Mike Brown won NBA Coach of the Year for the second time in his career in 2023, the first being in 2009 with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Kings fired Brown on December 27, replacing him with former Kings star guard Doug Christie, who had been an assistant under Brown.
Sacramento has since posted an 11-4 record heading into Wednesday’s tilt against the underperforming Philadelphia 76ers.
Reports surfaced on Tuesday that the Kings are also fielding offers for leading scorer De’Aaron Fox.
At 24-22, Sacramento sits 10th in the Western Conference, 1.5 games ahead of the Warriors for the final spot in the Play-In Tournament. The record also puts the Kings two games back of the Los Angeles Clippers for sixth in the West, which would avoid the Play-In completely, and just three games back of the Los Angeles Lakers for the Pacific Division lead.
Fox is averaging 25.2 points over 43 games this season, and is a large part of why the Kings feature the sixth-highest scoring offense in the NBA this season. Fox turned 27 the week before Christmas, and has played his entire eight-year career in Sacramento, after being picked fifth overall back in 2017. Fox’s minutes have increased this season to a career-high 37 per game, and his scoring is down over a point from his career high of 26.6 set a season ago. Fox earned his first trip to the All Star Game in 2023, and was named to the All-NBA Third Team after the season.
His $34.8 million cap hit for this season is relatively low for a player of his caliber, meaning the talk of being shopped by the Kings has more legs than we may be anticipating. Fox has one more year left on his current contract, a five-year $163 million rookie maximum extension signed in 2020. His salary only goes up to $37 million next season, where the Kings would still have nearly $25 million in luxury tax space if Fox decides to stay.
The idea of Sacramento being sellers before the February 6 trade deadline is puzzling, despite sitting in last place in the Pacific Division. Both Los Angeles teams and Golden State have gotten very old, very quickly, despite a plethora of star power on each roster. If Fox was to stay, another year under Christie may be ripe for the Kings to reclaim a division they owned during the 2000s, when Christie, Peja Stojakovic, Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, and Mike Bibby were the most exciting team in the NBA, dubbed “The Greatest Show On Court” by Sports Illustrated.
Taking veteran DeMar Derozan out of the equation for a moment, the Kings have a seasoned core of talent that have not reached the age of 30. Malik Monk turns 27 next week (February 4), Domantas Sabonis is 28, and Keegan Murray is 24. Add in Derozan, and all five are averaging in double-figures. Only Monk plays fewer than 35 minutes a night, primarily as the team’s sixth man.
If General Manager Monte McNair decides to roll the dice and move Fox, there would have to be some level of incentive to bring back assets to compete for the playoffs this season, in addition to some level of compensatory or incentive-laden draft pick. Perhaps the idea of holding onto Fox through the rest of the regular season, seeing if the Kings could get into the Top 6 might be a double-edged sword.
Does Sacramento at that point convince Fox to stay with a short-term contract extension? Would the Kings be able to get the value back four months from now if the run to the playoffs comes up short? If the team continues their success under Christie, do the Kings remove the interim tag and attempt to build further with this core, knowing Derozan may play out the last two years on his contract before retirement?
The NBA is a rarity where small market teams have just as good a shot at winning a championship. Cleveland and Oklahoma City took their homegrown talent, and turned it into the two best records in the NBA by a country mile this season. Their two matchups were the highest-rated broadcasts in the league this season. If Fox wants to move on, there really is not too much Sacramento can do to make him stay. Fox has given seven great years to the Kings franchise, but is certainly not taking the Jimmy Butler route on his apparently inevitable way out the door. While Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra may want to ship Butler off for cash considerations at this stage out of spite, Sacramento is losing a cornerstone in a rebuild that would have them as an annual playoff contributor in the Eastern Conference.
Only in the West can the Kings finish 10 games over .500 a season ago, and miss the playoffs entirely to where Brown is fired, and a top 30 player in the league has to be moved.
-JC24
The idea of Sacramento being sellers before the February 6 trade deadline is puzzling, despite sitting in last place in the Pacific Division. Both Los Angeles teams and Golden State have gotten very old, very quickly, despite a plethora of star power on each roster. If Fox was to stay, another year under Christie may be ripe for the Kings to reclaim a division they owned during the 2000s, when Christie, Peja Stojakovic, Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, and Mike Bibby were the most exciting team in the NBA, dubbed “The Greatest Show On Court” by Sports Illustrated.
Taking veteran DeMar Derozan out of the equation for a moment, the Kings have a seasoned core of talent that have not reached the age of 30. Malik Monk turns 27 next week (February 4), Domantas Sabonis is 28, and Keegan Murray is 24. Add in Derozan, and all five are averaging in double-figures. Only Monk plays fewer than 35 minutes a night, primarily as the team’s sixth man.
If General Manager Monte McNair decides to roll the dice and move Fox, there would have to be some level of incentive to bring back assets to compete for the playoffs this season, in addition to some level of compensatory or incentive-laden draft pick. Perhaps the idea of holding onto Fox through the rest of the regular season, seeing if the Kings could get into the Top 6 might be a double-edged sword.
Does Sacramento at that point convince Fox to stay with a short-term contract extension? Would the Kings be able to get the value back four months from now if the run to the playoffs comes up short? If the team continues their success under Christie, do the Kings remove the interim tag and attempt to build further with this core, knowing Derozan may play out the last two years on his contract before retirement?
The NBA is a rarity where small market teams have just as good a shot at winning a championship. Cleveland and Oklahoma City took their homegrown talent, and turned it into the two best records in the NBA by a country mile this season. Their two matchups were the highest-rated broadcasts in the league this season. If Fox wants to move on, there really is not too much Sacramento can do to make him stay. Fox has given seven great years to the Kings franchise, but is certainly not taking the Jimmy Butler route on his apparently inevitable way out the door. While Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra may want to ship Butler off for cash considerations at this stage out of spite, Sacramento is losing a cornerstone in a rebuild that would have them as an annual playoff contributor in the Eastern Conference.
Only in the West can the Kings finish 10 games over .500 a season ago, and miss the playoffs entirely to where Brown is fired, and a top 30 player in the league has to be moved.
-JC24