Kings Not Interested in Three NBA Star Point Guards

How the Domantas Sabonis Experience Can Be a Lesson

In their own way, the Kings have already gone down the path of building around a flawed offensive engine. Although Domantas Sabonis is not a point guard, his limitations as a center have come with similar team-building pitfalls.

 For the Kings to be successful with Sabonis as their best player, they would need a rim protector next to him and guards that won’t funnel drives right toward him every possession, and offensively, there would need to be multiple shooters on the court at all times. To be fair, the Kings have never really tried to put the right team around Sabonis despite the illusion that they were. 

Now, it does seem that the Kings have decided it’s far too challenging to build around a center like Sabonis, which aligns with perspectives outside of Sacramento, according to Fischer. 

"It's tough to pay a center that much who doesn't protect the rim and doesn't shoot threes — no matter how great of an offensive hub he can be," a Western Conference executive said, per Fischer.

Why Young, Morant, and Ball Aren’t the Answer Either

This is an oversimplification, but all three guards are basically high-volume scorers and negative defenders that would put the Kings right back to where they are with Sabonis. 

Sure, Ball and Young are very respected shooters, but their inefficiency makes it even more challenging to overlook their issues on the defensive end. Morant is an elite athlete who gets to the rim at will, but his inability to shoot and defend is exactly why the Grizzlies might be looking to move him as well. 

All three players have yet to post an effective field goal percentage better than 53.6% despite the number of shots they take. To put this in context, Malik Monk has bested that four times if you count this season. 

Individual defense is harder to quantify, but metrics like DBPM can paint a decent picture when matched up with the eye test. 

Young, admittedly, did show up well with 1.3 defensive win shares last season, but his -2.7 DBPM was the worst in the NBA. Ball also posted a negative DBPM last season, and if you throw out 2023-24, where Morant played in just nine games, he’s been in the negatives for DBPM every season other than 2022-23, where he was a very modest +0.5. To me, this isn’t the recipe for the type of max contract player you would want to build around, no matter what the cost is. 

If you look at the best teams in the NBA and how they’re put together, you won’t see a ton of inefficient guards who can be hunted on defense. While guys like Jamal Murray, Jalen Brunson, and Reed Sheppard aren’t the best defenders, they more than make up for it with their shooting efficiency. 

Young, Ball, and Morant still have long careers ahead of them and could improve on their flaws, but that’s too big a risk for the Kings to take. 

Instead of trying to fix a completely broken team in one move, building a sustainable winner through the draft and filling in on the margins is the right path. For once, it sounds like the Kings may actually get out of their own way and stay away from the type of irresponsible trade that got them in this position.