Could The Kings Trade Malik Monk For Dennis Schroder?

Could The Kings Trade Malik Monk For Dennis Schroder?

nba free agency has begun and as of recording this we are nearing the end of day one of free agency and so far the Sacramento Kings haven’t done anything well kind of haven’t done anything there there have been quite a few rumors and there was one report from Fred Katz that the Kings had signed Dennis Shruder but then there were no details about that every other deal we have the details except for the Dennis Shruder deal so that’s interesting but there have lots of rumors and it’s been a fairly busy day in the NBA but so far the big talking points when it comes to the Sacramento Kings and and the big rumors or things that have happened first of all is Dennis Shruder it sure seems like Dennis Shruder is going to be a Sacramento King on a deal that is probably around $28 million over two years because the mid-level exception is $14.1 million so he’ll just be a mid-level except a full MLE type of player for the Kings and then the Kings are also looking for a backup point guard to go alongside Dennis Shruder as the the starting point guard and the big rumor has been Russell Westbrook the Kings have met with Westbrook right when free agency started at at 3:00 there were like no moves because the NBA cracked down on tampering or at least you know kind of cracked down on tampering everyone’s still having conversations before free agency starts but the news doesn’t start coming out until a little bit later so the big news was the Kings are meeting with Shruder Westbrook and Brogden on Zoom specifically Zoom which was an interesting detail not sure we needed that but I you know I appreciate it so the Kings were were specifically going after Shruder and Westbrook and both of them at the same time which is interesting not just one point guard they want a backup point guard as well because there are zero point guards on the Kings current roster so I mean I guess you know it could make sense that you want both a starter and a backup but then the the other guys that have been rumored like I said Malcolm Broden Chris Paul there was like a a little bit of a a rumor at one point although I haven’t seen anything about Chris Paul lately to the Kings but uh very obviously the Kings going after these veteran point guards the other big piece of Kings news is not a good one jake Laravia signed with the Lakers for uh 12 million over 2 years and so if you recall the Kings were limited to offer Larabia about $5.1 million and so the Lakers just upped that by 700K I believe it was and were able to to steal Jake Laravia from us and that is extremely disappointing i mean that’s a very big blow because the King’s already very weak in terms of wing depth and if you if you watch and listen to me a lot you know how big of a Jake Larabia fan I was ever since he got here last season uh it’s not like the Kings gave up a whole lot to get Jake Larabia it was Alex Len Kobby Jones in a second round pick and so it it was definitely worth the risk and Jake Laravia was was honestly too good for the Kings uh late last season but Laraveio he was just such a breath of fresh air as finally another wing to go alongside Keegan Murray and I was thinking that maybe he could be someone that even could start on this Kings team next season if he was still here starting at the four alongside Keegan Murray and taking some of the the bigger uh defensive assignments so that Keegan didn’t always have to uh and that would have been really nice lavia is such a good player because he’s he’s a dog defensively a 40 plus percent three-point shooter i mean it’s really annoying that the Lakers got him because Dorian Finny Smith left to the Rockets so they replace him with Jake Larabia on a very good deal so I mean that’s a very good deal for the Lakers and super disappointing for the Kings and it’s just going to be super hard for them to replace Lorravia and so Nick Clifford the Kings rookie is going to have to play a role for the Kings this upcoming season because it’s going to be really hard to replace Lorravia on the wing but Nick Clifford does not have the size of Jake Laravia he’s 6’5 lavia was 6’8 nick Clifford is very much more of a 23 than a a 34 and Jake Laravia is 23 years old so it’s super disappointing to lose him especially to the Lakers but I did know coming in that it was a pretty big possibility that we could lose him so now let’s go to the the Dennis Shruder news which has been the talk of of the town in in Sacramento if you will because I think the addition of Dennis Shruder is uh a very controversial one for Kings fans because Dennis Shruder is 31 years old he’s a veteran he’s he’s not going to contribute to any sort of youth movement for the Kings uh but he also is not a star level point guard right he is a backup for many teams he has played the backup role a lot of his career he’s been close to winning six man of the year at times uh becoming I believe second with OKC in what was that 2019 2020 when OKC was doing the whole Shay with Chris Paul and Dennis Shruder three guard thing but the question really is should the Kings be looking to add this veteran type