October 17: Westbrook’s deal is non-guaranteed, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
October 16: Westbrook is officially a King, the team announced in a press release.
“Russell embodies the identity we’re striving for in Sacramento,” said Kings general manager Scott Perry. “His resume speaks for itself and I’m excited to work with someone so accomplished, who is fully committed to competing and winning. We expect him to strengthen our point guard position and provide leadership both on and off the court.”
October 15: Free agent point guard Russell Westbrook has agreed to sign with the Kings, agent Jeff Schwartz tells Shams Charania of ESPN.
Westbrook has been linked to Sacramento since the start of free agency. Earlier in the summer, there was a sense that the team would need to trade a guard in order to balance its roster and create an opening in the rotation for Westbrook, but Charania reported last week that there was still “strong mutual interest” between the former MVP and the Kings. Now the two sides are in agreement on a deal.
According to Charania, Westbrook has bonds with Kings veterans Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan, and Zach LaVine, as well as assistant general manager B.J. Armstrong, who used to be a player agent. And while the Kings are relatively deep in the backcourt, with Malik Monk, Keon Ellis, and Devin Carter on their bench, they lacked an experienced traditional point guard behind Dennis Schröder.
Westbrook, who will turn 37 next month, has transitioned into a complementary role in recent years after earning nine All-Star nods earlier in his career. Last season, he appeared in 75 games for Denver, making 36 starts and playing 27.9 minutes per night. He registered averages of 13.3 points, 6.1 assists, 4.9 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game, with a shooting line of .449/.323/.661.
Although Westbrook earned praise from some Nuggets teammates and coaches for his motor and competitiveness, his playing style results in plenty of turnovers (3.2 per game last season) and he’s not a reliable outside shooter, which can create lineup and spacing issues.
Those were presumably among the reasons why he remained unsigned until three-and-a-half months into free agency after declining a $3.47M player option in June. However, new general manager Scott Perry views Westbrook as a good fit for the “high motor, high effort” culture he wants to establish in Sacramento, per Charania.
Westbrook will sign a one-year, minimum-salary contract, per James Ham of the Kings Beat (Twitter link). On that deal, he’ll earn a $3,634,153 salary in 2025/26 while the club carries a cap hit of $2,296,274. Ham is one of several reporters who have stated that the deal is expected to become official on Thursday.
There’s a spot for Westbrook on the Kings’ projected 15-man roster. The team is currently carrying 13 players on fully guaranteed contracts, with Ellis and Terence Davis on non-guaranteed deals. Westbrook and Ellis are presumably on track to fill those last two openings, with Davis the odd man out.
Wow
Westbrick and hia fans used to think he was much better than Curry and laughed at comparisons. He’a just another journeymen and has been for awhile now but they are all in denial. Bur but but his triple doubles…. Stats dont mean jack and Westbrick is a perfect example.
“just another journeymen”
He definitely plays better than you write.
I absolutely agree, but just for reference, westbrook won 150 of his 202 career triple doubles
It’s easy to stat collect vs bad teams.
Good for him. Still an NBA talent
Westbrook has been a deep bench guy/not an NBA talent since 2021-present. VORP agrees he’s barely a regular here. 0.5 VORP last year. Nah, he’s fallen off.
He’s in the NBA though…
So is Pat Spencer, who also isn’t an NBA level talent, your point?
Bench guys aren’t NBA talent? What?
you were just bashing Westbrook in your other comments, Bonercat.
Bashing his fit with the Kings is very different than saying he’s not talented enough to be on an NBA roster.
New version, same issues.
The “issues” are you and people like not knowing anything about hoops. I will educate you.
Our savior!!
I guess top ten in 6th man of the year voting means deep bench/not NBA to you.
Let’s just have 5 man rosters from now on
I guess you don’t understand NBA awards voting is almost always corrupt and terrible, that’s why Curry doesnt have 4 FMVPs and 4 reg season MVPs, even though he was clearly the most valuable player in all of those situations.
Russ did not deserve those votes. He is clueless on how to play team-centered, winning basketball.
You hate just to hate. Without even caring about facts —— that’s a FankenStein …..
Since 2021 he played for Lakers, Clippers, Nuggets
RW stats … 28.1 mins, 14.3 pts, 6.2 ast, 5.6 reb
Name us a bench player making vet minimum. Who puts up these Numbers ……. On the Warriors ??
