Monte McNair opens up on Sacramento Kings’ trade deadline inactivity
There were 19 trades in the 48 hours leading up to Thursday’s 2024 NBA Trade Deadline last week. One included the Sacramento Kings–who were a half-game back of the New Orleans Pelicans and the Phoenix Suns for the No. 5 seed at the time– acquiring center Robin Lopez before he was subsequently bought out.
Team executive Monte McNair spoke to the media over the weekend, discussing his thought process behind the team’s lack of trade deadline inactivity.
“We’re always active in trying to see what’s out there, but weighing that against what we already have here,” McNair said, according to Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee (subscription required). “Obviously this year after exploring those opportunities, we ended up keeping this group together. We know the job is never done. We’ll continue to vet those opportunities to make our team better, but we’re excited for what we’ve got going forward.
“Most teams are trying to win and compete and get better. It maybe means some of those traditional straight-buyer, straight-seller trades aren’t there, but we still saw some movement around the league. Different teams felt they needed to do something. I think, for us, we’re always trying to put ourselves in a spot where we’re never pressed into something and we get to do it on our own terms.”
Rumors ahead of the deadline suggested that Sacramento had an interest in moving off of third-year guard Davion Mitchell, but ultimately did not pull the trigger. They also reported interest in many notable wings, such as Jerami Grant, Kyle Kuzma, OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam–the latter two getting moved weeks ahead of the deadline.
I tabbed the Kings–who are still the No. 7 in the West by a half-game, at the time of this publishing–as one of the teams I was looking out for ahead of the deadline. They possess multiple meaningful contracts that they could’ve cashed out on while maintaining their current core in De’Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis and Keegan Murray.
They weren’t in need of a crazy, shocking move to fracture everything–but improving around the fringes with its overall depth at a cheap could’ve done wonders. They can always wait until summer to consolidate, say, Harrison Barnes or Kevin Huerter, if they choose to.
It’s also understandable if McNair could be more cognizant about approaching the different tax aprons, which could limit roster construction capabilities for not only the present, but also the future, when the restrictions become more punitive. They are not projected to be a tax team next season with 11 players on their roster, per Spotrac.
“I think that’s one thing that we’re always looking at because opportunity now versus opportunity in the future, and as teams become less flexible and more restricted by those things, that could be opportunity for us to add things or be in a position where other teams cannot do things that we can do,” McNair said. “So, I think so, I hope so, and as we continue to learn and figure out what this new CBA’s going to look like, I do think we’re in pretty good position to take advantage of a lot of those things.”
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