of point guard when he’s not going to push you over the edge of contending in the Western Conference and when I say contending I mean even for like a playoff spot like what is the ceiling for a team uh when you’re adding Dennis Rutder as the starting point guard for this Kings team now I think Dennis Shruder is a very good player and I think a team that is starting Dennis Shruder can be very good can this Kings team as currently constructed if you add Dennis Shruder be very good no I don’t think so and so I I mean again it’s not official that Dennis Shruder is a king but if if we just assume he is like I’m just going to be assuming that Dennis Shruder is a Sacramento king here the kings still need to make plenty more moves but the problem is it’s just going to be very hard to make those moves in order to contend and so that begs the question kind of just well then what’s the point of bringing in a veteran like Dennis Shruder if he’s going to take minutes away from your young guards like a Devin Carter or a Keon Ellis he’s going to take shots away from maybe a Keegan Murray even and also you didn’t sign Keon Ellis long term because you wanted to maintain flexibility moneywise this season to be able to sign a guy like Dennis Shruder and so me included many Kings fans want the Kings to be able to pick a direction and it feels like signing Dennis Shruder isn’t necessarily picking direction but the thing that I will say to that is the situation that Scott Perry has inherited here is not a good one and it’s it’s not a good one to the extent that it’s difficult to even pick a direction because there there’s really no way to be able to uh compete with this current roster but there al also isn’t really a way to rebuild and so while I would love if the Kings would commit to a rebuild and if they would just commit to giving young guys opportunities and to not have a guy like Dennis Rutder and just to go full youth movement the reality of the situation is the Kings can’t do that i would love for the Kings to be able to get a high draft pick in 2026 and they still might be able to just because of the Western Conference is so strong but the problem comes down to the contracts that the Kings have mainly in Zack Lavine and Demanis Sabonis where you’re stuck with these guys even Demard Rozen maybe even a guy like Malik Monk where you have these contracts and you’re stuck with them and so you’re stuck in a position where you can’t rebuild because you can’t get off of these contracts the only way you can get off of these contracts is if you attach assets to them not necessarily the Malik Monk one but the the Lavine one and the Sabonis one you would have to attach assets to get off of those deals and so that’s not something the Kings should do and so when I was talking uh you know previewing this upcoming free agency I said that it was probably going to be a transition year for the Kings and that Scott Perry had to try to work his magic and and that is truly what Scott Perry has to do he has to work his magic by somehow offloading some of these contracts but the reality is that’s probably not going to happen and so this year for the Kings they probably aren’t going to be really contending for the playoffs i would say ceiling of this team is contending for the playin and then you never know what could happen and they sure they could make the playoffs and but they’re also not going to be at the bottom of the Western Conference uh contending for the top pick most likely and it sucks that it has to be this year because 2026 draft class is absolutely loaded so I would love if the Kings could get a top pick but that’s just not the reality of the situation and the reality of the situation is that we’re probably just not going to be happy with this upcoming season we’re probably in a situation where we have to write out this season and next off seasonason Lavine will be an expiring deal sabonis will have one less deal on his contract um Demar will be on a partial guarantee right these guys will be easier to move and so it’s going to feel like a wasted season and it’s a transition season but that’s kind of where we’re at and so you bring in a guy like Dennis Shruder really to try to be as good as possible in a season where you can’t rebuild because if the team is good you need a point guard right you need a point guard to be able to help the other guys on your roster zack Lavine needs a point guard to be effective damon Sabonis needs another ball handler that he can play with you know everyone benefits from having a point guard on the roster and so the hope is that a guy like Dennis Rder can come in and can help this team be okay and can help really the trade value of the players on this team so that you can trade them at the trade deadline or after the season i mean that’s the that’s the position that the Kings are in and so from that perspective I do think Dennis Rutder is a solid signing the Kings need a point guard they get a guy who throughout his career has just been very solid on his career averaging 14 points per game five assists per game last season he played for three different teams started with Brooklyn and was the starting point guard