ESPN Gives Sacramento Kings Insulting NBA Offseason Grade

The other head-scratching move was dumping Jonas Valanciunas’ salary for Dario Saric. Valanciunas was really good last season and gave the Kings some much needed size off the bench for when Domantas Sabonis was hurt or on the bench.

In 32 games with Sacramento, Jonas put up 8.7 points and 7 boards per game in just 17 minutes per game. Trying to replace Valanciunas’ production is going to be a huge challenge for Drew Eubanks, Dario Saric, and Raynaud.

Raynaud looks like he could turn into an excellent modern big, but he’s just a rookie and still needs to sure up a lot of his game before he’s ready to contribute on a nightly basis. The most frustrating part of all of this is that the Valanciunas trade was solely to keep the Kings away from the luxury tax that they haven’t paid in over two decades. 

While I agree that the Schroder signing and Valanciunas trade were mostly negative for Sacramento, one piece that ESPN didn’t bring up is the draft. Both Clifford and Raynaud drew a ton of praise from the national media during Summer League, but were completely left out of ESPN’s grade for the Kings.

Both guys have yet to see any regular season action, so it’s fair to be cautious with them, but Clifford being one of the best, if not the best, players in Summer League should’ve been enough to at least get the Kings to a C. In fact, the only teams to receive worse grades were the New Orleans Pelicans and the Indiana Pacers, who both are having inarguably awful offseasons. 

It’s easy to dunk on the Sacramento Kings, especially since Vivek Ranadive took over the team. They consistently make moves that hurt the long-term outlook of the team and prioritize big names over youth.

I don’t think there are many out there that loved the Schroder and Saric moves for Sacramento, but you also won’t find many who don’t like the Clifford and Raynaud picks. All in all, it feels more like Sacramento has had an average offseason instead of completely botching it, but I understand where ESPN is coming from, given the situation of the team. The Kings still have some avenues for improvement, but as of now, it doesn’t feel like a D+ is too far off.