The Sacramento Kings had a standout season, not only making the playoffs for the first time in nearly two decades, but finishing with the No. 3 seed and nearly knocking off the defending champions, pushing Stephen Curry and company to seven games.
Their offseason, however, has been less incredible. Dreams of a major swing disappeared, and the team largely ran things back, with the exception of a massive contract extension for All-NBA big man Domantas Sabonis that landed the Kings on multiple “offseason losers” lists, such as the one The Athletic’s John Hollinger put together (subscription required).
And that shaky offseason? It may have been the Portland Trail Blazers’ fault.
Did the Trail Blazers ruin the Kings’ offseason?
The Trail Blazers didn’t directly force the Kings into any specific move. They didn’t fleece the Kings in a trade (at least not this summer), they didn’t steal away a key free agent and they didn’t stick Sacramento with an onerous restricted free agent offer sheet.
No, all they did was make a draft pick.
What did the Blazers do to ruin the Kings’ offseason?
Portland came into the 2023 NBA Draft with two first-round picks. The first was the most heralded, the Blazers’ own pick that landed at No. 3 overall and with which they selected Scoot Henderson, the final domino in Damian Lillard’s decision to request a trade out of Portland.
The quieter pick made by the Blazers was at No. 23, originally the New York Knicks’ pick that they gained in the Josh Hart trade. They used the pick on Iowa’s Kris Murray, a 6-foot-8 forward from Iowa who broke out as a junior, averaging more than 20 points and nearly 8 rebounds per game.
Murray isn’t an elite prospect; teams that were high on him heading into the draft pegged him as a solid three-and-D player with some shot-creation upside in the right scenarios. He has played a small role, even on the Blazers’ NBA Summer League team, averaging 9.7 points and 4.7 rebounds per game in his three appearances.
How did drafting Murray affect the Kings? Well, Murray broke out in college at Iowa this past season in large part because of the departure of the Hawkeyes’ previous leading scorer: Kris’s twin brother, Keegan Murray, an All-Rookie player last season on the Kings.
More than just tongue-in-cheek jokes, the Kings reportedly had very real interest in Murray, and he was commonly mocked to Sacramento in the weeks leading into the NBA Draft. He fit a need, too; whether or not Harrison Barnes was going to return, the two Murray brothers had complementary skillsets to be in the long-term mix at the three and four positions.
Rather than move the pick for veteran help, the Blazers stayed the course in preparing for their rebuild and used the pick at No. 23. More than that, they used it on Murray, very possibly taking the player the Kings were preparing to take.
There is no proof, and the Kings may have been preparing to trade out of the 24th pick whether or not Murray was on the board. But let’s pull on that thread and see where it leads us. What if the selection of Kris Murray changed the entire trajectory of the Kings’ offseason?
What happened to the Kings when Murray was off the board?
Sacramento made one of the most surprising moves of the draft, trading out of the first round completely in order to move Richaun Holmes’ salary to the Dallas Mavericks. They gave up that No. 24 pick to do so, which Dallas used to draft Olivier-Maxence Prosper.
That trade opened up a pathway to more than $30 million in cap space, putting the Kings in play as a team that could pursue a max-level free agent. Names such as Draymond Green, Kyle Kuzma and Jerami Grant were linked to Sacramento.
What did the Kings end up doing? They brought back Harrison Barnes and Trey Lyles, they brought over Sasha Vezenkov from Europe, and they used that extra cap space to renegotiate-and-extend the contract of Domantas Sabonis.
A team is allowed to use cap space to increase the salary of a player up to his maximum salary and sign him to an extension, which the Kings did with Sabonis. They gave him an extra $8.6 million this season and then tacked on another $187 million over the next four seasons. This ensures Sabonis won’t hit free agency next summer.
For those doing math at home, the Kings gave up a first-round pick for the privilege of paying Sabonis more money now and later, more than any other team could have offered. They fell into the trap that so many poorly-run teams do, when one year of success is rewarded immediately and lucratively.
Was another team going to break the bank for Sabonis next summer? Almost certainly not.
The Kings had a good season, but they were worse than a typical three-seed. Even a soft step backward could see them in the Play-In Tournament next season. How did they use the assets available to them? Committing to the same team for the next few seasons.
What was the path not traveled?
If Kris Murray had still been on the board, if the Blazers had drafted Marcus Sasser or Leonard Miller, what might have been different? The Kings may have taken Murray with the 24th pick, keeping Holmes on the books and limiting their cap space.
They still could have executed the rest of their moves in a certain order, bringing over Vezenkov and re-signing Barnes and Lyles. What would have been different was Sabonis: he would play out this season on his former salary and then be eligible for the same deal next summer with the Kings at the front of the line to pay him.
The risk of him walking would have been extremely low, and the Kings would have saved themselves $8.6 million this season and added another two-way wing in Murray.
There’s no question that would have been the better move for this franchise. They scored an own-goal on themselves extending Sabonis, and it may be Portland’s fault. If the Kings turn back into the Kangz over the next few seasons, all credit and hate mail may be directed up the coast to Rip City.