there averaged 18 and a half points per game and six and a half assists shot well from three while he was there for almost 39% then he went to Golden State it didn’t really work out there went to Detroit was solid there but on the season total he averaged 13 points per game he averaged 5 and a half assists per game he was at 34% from three he’s also a solid defender i also like the personality that he brings to this team or he’s not afraid to get into it with guys and he’s probably not afraid to get into it with his teammates if he needs to as well and that’s someone that the the Kings could use we don’t want Mr nice Guy in the locker room anymore like I I don’t anyways and so bringing in a person personality like Dennis Shruder could be nice i mean same can be said for Russell Westbrook if the Kings are able to bring in Russell Westbrook and I think that’s part of what Scott Perry is trying to do here is all off season he’s talked about identity and that’s what he’s trying to bring in dennis Rutder is a very solid defender he’s going to get after it and he’s going to bring that personality russell Westbrook is a guy who wherever he’s gone his teammates have loved him and he’s a guy who plays with a bunch of energy hustles and is also going to bring that personality and so does it make sense to bring in Dennis Shruder and Russell Westbrook and just clog our guard rotation even more you know I I don’t know if it really makes sense and it sure feels like Malik Monk is definitely the odd man out at that point which it already felt like that anyways and so especially if you bring in two point guards then he definitely is but in a season where you weren’t going to compete and you weren’t going to rebuild so you might as well just bring in these guys who are going to hopefully allow you to establish an identity and hopefully allow you to play better basketball than you would have before and make everyone on the team look better dennis Rutder is a guy who is a very solid passer he can get into the pick and roll he can play make there he’s a crafty finisher around the rim he has an off the dribble jumper game he can push the pace he can play fast i mean I I’m a I’m a big fan of Dennis Shruder as a player and I think he’s worth the full mid-level exception and so if he’s getting the full mid-level exception over two seasons I also think that’s a contract that you can probably easily move there’s always going to be a team out there that’s looking for a backup guard when they’re making a playoff push just like Detroit was last season or Golden State was last season both teams traded for him so you’re probably going to be able to trade him if you need to and so for me as long as Scott Perry coming into this off season isn’t making things worse he isn’t adding more bad contracts he isn’t committing to big contracts long-term if he’s just bringing in a veteran point guard for two years or a year then I don’t see anything wrong with that the only thing that might be wrong with that is if you lose Keon Ellis because of it because you didn’t lock up Keon Ellis long term that’s the one problem that I could have with this you know it’s tough to see the vision i mean you really can’t see the vision right now but you can’t see the vision because of the mistake that the previous front office made which was the DR Fox trade for Zack Lavine that’s the mistake that is not allowing this team to pick a direction right now and so you just have to wait that out and that sucks and that’s not what people want to hear but it’s probably just the reality of the situation but now let’s get into well why isn’t the Dennis Shruder move official and now technically nothing becomes official until I believe it’s July 6th but why don’t we have the details of this Dennis Shruder move that that’s very odd when every other deal we have the details of and so there’s a lot of speculation could there be a signin trade in the works jake Fischer has reported that Malik Monk is an option for the Pistons in a sign-in trade now one one signin trade uh move that has been brought up just on social media no actual reports of this but one you know uh thing that people have just made up is Malik Monk and Demar Rose into the Pistons for Dennis Rutder and Tobias Harris that’s a move I can get down with just because Dennis Ruder becomes your point guard you need a point guard you need a wing tobias Harris is your wing that’s an expiring deal for Tobias Harris you’re getting off longer term money uh and bigger money in D Rozan and Monk you’re getting rid of your defensive liabilities and look I I’ve said this before i don’t want Monk to leave but it’s just what has to happen because of the position that Montza McNair and the previous front office put this organization in and and VCron a DVA too because they wanted Zack Levit i always you know I want to make that clear because I love Malik Monk and so while you know swapping Malik Monk for Dennis Shruder may not feel great that may end up being the right move because where are where are the minutes going to be you need to play Keon Ellis and you want to play Devin Carter as well but you also need a point guard and so you relieve some