBA player, his fit with the team as constructed makes little to no sense. Unless you’re Vivek Ranadive and you just love him that much that it doesn’t matter who else is on your roster, why would you want LaVine here with this Kings team? It has been known for quite a while that Ranadive loves LaVine, and the Kings were close to signing him several years ago when he was a restricted free agent, before Chicago matched his offer sheet. My suspicions are that Ranadive urged the front office to pursue LaVine in any Fox deal they complete.

With a new core of Domantas Sabonis, DeRozan, and LaVine, the ceiling of the team is notably lower than it was with Fox and Sabonis at the helm. DeRozan will be 36 by the time next season rolls around, LaVine will be 30, and Sabonis will be 29. While LaVine and Sabonis have good years ahead of them, the clock is still ticking for those guys, and they need to win now to maximize their individual primes. This makes the Kings clock to complete a re-tool around them much shorter, and they have less leeway to make mistakes with any moves they make if they opt to continue forward with the aforementioned trio.

With so much salary tied up in guys that are aging, it begs the question if a rebuild should happen. Does ownership want the Kings to be a play-in team every season? If so, congratulations. They have built the perfect roster for that. But if they want to be a consistent Playoff team that has aspirations of making deep postseason runs on the regular, a complete tear-down is the only viable path forward.

The good thing is, there are guys on the roster who can give you a great start to a rebuild. Sabonis may not fit like a glove on every team in the league, but there are winning teams where he would fit in quite nicely into their frontline, such as Memphis or Oklahoma City. You could likely get at least 2-3 first round picks and a nice young player or two in a Sabonis trade. DeMar DeRozan may be in his mid-30s, but he can still get you a bucket. Plenty of Playoff teams would love a bucket-getter like him, and he will basically be an expiring contract next season as the final season of his deal is non-guaranteed. While he may not get you a whole lot, you could probably flip him for a very late first and/or a solid role player on the younger side this off-season. Zach LaVine may be more difficult to trade – he still has two more seasons left on his contract, if you assume he will pick up his $48.9M player option for the 2026-27 season (uhhh yeah, safe bet there). While you may have to hold on to LaVine, I don’t think he would hurt a rebuild or tank effort in any meaningful way, so holding on to him for another season or two would not obstruct the teardown. We can’t forget, LaVine is a bit injury prone so it’s not even a sure thing that he would play a majority of the games during the rest of his Kings tenure.

Malik Monk is a tough one – clearly a fan favorite, it would be saddening to see him leave Sacramento. He just re-signed with the Kings this past off-season when there was plenty of speculation he could leave and get a better contract elsewhere. However, trading Malik Monk may be a necessary evil if the Kings want to do this rebuild the correct way. You can likely get some combination of additional draft capital and young players for Monk, as he is on a nice contract and has proven to be arguably the best 6th Man in the league. Considering that LaVine may not be so easily tradeable, moving Monk would become a priority because there would be too much talent on the team at that point for it to be a true rebuild, and the Kings could still find themselves in the play-in with that scenario.

So what would be left over after the Kings hit the reset button? The three guys the Kings would be starting fresh with would be Keegan Murray, Keon Ellis and Devin Carter. All three guys are under team control for years to come and are young enough that they could see through a rebuild and still be in their primes to be contributors a few years from now. In a new setting, these guys would have a chance to get plenty of minutes and continue to develop their individuals games in a low-pressure setting. Murray could look to add to his scoring repertoire, Ellis could increase his volume of shots and Carter would have a chance to run a team and continue getting comfortable in the NBA. Out of all the recent rebuilds in the NBA, I can’t name many that started with three young guys who were positives on the defensive end. Having Murray, Ellis and Carter already in place to establish your defensive infrastructure while you add a couple of (hopefully) future stars who can be the go-to scorers would be the dream scenario and would be the makings of a serious Playoff team. Having these three on board to transition to the next generation would also soften the blow for Kings fans, as they have already developed an affinity for these guys and they would provide them familiar faces to root for as the franchise turns the page from the Beam Team era.

Other guys would have a chance to develop during this time, too. Isaac Jones has given the Kings some solid non-garbage time minutes this season. It would be interesting to see what he could do more minutes and usage. Isaiah Crawford has shown good flashes of 3-and-D potential in the G-League but has only received garbage time minutes in the NBA. With a full rebuild, you could see what you have with your two-way players. If either one turned out to be a top 8 or 9 rotation guy, that would be a big win for the team and its future.

There is no easy way to say this – the Kings are stuck in the middle again. It seems clear to many that a true rebuild is in order. We have seen this type of Kings team for years – hope for Playoffs in the pre-season and finish the season in the middle. Get a middling lottery pick and never land a star because you draft too late. Rinse, repeat.

Just rip the band-aid off now and get going on what we all know needs to happen. How many more hopeless and middling play-in seasons do Kings fans want to endure? With a rebuild, you would at least know that the goals and expectations are different. You can buy in to the idea that you are playing for the future and building towards something down the line. You can enjoy watching your young guys grow and develop in front of your eyes and see them form a new identity. No pressure of having to “win-now,” that will come later. Of course, the Kings will have to draft well in a rebuild and land big in the lottery once or twice to be successful. But that is just part of the NBA process that every team, barring a handful like the Lakers, have to go through to win a championship. The question is, does Vivek have the stomach to do what everyone in Sacramento knows needs to be done?