The Sacramento Kings have a deep roster with several quality rotation players, but they lack high-end talent outside of point guard De’Aaron Fox. With the team on the verge of contention, they made a blockbuster acquisition in free agency to address this concern by adding a six-time All-Star forward.
Keep reading for a breakdown of the Kings’ best move in the frenzy that was the 2024 NBA free agency.
The Kings needed to add offensive firepower
The Kings had a decent season in 2023–2024, finishing 10 wins over 500 and putting themselves in position to fight for a postseason berth. Once they make it to the playoffs, anything can happen as long as they’re in the dance.
However, the goal should be set higher than that. Any team that is serious about winning wants to get as high up in the bracket as possible, and give themselves an x-factor to put them ahead of the competition in a playoff series.
DeRozan brings a new element to the team and can help prevent the offense from stagnating. Yes, they have De’Aaron Fox and he’s a good player, but it’s fairly easy for most defensive players and coaches to scheme around one talented offensive player. They can either prevent that player from taking over the game or shut down his teammates.
One option for defenses is to cover Fox with a single player while locking down everybody else. They’ll allow Fox to get 40 or even 50 points, but make it difficult for him to drive down his efficiency. If he puts up 50 points on 50 shots, the defense will live with that. There simply won’t be enough shots to go around for the rest of the team to make up the difference in points, and 7\50 points is nowhere near enough to win a game.
They could also double or triple-team Fox and force the rest of the team to step up, betting that they'll be unable to do so.
The team’s best move
Without a doubt, the best move that the Kings made in free agency this year was adding DeMar DeRozan in a sign-and-trade with the Chicago Bulls. DeRozan brings much-needed punch to the team’s scoring offense and his presence will go a long way towards taking the pressure off of Fox at that end of the court.
Teams will no longer be able to cover or even triple team the former Kentucky guard or have help offenders assigned to come off of their man and shut him down when he attacks.
They’ll also have a much harder time with the approach of letting Fox get his and shutting everybody else down because DeRozan is just as capable as Fox at the offensive end.
DeRozan’s career is a tale of two styles
DeRozan is an elite midrange shooter who uses his length and athleticism along with a deep bag of moves to get open at any time against any defense. Midrange specialty artists have kind of fallen out of style in recent years as the league has embraced analytics. Teams have learned that the “layups, dunks and three-pointers” approach tends to be more efficient than hunting midrange shots.
In that sense, DeRozan is among the last of a dying breed in that he makes his money in the midrange game. However, even DeRozan understands recent trends and has started to adapt to the times. The former Raptors star began embracing the three-pointer in recent seasons, and he has increased both his three-point volume as well as his accuracy.
It almost seems as if DeRozan was never necessarily a bad three-point shooter, but rather he never embraced that style of the game. At the time he came up, the players who were most revered were those who could ruthlessly isolate against a defender, break them down, and hit a tough shot over them.
When he was coming up, the league placed an emphasis on individual dominance and the ability to beat people one-on-one. It was satisfying to do so, which is why those players were respected and why DeRozan tailored his game that way.
However, the league progressed, embracing analytics and efficiency, and DeRozan evolved as a player as well.
What needs does DeRozan address?
DeRozan addresses the team's two biggest needs: A secondary scorer to take the pressure off of Fox, and somebody who can take matters into his own hands during crunch time and make things happen for his team.
For all the ways that the NBA has evolved, defense still tends to tighten up during the final five minutes of playoff games, and those are often situations where it comes down to a one-on-one battle and good offense often beats good defense in those situations.
DeRozan makes the Kings legitimate contenders
The Kings as previously constructed would have always been on the cusp of playoff contention without DeRozan, but they wouldn’t be taken seriously as legitimate contenders with a chance to win the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
However, DeRozan represents the X factor that can elevate the Kings toward the top of the NBA power rankings.
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