of the log jam at the guard position by getting rid of a defensive liability in Malik Monk however good he is offensively he’s not a point guard he’s a scoring guard who can play make but now you’re bringing in an actual point guard and freeing up some of those minutes at the shooting guard position so I would love if they could somehow involve Demar getting off Dear’s deal or some other contracts uh with this signing trade although I’m not you know sure that that’s going to happen and I would also rather that the Kings get more defense in terms of size right you’re getting a solid defensive player in Dennis Shruder i would rather have the defensive liability be the point guard but the problem is the Kings just have too many defensive liabilities elsewhere where you this off seasonason you’re just not able to completely reconfigure the roster in one off season because you have too many guys who are too highly paid who are defensive liabilities elsewhere like a guy like Tyus Jones was someone who uh could have been a possibility for the Kings instead he goes to the Magic for one year 7 million and so I would rather have a guy like that who’s a really good playmaking point guard also cheaper but who’s not great defensively and then improve your defense elsewhere but again it’s just so hard to do when you’re locked into these contracts it’s hard to improve your defense elsewhere so what it kind of comes down to is you have to just wait out this season what we have to hope that Scott Perry does is slowly but surely get his types of players onto this roster with all that talk about the identity and the type of player that he wants on this team hopefully he’s able to actually do that and bring those types of players in he’s just not able to do it all in one off season most likely unless somehow he works his magic this off season and is able to do it but much more likely he’s just going to bring in Dennis Shruder he’s going to send out Malik Monk he’s probably going to bring in a a Russell Westbrook and he’s just slowly going to implement his type of player starting with Dennis Shruder and Westbrook at the guard position and then hopefully like a Keon Ellison and Devin Carter hopefully he likes those guys and those guys uh or and Devin Carter pans out we already know Keon Ellis has panned out as a player but hopefully we get him extended and then Meek Clifford Keegan Murray hopefully we get that extension right hopefully that’s the future of this team but we just may not be able to see that come to fruition this off season one thing that is interesting to note is Dennis Shruder is with the same agency that Keon Ellis and Keegan Murray are and so that could mean absolutely nothing but it’s like hopefully maybe that means like there’s an understanding and Scott Perry has these relationships where it’s like okay I’m going to get your guy Dennis Shru Shruder paid here and then we’ll get a Keon Ellis extension worked out later and we’ll get a Keegan Murray extension worked out a little bit later hopefully that’s what that means again it could mean absolutely nothing but in my speculative optimism that’s what I’m hoping that means so then looking at some other things I mean just uh touching on Russell Westbrook real quick bring him as a in as a backup point guard it would just be kind of hilarious i I mean looking at the roster if that were to happen and you have him you have D Rozan you have Lavine you have Sabonis i mean just a hilarious roster i can’t lie it does seem a little odd that Westbrook would want to come here but he does want to be in California and he’s already played for both LA teams so they probably don’t want him or he doesn’t want to go there you know whichever way probably both so he might want to be in California and I mean there might not be a whole lot of teams that want him at this point a very old Russell Westbrook i will say Russell Westbrook like if you’re gonna not be really good and not be really bad you might as well be fun and Russell Westbrook will be fun he also may be extremely frustrating but if you’re able to get him I know there will be those moments where he just goes for you know a crazy dunk or a crazy defensive play where he like sells out for a steal gamles for a steal it works out and he gets a dunk and he hits like three threes in a row and the crowd’s just going crazy like I can imagine that and in terms of just the name value that would probably be the biggest signing in King’s history uh you know if we just don’t consider the fact that he is what 37 or going to be 37 years old if we just don’t consider that it’s like the biggest name that the Kings will have ever signed but then the other talk about free agency surrounding the Kings is the Jonathan Kaminga situation where the Warriors obviously don’t want to keep Jonathan Kaminga and Jonathan Kaminga doesn’t want to be there anymore but the reporting has said that this is a situation that could take a bit of time the uh the teams that are interested the Heat the Bulls the Kings the Pelicans so everyone’s going to get off the jokes like of course these are the teams that are interested the teams that make all the bad trades or like the