Agent blasts Kings for benching Marvin Bagley

Excel Sports agent Jeff Schwartz, who represents Kings big man Marvin Bagley, released an explosive reprimand of Sacramento (via Twitter), revealing that the Kings have decided to hold Bagley out of their rotation completely this season.

Schwartz called the decision to keep Bagley out of the Kings' lineup “completely baffling.” He elaborated extensively. “It’s clear they have no plans for him in the future, and yet, passed on potential deals at last year’s deadline and this summer based on ‘value,'” Schwartz said. “Instead they chose to bring him back but not play him, a move completely contradictory to their ‘value’ argument. This is a case study in mismanagement by the Kings organization.”

The relatively new Sacramento front-office regime, led by second-year team president Monte McNair, is clearly not too invested in the former No. 2 overall pick out of Duke. The current management is prioritizing more switchable, smaller lineups around its exciting young backcourt, looking to build around maximum-salaried point guard De’Aaron Fox and intriguing recent lottery selections Tyrese Haliburton and Davion Mitchell. At the power forward slot, Harrison Barnes and and Maurice Harkless are expected to soak up the majority of rotation minutes. At center, the recently extended Richaun Holmes has emerged as Sacramento’s apparent preference to start, while the newly added vets Tristan Thompson and Alex Len will back him up.

The 6’11” Bagley, 22, showed plenty of promise during his 2018-19 rookie season, with his output that year (14.9 PPG and 7.6 RPG in 25.3 MPG across 62 games) meriting inclusion on the 2019 All-Rookie First Team alongside future All-Stars Luka Doncic and Trae Young. Since then, his numbers have stagnated, and he has missed significant time with injury issues. Last year, he averaged 14.1 PPG and 7.4 RPG in 25.9 MPG, while missing 29 games.

Where this leaves Bagley is unclear, as the big man and his agent surely are hoping for a trade, but his value to other teams appears to be trending in the wrong direction if he has been deemed unworthy of making a probably lottery-bound team’s opening-night rotation. The Kings are scheduled to make their 2021-22 regular season debut Wednesday night against the Trail Blazers.