How The Sacramento Kings Should Approach The Keon Ellis Contract

How The Sacramento Kings Should Approach The Keon Ellis Contract

So, we’ll get to them. Now, the restricted free agents thing is interesting, and this is where Keon Ellis comes in. And I guess this is where we’ll just crack the conversation open because Keon Ellis is currently under contract. Yes. But he could become a restricted free agent this year. Yes. How does that happen? Okay, so it’s it’s a little complicated, but basically, they have two different ways that they can attack the Keon Ellis situation. number one, they can pick up his $2.3 million option for next year, and he’s their player, right? But at the end of next season, so next summer, not this summer, 2026, he will be an unrestricted free agent and can sign with anyone else in the NBA, and you can’t do anything about it. Right now, what you can do is you can pick up that option, the $2.3 million option, and you can instantly start working on an extension for him, right? And the extension can be for up to I think something crazy like up to 89 million bucks, right? So like the extension after this season can can be huge. But the idea would be that if you’re going to pick up the option year, it’s so you might be able to finagle and and and bring in a couple more players right now, right? and then have Keon get paid the next off season when again the salary cap keeps jumping 10% every year right now because of new television deal right so right now the salary cap is going from 155 million I think 270 the next year it’s going to go up to like 17 187 or 189 and then after that it’s going to just the basic salary cap will go well over 200 million a year the luxury tax is way way above that right So the the deal the other option that you have with Keon is that you can decline the option right now and he becomes a restricted free agent this summer which means he can go out and you can work a contract with him and just sign him or he can go out on the open market and see what people are willing to pay him and then the Kings would have right of first refusal. So what they have to do is they have to give a qualifying offer and the qualifying offer for Keon Ellis is going to be like right around his salary like 2.3 2 maybe maybe it’s 3.4 million or something you like super minimal and what that does is it basically gives you the option to match any offer sheet for him. Um we could talk about sign and trades and stuff like that but realistically skip the sign and trade aspect of this. Yeah. Realistically you have two options with Keon. You can pick up his option and make him an unrestricted free agent next summer or you can not pick up his option. I I I mean or so the risk of so the risk of of declining his option this year. Yep. Because if you if you pick it up, you know, he’s on the team this year, but he may not be on the team next year and there’s nothing you can do about it. Yeah. But you do have the option to try to work in extension the entire time. Right. So, the benefit of of declining the option and making him a restricted free agent this year is that when he goes to the market, a you get just you get an idea of what what his market would be. Yep. And that that gives you a place to negotiate from, but B, you avoid kicking the can down the road on this to next year and you just lock up a player who looks to be a a key rotational piece for you at 25 years old. Yeah, you you can just get that out of the way now. Exactly. You avoid the potential for losing him. Um you know, the unrestricted free agent status. Uh and you can sign with whatever contract you want realistically. Like um I I’m going to say so the mid-level exception this year is all the way up to 14.1 million bucks. Mhm. I don’t know that Keon is going to get the full midlevel from somebody, but there’s an opportunity there for him to get because what the mid level does is it opens up Keon isn’t a player that will likely get above 14 million and every team in the league has a mid-level exception. So, even if they’re over the cap, um, but well, some teams that are over the aprons and second aprons, they they get a modified or they lose their the their mid-level, but there would be a lot of teams that could throw down 14 million bucks for for Keon. And you have to decide like as is that something you’re willing to do because as of today, uh, just point out like the weirdness that is the Kings roster. You have Zack Lavine at the at the two. You don’t have a natural point guard. You need a natural point guard. Everyone understands that. Scott Perry, first thing he says, “We need a point guard. We need more length and athleticism.” But here’s the problem. You’re already paying Malik Monk 18 million bucks to come off the bench. Yep. Are you going to add another bench player that potentially could make up to 14 