the Heat are the team that are interested in everybody but don’t get anybody and then the Kings Bulls and Pelicans are the teams that make the stupid trades and so Warriors fans are are licking their lips like “Oh we’re going to we’re going to scam a team real bad here.” But honestly really what it feels like with the Jonathan Kaminga situation right now is nobody’s really willing to pay what Jonathan Kaminga wants and nobody’s probably willing to give up what the Warriors want in a signing trade so maybe Jonathan Kaminga just goes back to the Warriors for a year and then leaves in free agency or gets dealt at the deadline but I talked about Jonathan Kaminga before he’s a high upside swing that the Kings could make and I could be okay with that as a restricted free agent won’t cost much although if you’re dealing Monk in a Dennis Shruder deal then I’m not sure how who would be going the other way in a Kaminga deal and maybe that’s why we don’t know what’s going on with Dennis Shruder yet because maybe they’re trying to all wrap this into a a big deal you know i don’t know i don’t know what’s happening kaminga could be an interesting player because he’s so young and he’s got a lot of upside and that’s something that the Kings kind of need right now some other interesting things Jabari Smith Jr signed for one 122 million over 5 years and so when you’re thinking about a Keegan Murray extension that’s a number to look at jabari Smith Jr was drafted third keegan Murray was drafted fourth back in 2022 they have almost identical numbers across their seasons pretty similar players and that’s honestly a number that’s lower than I thought but I think what we’re seeing with the new CBA is that teams aren’t just willing to hand out max contracts all willy-nilly they they aren’t willing to take on bad contracts you look at what happened with DeAndre Eaton he got bought out as an expiring contract because nobody was willing to take him on as an expiring deal because his money was so bad julius Randall signed for $100 million for three years that makes Sabonis’ contract look really bad i think at the time that Sabonis signed his contract his contract looked fine it’s like this is what everyone’s doing like he’s a solid second third option give him the max deal he’ll make in the 40 millions but with the new CBA like that’s not what’s happening second and third options aren’t making that much and so it makes Sabonis’ uh deal worse and makes it super unlikely that anyone’s going to trade for it and with Zack Lavine that deal was already bad and it makes it way worse so you’re looking at someone like Julius Randle making 33 million that may become the new norm and these contracts may come down slightly from from where they’ve been and I think you saw that with Jabari Smith Jr as well and so I think the Keegan Murray extension may be a little less than what I thought it was going to be which which could be a good thing some other interesting point guard numbers trey Jones uh signed for 24 million for three years with the Chicago Bulls d’angelo Russell 13 million over two years with the Mavericks ty Jerome 28 million for three years with the Grizzlies and then Tus Jones like I said 7 million for one year with the Magic so those were guys that the Kings could have been considering that went elsewhere but you know they went elsewhere for less than what it seems like the Kings are going to give Shruder that Shruder is better than most of them if not all of them i would say I would say Dennis Shruder is the best free agent point guard in this class and so I mean the Kings are going to get the best free agent point guard so that’s cool I guess look I’m excited about Dennis Shruder i know some people are scared about what this signing trade is going to be i’m excited that just something’s going to happen i’m excited to see Dennis Shruder we have to find things to get excited about because I just don’t think that this season as a whole is something that we can necessarily look forward to because the Kings are going to have another season where they’re stuck in the middle but hopefully the long-term vision of Scott Perry can come to fruition he hasn’t made any moves that are going to hamstring the Kings in the future he’s just writing out the bad contracts that we have right now making a few moves around the edges to try to get some guys on on good value deals and so while it is not exactly exciting I am willing to to have some faith in Scott Perry’s long-term vision here so anyways that is it for this episode of the Roll Report i will be right back here to talk about anything when things go down when this signing trade possibly goes down it might go down as I’m uploading this and that would suck but that’s just what happens in uh in the offseason in free agency season so when something goes down I will see you guys then peace

Welcome to The Royal Report

In this episode of The Royal Report I discuss the Kings potentially landing Dennis Schroder in a sign and trade for Malik Monk to be their new starting point guard, how he will impact the team, and what this means for the direction of the team.

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