JULY 18: The Kings have officially signed Moneke, Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee tweets.
JULY 15: The Kings are signing free agent forward Chima Moneke, sources tell Sean Cunningham of Fox 40 KTXL (All Twitter links).
According to RealGM, Moneke started his college career with Northeast Community College prior to transferring to UC Davis. In 21 games (30 MPG) as a senior for the Aggies, he averaged 18.4 PPG, 9.6 RPG, 1.0 SPG and 1.1 BPG on .515/.375/.714 shooting.
After going undrafted in 2018, Moneke has played internationally for teams in France and Spain, first competing in the French LNB Pro B league before receiving a promotion to Orléans Loiret Basket of LNB Pro A, the top league in France, in 2020/21.
Last season he played for Baxi Manresa of Liga ACB, the top Spanish league, averaging 14.5 PPG, 8.2 RPG and 1.6 SPG on .521/.290/.735 shooting in 36 games (30 starts, 24.1 MPG). He was also named the MVP of the Basketball Champions League with Baxi Manresa in ’21/22.
As Cunningham details, Moneke has ties to the organization due to the Nigerian national team, which was led by head coach Mike Brown and also featured associate head coach Jordi Fernandez and assistant coach Luke Loucks. The 6’6″ forward should bring an infusion of defense and athleticism to Sacramento, Cunningham adds.
According to Cunningham’s sources, the Kings will not be bringing over Sasha Vezenkov for the upcoming season. Sacramento acquired Vezenkov’s rights in a draft-day swap with the Cavaliers. The Kings still might bring him over in the future, just not for 2022/23, Cunningham reports.
The terms of Moneke’s contract were not disclosed by Cunningham, but as our roster count tracker shows, the Kings only have 12 players on the standard 15-man roster at the moment, so he could be given a chance for one of those spots.
You heard it here first! Chimney is going to be the next Kobe Bryant!
If He’s so good, Why did he go Undrafted and been bouncing around in the G League ?? With the exception of Monk & Heurter, is this the best we are going to do to fill out the Roster ?? Really ?? No other moves ??
Maybe this is it for the upcoming season. You’re not going from a non playoff team to a championship caliber team overnight. Especially the Kings. Right now, they are at least a play in team in my opinion. They may make a trade during the season. But what moves would you want them to make? What’s available and how much do you want them to give up?
Kinda surprising we’re going low profile, under the radar guys to fill out the roster. But Brown is familiar with them and believes they’re good. I was kinda hoping we’d go with Shabazz Muhammad, apparently he’s playing good again & on the comeback trail. There’s lots of other good players as FAs still out there too, but we don’t have much money left to sign anyone, that’s the main issue. Apparently Monte has said he has at least one more big movie up his sleeve…we will wait and see!
I just think you need another option at the 2/3 off the bench, whether that be keeping Jeremy Lamb, or signing someone else, but I could also see Kepn Ellis getting minutes there, and he can defend. I actually like a lot of what they did, although I dont know where the minutes will be for someone like KZ with so many people in front of him at his position. Cant comment on this guy b/c I dont remember the Nigerian games I watched last year, outside of the Heat guys on that roster, and they had a guard I also remembered