Russell Westbrook To Sacramento Kings Rumor Still Lingering Around

Russell Westbrook To Sacramento Kings Rumor Still Lingering Around

off season. The Russell Westbrook Kings stuff won’t go away. It won’t go away. It is just there. Despite the fact that Kings don’t have money to realistically sign him, despite the fact that they got Dennis Shruder, that the Russell Westbrook stuff is still he’s a linger. Yeah, just lingering. Okay. So, like just the the nuts and bolts of it, like the Kings realistically, they don’t have much money. If they sign him to a league minimum deal, they might be able to finagle the salary cap a little bit and fit him in, right? Um because you’re only going to pay like the 2.2 million, not the 3.8 million that he’s actually going to get paid. Mhm. If you have to bust into like the bianual exception, then you’re going to go over the cap to sign him. The biggest problem is that they just don’t have a space for him. And like I’m just going to take the Devin Carter conversation and just put it way to the side because I don’t think anyone knows whether he’s a ball player or not at the NBA level at this point and like who knows, right? But this that doesn’t change the fact that you still have, you know, Dennis Rutder, you still have Malik Monk, you still have Keon Ellis, you still have uh uh Zack Lavine. Like your back your back court is packed. Now would you like to have another guard? Yeah. as like a third point guard. Sure, that’s fine. But that’s not what Russell Westbrook is, even at his advanced age in the NBA by NBA standards. So, like the only way to actually move forward with this is if you actually pull off one of these deals that we keep hearing about. Like whether it’s Devin Carter as part of a package that goes to the Golden State Warriors that helps you land, you know, a guy like Jonathan Kaminga or it’s Malik Monk going to some other team in order to facilitate a trade as well. Like there are ways in which the Kings can get this done, but they they have to clear out at least one and probably two players from that back court before they were they go and to p push any button because like Russell Westbrook and Malik Monk will not work in the back court off the bench. I can guarantee you that. No, that that doesn’t there’s just you start running out of minutes. We talk about this all the time and I think it’s something that that matters a lot is you just don’t between Zack Lavine and Nick Clifford who who you’re trying to get in the rotation and Dennis Shruder and then Malik Monk and if it’s Russell Wester there’s just you you start running out of minutes like that’s just the the facts of it. Let me ask you this. If the Kings did just have the money just outright they had the space and could just sign Russell Westbrook outright, do you think they would do that and then try and figure out a trade down the line? Maybe. Yeah, because I mean we’ve talked about this a bunch of times. They they still have like guys like Terrence Davis who are on non-G guaranteed contracts. They could like in in theory just wave him and clear up a little bit of space. They could wave and stretch provision Dario Sarich. But here’s the problem again. Like if you wave and stretch provision Dario Saridge, you walk into the season with your power forwards as Keegan Murray and uh Isaac Jones. That’s it. No one else. And and it’s not like Doug McDermott can slide over and play the position. It’s not like you’re going to count on big minutes from Demar De Rozan to play that or Nick Clifford. Like there there’s very few ways in order to get more, you know, to add depth to that position, right? Like if the Kings should add depth that that’s where it should be. You should spend your your money and your capital, you know, go out and and get a guy like Chris Buchet if if he’s willing to take the minimum or something. Like there are ways in which you can help your team. Um, and I’m not saying that Russell Westbrook wouldn’t help the team. I mean, he played 75 games last year. He’ll be 37 in November. Can I I don’t get it. The Russell Westbrook thing, just to be just to be totally frank, I don’t I mean, I get why you would want to sign a future Hall of Famer to your team, but from the Kings perspective, I don’t I don’t get why you would bend over backwards to get Russell Wilson. Not Russell Wilson, certainly Russell Wilson, but Russell Westbrook as well. Um, Russell Westbrook Wilson would be an undersized point guard. Yes, for sure. Um, I don’t know why you would It’s It’s It feels like they’re trying to get their talent floor to the point that they make the playoffs. Yeah, that’s what That’s what this feels like. This is not Dennis Shruder is going to start, but then we’re going to mix in Malik Monk and some Devin Carter and some Nick Clifford and kind of see what we have. It’s like no, we want to make sure we have two legit point guards because we’re trying to make the playoffs this year. Well, that and like look, I think we’re going to talk about grades here, right? Here for offseason grades so far and stealing this content from another from another from another show, from another podcast clearly. Um, but there is a way in which you actually could get a lower grade by by adding Russell Westbrook right now because if you haven’t cleared up the issue of your back court, then adding him doesn’t help. And actually, it’s it adds just a level of chaos that there’s no reason to add. there is absolutely no reason to add a level of chaos unless you’re able to clear up the roster situation, the roster imbalance. And so like I don’t like if Russell Westbrook is the backup point guard and I’ll make the same argument, the same exact argument I made last week about Malik Monk and Dennis Shruder. Hey, there’s nothing that says that Russell Westbrook wouldn’t be the starting point guard by mid-season. Sure. Or that he wouldn’t beat out Dennis Shruder. I mean, he started a whole hell of a lot more games than Dennis Shooter has in his career. Yeah. But, um, like there’s no reason to add that player if you can’t even play the players that you have currently, right? And so, it just becomes like a really messy situation. Even if, heaven forbid, you do something crazy like trade Keon Ellis, uh, in a in a deal to go get a player like, you know, Jonathan Kaminga, I’m not I would not do that at all. But that doesn’t clear up the space that you need because you don’t have the shooting guard to play there. And so it would I mean, maybe Terrence Davis, you keep him on the roster. I don’t know, but it still would be a very complicated situation. And so I hope they figure it out. I mean, that’s the off seasonason is still, you know, we still have nine weeks left, you know, we still have a ton of time here, but between now and