A Kings ransom
With the draft in full swing and teams getting better as they look to bring in the ‘guy’ who will transform a franchises fortunes overnight there is one team who are looking just past the draft and into free agency as this will make or break their chances of bringing back the title, after winning two Championships a CSL first the Sacramento Kings will be hoping to be the first to win back to back titles. To achieve this however they will have one of the most fascinating challenges this offseason, similar to the Oklahoma City Thunder they will need to manage their free agents and cap to a tee in order to remain as one of the elite powerhouse franchises in the Western Conference. Let’s dive in and look at the current roster structure:
If you ever wanted a masterclass on how to get the most out of a hardcap speak to BT, this team ran just $61 short of the hardcap last season, whoever said spending does not achieve success?! Clearly this team has depth all over and has been very luck with recent drafts and selections being able to bring in guys like Cousins, Adams, Wilson and White on league held fixed salaries which has supported the stars of this team in Westbrook, Porter, Solomon and Nurkic. Unlike the Thunder the Kings did recognise their inevitable hardcap issues coming and made a midseason move to send future hall of fame guard Elfrid Payton to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Ricky Rubio and Nick Johnson’s expiring deals. Despite losing Payton’s defence and shooting ability Rubio clearly held his own in this deep roster and Nick Johnson’s incredible shooting ability helped the Kings head back to town with the Championship.
Therefore we can say the Kings threw the kitchen sink salary-wise at this season and it resulted in the Championship heading back to Sacramento.
There are some burning questions facing the Kings:
1. Solomon and Nurkic are free agents – what will happen if they get offered maximum salaries from other teams and the Kings have to match?
2. Just how much are solid rotation platers Ricky Rubio, Nick Johnson and Mitch McGary worth in the market?
3. Has Nick Johnson value skyrocketed so much that he will get more than $7m this offseason?
Similar to the Thunder article there are some assumptions I will make for the Kings.
- League minimum deal for Chinanu Onuaku will be gone.
- The Kings want to retain as many of their remaining free agents as possible. Yes they have discussed trades etc. but I am not mystic meg and I cannot predict the trade market.
- Teams in hard cap hell are not allowed to go over the hard cap by bringing in 1 year minimum salary players (thank you Dallas) to make the full 12 man roster which means the Kings will need to clear some salary to make a 12 man roster next season. But the purpose of this exercise I assume Sacramento will factor this in so I will not be discussion possible minimum free agent signings.
Therefore heading into free agency the Sacramento Kings will look something like this:
Noteable free agents: Ricky Rubio, Nick Johnson, Richard Solomon, Mitch McGary, Jusuf Nurkic
It is an interesting situation for the Kings. If they do not bring back any free agents they will comfortably be under the hard cap limits. Having $44m to spend on retaining your free agents is not normally a problem but when two of them (Nurkic and Solomon) are almost certainly going to receive maximum offers given they are both just the right side of 30 this could add complexity to the Kings dilemma. So lets assume the Kings are able to retain Solomon and Nurkic for maximum deals for 4 years. How does this look then?
Ok so adding in both Solomon and Nurkic at maximum salary deals you can see that the Kings will have just shy of $12m to retain Rubio, Johnson and McGary. The big question is if either Nurkic or Solomon would take a paycut to return to Sacramento? Realistically I think this is unlikely given their greed is higher or equal to the play for winner, so I will not be exploring this option for the Kings. But they could take a similar approach we suggested for the Thunder and backload both deals.
Scenario 1 – Back load Nurkic and Solomon deals
So assuming the Kings will look to offer the most money but over a 5 year versus 4 year period utilising the maximum raises possible for a team with bird right (7.5%) Sacramento could have a completely different situation to manage this offseason.
You can see that by offering the £72m over 5 years versus £70 over the 4 which is what other teams can offer if Nurkic and Solomon take deals like this it would free up approximately £8m in space under the hard cap which would make it far easier to retain Rubio, Johnson or McGary, being able to throw £19m at the 3 guys would most likely mean 2 of the 3 could be resigned. If I were the Kings I would certainly look to explore this possibility with the player agents. Unlike Bledsoe who is slightly older and could be looking for his last pay day Solomon and Nurkic are in their prime and may be willing to commit to less money upfront with the raises catching the deal up by year 5. However there is still a question as to whether both players will want to take a 5 year versus a 4 year given they will be eligible for the 10+ year max salary within 2 years which would start from $19m and be more than the salary both players would earn in year 5 of this first scenario.
Scenario 2 - Offer a shorter deal
The other possible avenue to explore by the Kings would be to offer both Nurkic and Solomon a 2 plus 1 deal with less money and max raises. The +1 would be a player option citing the players will be entering their 11th year at this point and could make the decision to opt out and seek the maximum salary for the year experience of £19m. As the CSL does not offer an early termination offer this is the closest thing the Kings could get offering a package with this type of clause and it would really test the algorithm and player agents decision making if they were to throw this king of offer into the CSL landscape.
However if the Kings were to pull this off they would be able to claw back around $14m in hard cap space to retain the other 3 guys. Which would still likely mean 1 of them will walk to another team but if does give them $3m in space to add to their offers. If however the Kings were to move say picks 24 and 27 to a new home the $1.7m from this could enable £8m offers for both which will likely keep them clear of teams chasing them with MLE style offers and possibly make it more of a question mark for teams with salary to burn.
Scenario 3 – Trade all first round picks
As I hinted above if the Kings were to trade all of their first round picks this would give them $3m in salary to play with. However you would have to argue that this could be a very silly move for Sacramento given the amazing history they have of grabbing steal in that range for the last 2/3 drafts. I imagine BT will likely pull a rabbit out of the hat again and find the next McGary, Rubio and Johnson in the draft alone which would mean he could let all three just walk!
Takeaways from this
I think it is fair to say that in contract to the OKC situation the Kings have a bit more flexibility simply because of the Rubio/Payton trade. This enabled them to send a guy away who is almost certainly going to get a maximum salary offer and would have definitely meant that the Kings would have lost one of the 3 (Payton, Solomon, Nurkic), by making that decision before free agency Sacramento have more flexibility to retain Nurkic and Solomon.
But there are still some key points to note:
1. One of Rubio, Johnson or McGary will not be a King – One of these guys will almost certainly be gone after free agency. The question is whether Sacramento just let him walk or they proactively try and work a sign and trade for one of the guys listed above.
2. Nurkic and Solomon should be signing maximum deals – Whether this is staggered slightly differently by the Kings we do not know but both will be expecting large offers this free agency.
3. Kings are a great litmus test for the new free agency system – As I hinted above given the Kings Championship success and their players greed needs this will be an interesting one to follow. Do they take less years to get that maximum experience and opt out early? Or do they take the biggest sized deal available to them. Will play for winner give the Kings any kind of discount? So many questions that will help us bottom out some of the player agency algorithm.
2020, 2023, 2027