million in Keon Ellis? And I know right away you’re like, well, you can’t give up on Keon, but it’s like, you still have to fill that point guard position, right? And so would you have a like $34 million back court off the bench? And that’s tough. And especially let’s add in that you have a $10 million backup center. $10.4 million backup center in Valenunis. And you don’t even have a draft pick this year where you could go, okay, well at least we can get a a cheap costcontrolled rookie to fill in spot XYZ. Yeah. I mean, you’re going to have a a a pretty you’ll have a early second well, midsec round pick. May or may not make the roster. Who knows, right? Yeah. Um but that’s the only thing that you have to supplement as far as draft picks that are that are low cost and low cost for, you know, the next three to four years, right? Uh and I wouldn’t doubt that the Kings hold on to their their second round pick and just select somebody um because they’re going to need to fill roster spots. Mhm. And and so that’s a big deal for them. Um, we talked about it. You named all the players that are unrestricted free agents. Man, it’s it’s a lot. We’re talking about like seven or eight players, right? And six. Six. Okay. So, if we’re not counting Keon, it’s six. Yeah. So, six players. And that means that you’re, you know, either an eight or a nineman roster right now. You got you have to fill those spots. Yeah. like you don’t have to fill the final two until, you know, sometime during the season, but you at least have to have 13 or 14 players. And so, it’s not going to be easy to sort of massage the uh the numbers when it comes to like the overall uh roster just like regular roster players, right? So the just to put a bow on the keyon thing, the I I for lack of a better word, the right way to do this would be pick up the option and be ready to negotiate a contract extension now. Yeah. I mean, realistically, the best it the best of all possible worlds for the Kings would be to pick up the option but already have a deal worked out for a long-term extension, right? Right. And and you can even have like a signing bonus so he he gets a bump in money this year or whatever. That’s part of the bigger contract because you need to you need to incentivize it a little bit to to resign here. Yeah. Because because you’re basically paying him to not explore the market. Exactly. And that’s the the the real fear if is if you make an him under if you pick up his option and you don’t have a deal worked out. Sure, you can sign him to an extension, but his his your leverage is gone, right? As of right now, you have some leverage, and once you you pick up that extension, um it it re I mean, once you pick up the $2.3 million option, it really does take away your power. and he can say, “Yeah, you know that I’ll listen, but I’m also I might want to listen to other teams.” And and we don’t we don’t know what this season’s going to look like for the Kings. It could be a good season, it could be a bad season. And he could be like, “Okay, not only is this not fun, but all a sudden I’m buried on the depth chart behind, you know, not just uh, you know, again, um, Malik Monk, Zack Lavine, Zack Lavine, and then there’s always Deon Carter situation, all that.” like you don’t want to get buried on the depth chart, but you know, you’re looking at your long-term trajectory as a player. And, you know, California taxes are high. Uh, you know, there’s a lot of advantages to going to some of the other places in in the league and that’s something that I think the Kings are going to have to manage. Like opportunity is great, but I I think you know there are a lot of teams around the league that have an elite point guard that would love to have a defensive mind and a shooting guard to put next to them. The look at Well, look at Dyson Daniels. What Dyson Daniels has meant to that team, but there are other teams out there that have this void next to him and it’s like, hey, if we could get a star level defender, that would really help us. And so, I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s going to get. Um I I I almost I almost feel like because this isn’t that it’s it’s a weird spot because it’s not a rebuild necessarily that Scott Perry might decide that. He might say, “Hey, we need to tear this thing down to the studs as best we can, but I don’t think they want to necessarily do that. I don’t think VC wants to to to go through that necessarily.” Yeah. I almost feel like the right thing to do here is decline Keon’s option, let him explore the market and let that dictate your contract for him. No, I I would agree if that’s if if because like you said, you pick up the option. Okay, now you’ve now you’ve lost all your leverage for an extension. I would just get that out of the way now. be like, “Hey, while we’re here, while we’re in the midst