training camp, but uh they have a lot of work to do still, it feels like. Yeah. And it the the way the Westbrook stuff keeps hanging around and the fact that we’re now seeing reporting that the Kings are not going to do that unless they can facilitate a trade. Mhm. It just I don’t know how far down that road, but it feels like things are heading down that road. Yeah. Like where there’s enough things happening behind the scenes and we talked about this the other day. Just because the Kings aren’t doing anything publicly or making any moves or or their roster is kind of as it as it currently stands is is set, that doesn’t mean they’re on PTO like feet up hanging out until training camp. Like there’s still conversations going on. And it feels like to me based on the reporting that and again just the way these things kind of go it feels like there’s some some amount of distance down that road. Yeah. I mean like look Scott Perry is super active. Like he is trying his best. He sees what everyone’s saying out there. Yeah. He he sees it all and he’s trying his best to improve the roster, but he was left with like not just a an unbalanced, broken roster, but a roster that is extremely topheavy as far as financials. Mh. And it’s just extremely difficult when you don’t have like, you know, we talk about, you know, trading for Kaminga, right? Like they’re offering up Dario Sar and and Devin Carter as part of a trade, right? that that’s been the reported thing, but it’s also something I’ve heard like a million times that that’s kind of what they’re offering. Like once you get past that $5 million mark of Dario Sarge, five a.5 million and the same with with uh Devin Carter, like you don’t really have other like you have a $10 million player in and Keegan, maybe 11 million bucks, but then you jump way up high. There isn’t all of this like this happy space where you can, you know, take a $8 million player and add it. You know, when you traded Valenunis, that that eliminated your one like $10.5 million player that you could use as an asset, right? So now they’re in this weird space where they don’t have a bunch of players and they have things like a mid-level exception, but the mid-level in order to use that, it even gets more complicated. That would have to go somewhere else. like you can’t aggregate that with another player or another another uh exception. Well, it was part of the reason why the the J like the Jaylen Green contract from the Rockets Mhm. was what it was in part because they went, “Hey, we might have to move one of these young players and we would like to have a big contract on a young player to be able to move.” Yep. And there’s a theory that the same thing went for the Jabari Smith Jr. contract. Like at some point you just want that level of of of deal, right? It’s like having a $1 bill and then the Kings have Okay, we have two $1 bills and then a bunch of $100 bills. Yes. You’re like, “Okay, but the thing is five bucks. You have a five. You have a 10. I can break a 10.” Yeah. No. Well, I mean, it’s also the reason why the Warriors aren’t they’re not like overly excited to get rid of Kaminga. And it’s not because they want Kaminga the player. It’s because they would like to have like a an 18 to20 million contract that they can trade. Yeah. At the deadline, right? And and again, if you’re taking back a five and a $6 million Yeah. that doesn’t help you when you’re when you’re big game hunting like they do. Uh just real quick, the off off the beaten path here, uh Terron Jackson, the 49ers defensive lineman, uh if you missed it, he was taken off the practice field yesterday on a stretcher and uh moved to Stanford Hospital for evaluation for a neck injury. He was discharged from the hospital last night. He’s back in the building today. He’s not going to practice today. Team’s going to continue to evaluate uh that neck issue, but he is uh he was communicating yesterday. had a movement of his his extremities and is now released in the hospital and is back in the in the team facility. So, salute to Terron Jackson. Happy to hear that he’s healthy because that is terrifying. Mhm. It’s terrifying when it when it’s in pads and you hear that a player got stretchered off. When you hear that a player just kind of went down in the middle of practice, I there was a play going on. He didn’t just fall down with no pads on. That for to me is even more scary. but he’s he’s uh he’s good to go. So, just wanted to get that bit of news out there because that is a pretty significant deal for the 49ers who are now wearing pads today in training camp. But uh on on the the Kings Russell Westbrook stuff, to me that’s also it goes back to the conversation we’re having uh last week about where the Kings kind of see Malik Monk in this in this point guard situation. This to me, the Russell Westbrook stuff is just further evidence that the Kings don’t view Malik Monk as that position. Yeah, I even if even if he can credibly play minutes there, which he can, not even if he can. We’ve seen him do it. But to me that this is a sign that the front office is like that’s not a viable option for us. I think it it also it’s kind of the reverse of what a lot of the other teams are doing where they’re trying to get they’re trying to find like that 18 to20 million dollar thing that they can use to go trade for things. Mh. But when you have a three-year contract of that, it makes it a little more difficult. And so like if you’re the Kings and you’re looking at your books, um you know, you know that Demar De Rozan will likely fall off next year with like a $10 million buyout. Um, and then you know the year after that you have 49 million of of Zack Lavine that will fall off the books. But if you can accelerate that process at all, then you know you probably are going to, right? So we keep hearing summer of 2027 might be like a a more realistic target for the Kings. Well, the summer of 2027, Malik Monk’s going to make like 21 million bucks, 22 million bucks. Mhm. So, like you’re you’re trying to find the right pieces for your roster right now, but you’re trying to use this trade chip that you you have and move stuff around because you also think you can go cheaper at the position. Sure. And maybe find somewhat close to the same productivity. Yeah. Um, I think that, you know, again, at this point in their careers, Malik Monk is a better player than Russell Westbrook, but a better player at three and a half million bucks versus 18 or 19, that’s a big difference in money. Yeah. And and if you already have a certain amount of money tied up at the point guard position, it would, you know, it might make sense for you to go out and and and move on from uh from him and and find something cheaper.

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