The Kings have been “trying very hard” to trade guard Malik Monk this offseason, a league source tell Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal.
According to Afseth and Ashish Mathur of Dallas Hoops Journal, Sacramento would like to create an opening in its backcourt to sign Russell Westbrook, who would become the team’s sixth man behind new starting point guard Dennis Schröder.
The fact that Monk has been on the trade block this summer isn’t breaking news. His name has come up in rumors since even before the start of free agency, when word broke that the Kings’ front office was gauging the market for him and fellow guard Devin Carter.
During the opening days of the free agent period, Monk was linked to the Pistons as part of a potential sign-and-trade for Schröder, but Sacramento and Detroit ended up completing that deal without Monk’s involvement. The Kings took Schröder into an existing traded player exception and the Pistons generated a new TPE of their own by not taking any players back.
Monk is also said to be part of the Kings’ latest offer to the Warriors for restricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga, but Golden State isn’t interested in taking on the 27-year-old’s contract, which includes an $18.8MM cap hit for this season and has three years and $60.6MM remaining in total. Signing-and-trading Kuminga to Sacramento for Monk would either require the Warriors to include another mid-sized contract or would hard-cap them at the first tax apron, compromising their ability to fill out the rest of their roster.
Monk averaged a career-high 17.2 points per game last season and is just one year removed from finishing second in Sixth Man of the Year voting in 2024. He’s also nearly 10 years younger than Westbrook, so it’s a little surprising that the Kings would be looking to move Monk in order to sign the 36-year-old free agent, but that rumor has persisted since early July.
It’s worth noting that the Kings overhauled their basketball operations department this spring, with Scott Perry replacing former general manager Monte McNair. Sacramento’s new top decision-maker didn’t acquire Monk or sign him to his current extension and doesn’t appear to have the same level of attachment to him that the old front office did.
Surprising they can’t find a taker he’s a good scorer
Warriors are trying to have a clean cap sheet in the summer of ‘27 and Monk will still have a remaining year at that point, cutting into potential cap space.
I think that’s why they’re offering Kuminga only the two-year deal variations, and seeking players like Kentavious Caldwell Pope (two guarantee years remaining) in return on a possible S and T of Kuminga to Memphis.
great point about the 2 year thing. steph, Jimmy, draymond, Kerr……all have 2 remaining seasons.
@jacobjackson, if you listen to what Lacob and Dunkeavey keep telling us, there is another, opposite, way to read this. The Warriors intend to retain their young players for the future, and not trade them to optimize the next 2 years. Lacob told ESPN that last week (although not reported here).
link to sports.yahoo.com
Yes, the Jimmy, Draymond and Steph contracts expire in 2 years. But, the Warriors absolutely want to have a young core in place at the start of the next phase, so they do not want to trade Podz, Moody, or Kuminga without getting equivalent young talent or draft capital in return.
Kings GM is destroying the team fast. First trade Fox for almost nothing. Want Kuminga but don’t want to trade assets. Now put Monk on the trading block. Its liek they don’t know what they want. Should go through a rebuild instead of throw a bunch of spare parts and hope and pray. Should put Sabonis on teh trade block their best asset and see what draft picks and young players they can get for him.
The last GM traded Fox, well, the owner mandated it and wanted LaVine on the team.
The new GM has a mess to clean up, and nobody wants to trade for LaVine, DeRozan, or Monk at the price the Kings set. The team needs to rebuild, but the owner won’t allow it. Stuck in Basketball Hell.
Interesting team they had 2 outstanding point guards now they have a run-of-the mill on the decline schroder. It seems their center has better pass abilities at this point than their PGs
Sad Sacramento cannot get out of their own way to be better now they look like a bunch of shooting guards with a great center. Their defense is suspect as always
I still do not undersatdn the Fox trade. Sabonis is not the player you build around. They should go all in on a rebuild.
I didn’t understand the Fox trade either, but I disagree with you on Sabonis, who I think is a Top 30 player… which are very hard to come by in Sacramento.
Monk has been a bright spot for the past 2 seasons. I can think of only 3 or 4 guys in the league that can reliably spark an offense off the bench like him. He’s too ball-dominant to start alongside Lavine and Derozan, but Sac has no other offense coming off the bench.
Sabonis numbers on defense is horrible. He is an offense only player. A guy who puts up stats on a losy team. Without fox he will be picked on over and over. He is one of those guys who should be the third best player on a team.
> Sabonis numbers on defense is horrible. He is an
> offense only player.
Strongly disagree with your take on Sabonis’ defense. He’s the best defensive rebounding center in basketball (led the NBA the last 2 seasons, the only player to average more than 10 defensive rpg in both seasons). That alone makes him not, to use your word, “horrible”.
Let’s call Sabonis a good, not great, defender whose rebounding, IQ, and maximum effort mostly offset a lack of rim protection and mobility.
You will not change my mind. I seen how he plays. He is a stat grabber but a #3 option on most teams not a guy you build around. Kings need to rebuild so why not trade your best asset when he has peaked. Just look at that roster there is not a lot there that are tradeable assets. laVine, DeRozan, and Monk are not good contracts with value. There are a few young assets but in a rebuild no reason to trade them.
I love Sabonis but he’s too soft and isn’t aggressive enough on offense to be the number one option.
Replacing Monk with washed up Russ and mid Dennis = the Kings FO is the worst in the league.
Until the owner gets out of the way or sells the team, it’s going to be the same crap.