Many believe that the Sacramento Kings need to pull off one more blockbuster trade to take the team to the next tier of contending teams. The De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis-led core is good enough for the Kings to make some noise in the playoffs, but to cement themselves in the upper echelon of the Western Conference, some analysts think that trading for the likes of Pascal Siakam or Lauri Markkanen would put them over the top.

Now, trading for Siakam and especially Markkanen wouldn't come cheap. After all, both are All-Star forwards who will be a huge upgrade for the Kings, giving the team a strong go-to scoring option on the wing. Alas, according to the rumor mill, second-year forward Keegan Murray may have to be included in those trades for either to work.

However, the Kings have shown no willingness to move Murray in prospective trades for those players. In fact, according to James Ham of The Kings Beat, the Kings “view him as a star” and that it would take a “Godfather” offer for them to even entertain the idea of giving him away.

“I asked the question, ‘Would you trade him for Lauri Markkanen last season?' The answer was ‘No. We believe he’ll be better than Markkanen.' So that should tell you everything that you need to know about what they feel about him as a player,” Ham said on The HoopsHype podcast with Michael Scotto.

In fact, Ham hammered home his point by saying that the only way to make the Kings think about trading Keegan Murray away is to offer a player of Giannis Antetokounmpo's caliber, which, of course, is not within the realm of possibility.

“No one’s walking in the door and saying they’ll give you Giannis Antetokounmpo as long as Keegan is in the deal. Those are the types of things that I think it would take for the Kings to move off of him, at least as of right now,” Ham added.

Given Keegan Murray's seamless fit on the Kings (and on every other roster), it truly may be for the best for Sacramento to hold onto him especially when he's still on his rookie deal.