Today’s five-player trade with Portland is the start of an in-season reboot for the Kings, writes Jason Jones of The Athletic. Sacramento was willing to provide financial relief for the Trail Blazers by taking on the remainder of Kent Bazemore‘s $19.3MM expiring contract in the deal, which also netted Anthony Tolliver and a pair of future second-round picks.
By sending out three players in return, the Kings create roster flexibility that could be important in a potential trade of Dewayne Dedmon, Jones adds. The center, who signed a three-year, $40MM contract in free agency, lost his starting job after four games and has been vocal in his displeasure over a reduced role.
Jones notes that the deal is an admission that the summer’s free agency haul was a disappointment. Dedmon appears on the way out, and sending Trevor Ariza to Portland probably had to be done to make that happen. Jones relays that coach Luke Walton was fond of Ariza, but his contract is only partially guaranteed for next season so he may not have been part of the Kings’ future.
Jones believes anyone on Sacramento’s roster — apart from De’Aaron Fox, Marvin Bagley III and Buddy Hield — is a candidate to be traded by the February 6 deadline, even Bogdan Bogdanovic, who will be a restricted free agent this summer.
There’s more reaction to today’s trade announcement:
- The Kings have been collecting second-rounders and were happy to add two more, observes James Ham of NBC Sports Bay Area. With the addition of Portland’s picks in 2024 and 2025, Sacramento now has 13 second-round selections over the next six seasons. Ham adds that the value of those picks could increase once the league lowers the age requirement for the draft to 18, which is expected by 2022.
- The trade is a signal that the Blazers have decided to “punt” the rest of the season, claims John Canzano of The Oregonian. He calls it understandable considering Portland had the highest payroll in the league and no playoff hopes other than possibly snatching the eighth seed. He also questions why president of basketball operations Neil Olshey decided to blow up a roster that reached the Western Conference finals last year, trading Evan Turner to the Hawks for Bazemore and sending Meyers Leonard and Maurice Harkless to the Heat for Hassan Whiteside.
- Jason Quick of the Athletic talked to Bazemore on Friday night about the possibility of being traded. Bazemore had been hoping for a long stay in Portland, but he took a wait-and-see approach after several weeks of hearing his name in trade rumors. “I’ve been around long enough now, man, another day in the life, bro,” he said. “I ain’t even thought about it, honestly. Been traded before … I just go out and ready to go and continue to get better and be my best when the time is right.”
yawn
The blazers had to trade Turner because Simons was developing. Why did they ever think that Turner was passable as a backup lead guard?
Simons still has a long, long way to go. Still not a great shooter, and simply was playing OC at times against the Mavs.
Blazers should be doing better than they have been. Maybe Nurkic really was that guy that made it all work. Even with Hassan having a career season and Melo proving he still has it, the one thing that’s missing is Nurkic.
Hopefully anyway, if it was Turner, Leonard, Harkless or Davis then I dunno.
Nurkic really is the heart and soul of their defense.
Swapping Bazemore for Ariza won’t make that much difference.
Hopefully they will be a bit smarter with Ariza (and Nurkic), like when they had Aminu grown into his position.
Nurkic has been back in uniform; is he going to be back on court before, say, the ASG?
Will he be playing in less than 4 weeks? I doubt it.
Hey what was the score for the laker rockets game? I missed it
Canzano is a hack, everyone knew that roster was flawed and changes had to be made.
That team had just made the Western Conference Finals. Even if they didn’t trade those guys during the offseason, Turner would’ve had just as much value as Bazemore did in this trade, and Meyers and Harkless would both have been more moveable pieces than Whiteside in my opinion. I honestly wish they had run it back with those guys cause Neil Olshey sold the teams soul when he traded them. Neil created too many unknowns by signing Tolliver, Gasol, and trading those guys.
There was a hint from the writer that Hield was valued more than Bogdan for 2G; or else, the list was insider recognition that Bogdans is gone in the offseason.
So if they are looking at next season to make a run, they should be trading Whiteside for a player to compliment Nurkic. Kevin Love, the new 3pt shooting LMA, Blake Griffin, maybe DeRozan if he opted in and they went with a smaller lineup most of the time. Each has their warts but Whiteside and Nurkic probably wont work on the court together.
Whiteside is on an expiring 30 mil deal. He won’t be there next year and if he is it’s as a back up centre on less than 10 mil
In my book Ariza will improve Portland. He is a great 3-D player and they really lacked that . I think it was a great deal for Portland.