Haters don’t use facts or common sense. They just trash players for hate.
“Westbrook has been a deep bench guy/not an NBA talent since 2021-present.”
A deep bench player who avg 28 mins. Last yr on Warriors team only had four players avg more mins than Westbrook has avg since 2021 …….
VORP ???? veryoddrageposting …….
V= Very , O= Odd, R= Rage, P= Posting
Value Over Replacement Player, actually. Odd you wouldn’t know it. Guess Ai is also anti-stats now?
link to basketball-reference.com
Why? There is a log jam at both guard spots and a need to let the guys on the roster get minutes.
Made more sense if Malik/Carter/Ellis had been moved but they didn’t. My best guess is they’re positioning themselves to get rid of one of those 3 and not need to make a move for a guard afterwards.
Kangz are so back.
Westbrook is the missing piece. A team like the running rebels were at one time all offense no defense.
You are correct. But people fall in love with names. And only the Kings are making move like this. Worst franchise in sports. Maybe competing with the browns
Without Fox Sabonis is your ast leader. Without Schroder there isn’t a PG guard who avg more than 1ast. Monk, DeM, Zach are all SG/Wings. Westbrook is a solid pickup. He and Schroder give you a decent PG combo. There is no logjam at PG.
Rockets should have made room to sign Westbrook. They will regret it …
They couldn’t in the preseason even if they had wanted to.
They could have made a trade salary dumps. All they needed was 3.7 mill gor a vet minimum. It can be done.
They just picked up Carter’s 3rd year option. There is no chance they envision Carter as a 2 going forward especially with how jammed that spot is.
Almost all minutes that would potentially go to Westbrook should go to Carter to see what you have. Not taking flyers on a turnover machine who couldn’t hit air if he jumped out of a plane.
He’s in the NBA though
We are talking about the Kings though, and it’s only a smidge over $5 mil. They may think he will level up in year 2 and become tradable.
Not going to claim I know Carter. At 22 yrs old and only played 11 mins last year. He doesn’t bring what Russ brings. If anything Russ can push him to perform. It’s one year lol. Imo Russ gets a bad rap. He can definitely help the Kings imo.
Don’t necessarily disagree that he can be a culture guy but he hasn’t really shown that since exiting OKC. My larger point is that in a season that will determine the big picture roster going forward, allowing Russ to take minutes away from guys who need to prove themselves just for the sake of false competitiveness is a bad choice.
Yeah ok. I don’t necessarily look at it that way. Kings have been pushing to move Monk. Westbrook is not getting in the way of progress. Still if they make good trades and guys show up. You will need PG play to do well. You want to tank ?? The West is deep. But with right trade they can play for playoffs. They got till TD.
Imo DeM is best trade chip. What I look fir is anotger shooter 3nD guy plus center help. I see Sabonis as one of best 4s in the game. Kings have to commit to a core lol. Clifford was a solid pick. He is older so can help this year. He could make it eadier to move Monk
Carter and Russ are 2 different type players. Carter is a defense player and Russ is an offensive player. Might be why they signed Russ so he can show Carter how to play offense.
Such a KANGZ move.
Bottom 4 finish incoming, baby!!!
As expected. He is productive at the vet min, certainly should be better than Carter.
Great signing. Westbrook, a former MVP, is just a heck of an athlete; also, he should be best mentor to younger players.
All Russ will have younger players doing is saying: “wow, how do you even clang the ball off the low right corner of the backboard while doing an uncontested layup?”
Bottom 4 finish – SEALED.
I really love that you’re just out here rage baiting yourself lmao.
Kings fans more than anyone on earth know how disappointing and unappealing this franchise is. Your “water is wet” predictions make you look like more of a fool than any Kings fan.
Also, you better be the real Davey J because there was a really great poster by the name of “Baby J” whose entire account got nuked after a day and a half because a certain someone cried to admin. I think parody is disgraceful and should carry a death penalty punishment!!
If you let the FankenStein get to you lol. Need to take a step back. He doesn’t care about balling. Only hugging his Curry doll. I feel your pain bro. Knicks have been bashed since Ewing left. Now all the haters have gone into witness protection. Keep the faith …….. Sabonis and DeM are HOFers.