of resetting, let’s figure out what we have with Keon or not.” Because the the worst case scenario is you go, “Okay, great. We pick up his option. Keon becomes this huge part of the rotation. Oh, but he’s going to get a starting opportunity elsewhere and he’s going to get paid big money and he’s gone next year and all of a sudden this key piece of your rotation now needs to be replaced.” Yep. Well, that and I mean, there are all kinds of fears here. Like, you’re not a team that has a ton of extra talent to lose, right? Yes. Right. Um, but there’s also, you know, again, do you want to pay him 14 million a year? I I think we we can read a lot into one thing that’s happened, and that is that the Kings sent Keon Ellis to the NBA draft lottery. Mhm. And yeah, it doesn’t matter that he didn’t bring home, you know, the pick. Yes. Cut him. Yeah. It doesn’t matter. But the fact that he was there as your representation probably means that they’ve already gotten, you know, pretty far down the road with the contract. Yeah. You’d hope so. It’d be kind of nuts to send a guy who wouldn’t be on the team this year. Like, yeah. Hey, or or beyond, I guess. Is it that crazy for this organization, though? Is it really that crazy? Is that something they would do? Would you be that surprised? No. Well, yeah, but I would by Joe because Scott Perry is the one who was part of that decision. It’s true. It’s new now. It’s different. Yeah. And that is kind of Scott Perry saying, “Hey, this is one of our guys, right?” In the same in the same way that Joe Dumar sending Zion Williamson was like, “Hey, Zion, we’re we’re not trading Zion.” Right. I I I do think that with with Keon specifically and his skill set and then when you watch the playoffs this year, think of all the dudes on the Kings roster, this is the guy you should be not not dramatically overpaying him. Not paying him 20 million a year or anything crazy like that, but this is a guy you’d probably want to keep around if you’re building this team that is tenacious, that shares the ball, that’s good defensively, that does all these things. It feels to me like Keon is that exactly like that’s just kind of the the perfect player for what and whether you think Keon is is a starting caliber two guard or not like that that matters less to me than that’s a dude you just want to keep in your program and keep in your building. Yeah, he’s done everything right since signing as an undrafted free agent. Well, Dad and and I also want to point out like I see someone in the chat uh say, “Oh, Keon’s not getting 14 million.” Um that’s from securing a Bagley. Um, you have to understand that the way that the NBA salary cap is is ballooning right now, um, that like a a$ 14 million contract is like 8% of the salary cap. That’s that’s it’s 14 million today is not what 14 million, you know, three years ago was. Yes. Correct. So, that’s what you have to look at. It’s like he might not get that money, but you know, I want to go I want to go Herb Jones got that money. Herb Jones makes 14 mil. Yeah, I feel like that’s kind of a bargain for Herb Jones. Yeah. I’m trying to see where average annual value. I’m going to go find some $14 million year point. So many players make more than $20 million. Yeah. Uh Spotre doesn’t even go down that far. Lou Dort makes 16 and a half a year. right now on a deal signed in 2022. Yeah. I don’t I don’t think 14 million a year would be crazy for I don’t think and the reason why we we’re bringing up the $14 million a year number is because it’s the mid-level exception there. Right. Right. Right. You would hope that you might be able to get Keon on a 4-year 40 or fouryear 48. Okay. Here’s some Max Struce. I just went to guards. Okay. Makes 15 and a half a year. Jordan Clarkson makes 14-1. Josh Green makes 136. Austin Reeves makes 134. Uh Cole Anthony 13 million. Dennis Shruder 127. Moses Moody 12 and a half. Kobe White 12. Kobe White’s a free agent this year. Is that right? That’s Yeah. Oh, no. He’s free agent. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That changes everything. But yeah, you get like Yeah, man. Is he is is Keon Ellis in the Isaiah? Dante Isaiah Joe makes 12. Everybody else I’m about to say makes less than that. Uh Dante Devenenzo, uh Kade Cunningham, although he’s still on his rookie contract. Yeah. TJ McConnell. These are all players that got either part of Matis Styel makes 11 million a year. Yeah. They’re they’re players that got part of the mid-level exception. Yeah. Or or all of the mid-level exception. Just not in this year. And the mid level keeps going up. And it keeps going up because the salary cap keeps going up. It’s a percentage of the cap. Yeah. I think Keon Keon’s going to get a nice little chunk of money, but I don’t think it’s going to be anything obscene. Yeah.

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