After a busy few weeks following the Sacramento Kings' play-in loss, we've officially entered the rumor and trade idea segment of the offseason. As ideas from fans and media fly around, trying to fix the Kings roster from afar, it's apparant that the Kings need to make multiple moves to balance out their roster.
The hard part is that there's no clear path to a simple solution, especially when looking at the contracts that the Kings have on the books for next season.
Sacramento currently has ten players under contract for next season: Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Malik Monk, Keegan Murray, Keon Ellis, Jonas Valančiūnas, Devin Carter, Isaac Jones, and Terence Davis
While there is plenty of talent among those ten players, the Kings are facing a major issue that the majority of the talent is stacked at two positions: shooting guard and center. But it's not just that the talent overlaps, but also the money.
Seven of the ten players are either shooting guards or centers, leaving the Kings with an abundance of needs at the point guard position and the wings. And that's being generous and calling Carter a point guard, where he may have more of an off-guard skillset.
And when looking at the money, the shooting guard quartet of LaVine, Monk, Ellis, and Davis is going to make a combined $71.1 million. For the centers, the trio of Sabonis, Valančiūnas, and Jones is set to make $56.0 million next season.
That means that the two positions of shooting guard and center are currently set to make $127 million for the Kings next year. Adding in the contracts of DeRozan, Murray, and Carter, and Sacramento's ten contracts total $167.9 million.
With the tax threshold projected to be $187.8 million, that leaves the Kings with an extremely small amount of wiggle room to add point guards, wings, and power forwards.
Perry does have a few options to save some money, as Davis' contract ($2.5 mil) is non-guaranteed and both Ellis ($2.3 mil) and Jones ($2.0 mil) have team options. But with that team option for Ellis comes another wrinkle of options for the Kings to decide if they want to decline the option and resign Ellis, or let him play out the year and risk losing him in free agency next offseason.
If the Kings do resign Ellis to a long-term deal, that only complicates the matter of adding additional money to the shooting guard position.
It's rumored that DeRozan is being shopped, but even moving just the six-time All-Star still leaves the roster heavily unbalanced. It could mean that Scott Perry may have to make a difficult decision when it comes to LaVine, Monk, and Ellis.
All three are high-level players, but unless the Kings commit to having Monk man the point guard position full time, it's hard to envision the three of them coexisting for an entire year.
There's a reason that no one can think of a clear solution to help fix the Kings' roster for next year. They are in an incredibly difficult position with multiple areas of need and glaring holes on the roster, and a limited amount of money to spend to address those needs. One thing that's certain, though, is that Scott Perry has an extremely difficult road ahead.
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