So if you play on a team we’re everyone needs the ball in their hands How are you going to get any type of rhythm at all? I don’t think a lot of people understand when you’re playing high level ball. It’s not NBA 2K or you can just add players on a team and the team gets better. There is rhythm and flow in Westbrook DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine all work on the same side of the Court. It’s not going to work. They’re adding him to sell tickets
Westbrook avgd 6.1 apg last season in just under 28 min/gm. Per 36 min, that’s 7.9 assists.
The best assist man for the Kings last season was Fox at the same 6.1 apg, but in 37 mpg. RW could easily start for the Kings.
Asking a honest question have you see Westbrook play? One he played for the nuggets and he was the only dominant ball ponder on the team. So he worked for them just pushing the ball. So he was put in a position to succeed and was really unplayable in the playoffs.
You understand we’re talking about the Kings right. He is not going to look anywhere near that playing with Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozans. Demar is a bench player at this point and I guarantee somebody’s rhythm will be off plus I forgot the got Dennis schooter.the Kings are a pathetic franchise that has no idea what they are doing.
I watched almost every Nuggets game last season. He was arguably the reason the Nuggets beat the Clippers in the playoffs.
It went downhill from there. DeRozan should be about the same as last season, he’s a guaranteed starter on this team.
“there was a really great poster by the name of “Baby J” whose entire account got nuked after a day and a half because a certain someone cried to admin” – YOU did that. That was YOU. That’s a interesting thing to admit on your main account, you literally open accounts to troll others. I have never done that, you have!
How many OTHER accounts has your trolling annoying butt opened up on here? Hmmm…..
I imagine this is probably his last stop
You never know – he might get a retirement deal with OKC in the future
He hasn’t played for the Hornets or Nets yet, so I wouldn’t bet against him continuing to play after it inevitably doesn’t work out in Sacramento.
He’s gonna be 37 years old in a few weeks, a Hall of Famer who always plays hard, and still playing hoops for money in the NBA.
But haters are definitely gonna hate.
What a great move. Get out there and run, push the ball. No one is stopying Derozan and Lavine in the open court. This team will look much like the early 2000s Nets
What has changed your view on the Kings so drastically in the last 4 months? I can’t tell if you are trolling incredibly hard or are actually just delusional.
What was my view 4 months ago? Since your keepings tabs and all
It’s possible he has confused you with little Dunker MVP guy. “Lil d”
I did the same thing until this week when he replied to one of your comments. Understandable mistake “if” that’s the case here.
Yeah i just noticed they copied me. Flattering, really lol. We are not the same.
Hahaha that was definitely the case. I feel like Im seeing double lol
Yeah because you were, its the same guy. You want so badly for me to have more than 2 accounts on here, and you lie and claim I am the one opening new accounts, when ONLY YOU DO THAT!
Break out the yarn Davey! This goes deeper than you could’ve ever imagined
Lil D ….. is not a basketball fan. He is the comedian of the board. So he thinks.
Sick roster bro.
Finally. He’s going to be the comedic relief we’ll need during the season. Him and LeBozo.
If you think “LeBozo’ is funny, not sure if you’re idea of comic relief is the same as mine.
Not bad.
Still a very good player. Anybody who says this man isn’t a first ballot hall of famer dont know ball.
directionless .. rebuilding ? reloading ? stagnating ?don’t think the kings have a clue at this point
Wait its someone else echoing my takes? But check that IP – it aint me! What???
The Kings are going to tell him to stop shooting the 3 – like many teams have tried doing before. This is probably Westbrook’s last chance to finally listen.
It would be a great signing if he wasn’t such a terrible fit with their hot mess of a roster. If this Kings roster doesn’t look very different by midseason something is very wrong.
Finally Sacramento did something, their spacing is as terrible as ever but I like what Russ brings to them
When he turns 37 last month, let’s wish him a happy birthday too!
This is exactly why Sacramento is Sacramento.
The issue with Westy isn’t whether he still an NBA level talent or not, he definitely is. The issue is his fit on this Kings roster. Sure they needed an additional PG, but they’re adding another non 3 point shooter to a roster filled with guys like DeRo and Sabonis. Throw in that both those two and Zach like to have the ball in their hands and Westy is an even uglier fit. Bringing in a Ty Jerome or Tre Jones earlier in FA would have been the smart move, but of course, the Kings aren’t smart.
I would bet that this will be Westbrooks last year. Sacramento is not terrible. If they were in the east, they would probably get the 6th seed in the playoffs.