The Sacramento Kings are currently 7-12. They probably won’t make the playoffs this season and the first full season under head coach George Karl might not end with them doing any kind of major damage.
There is hope, though.
They have a young first round draft pick in Willie Cauley-Stein, a budding superstar in DeMarcus Cousins and a potential strong relationship between Boogie Cousins and his point guard, Rajon Rondo.
Rondo is averaging a double-double this season for the fifth time in his career and 19 games in, it looks like old Rajon from his prime Boston Celtics days has returned. The only issue is, Rondo is only signed under contract for this season, which means Sacramento runs the risk of losing Rajon in the summer of 2016.
That’s something that Cousins won’t let happen under his watch.
Following from Marc J Spears of Yahoo! Sports.
Cousins expects Rondo to be in a Kings uniform with him next season when a new downtown arena opens.
“He ain’t going nowhere. I will kidnap him myself,” Cousins told Yahoo Sports.
Rondo said he’d been wanting to play with the “best big man in the game” for the past three years, so does that mean he’s re-signing with the Kings next offseason?
“In the words of K.G., ‘Anything is possible,’ “ Rondo told Yahoo Sports.
Cousins doesn’t want Rondo to go anywhere but it might not be up to him. It might be up to competing markets that would be willing to shell out some serious cash to Rondo with the upcoming flux of money going around. Remember, ‘anything is possible’.
According to a report from Sean Deveney of the Sporting News, Rondo could get a max contract next summer.
“I don’t know whether he will quite get the maximum, mostly because we don’t know what the max is going to be,” one Eastern Conference general manager told Sporting News. “But there is going to be a lot of money on the market and only a handful of players who you would really say are max guys. If Rajon were to keep playing the way he’s been playing, if he is not getting the max next year, it’ll be close.”
“It would not surprise me at all if he winds up with a max deal next summer,” another league executive told Sporting News. “Maybe not for five years, but a three-year deal or something like that. But if he stays healthy, I would expect the money to be around max. But let’s see how the year goes.”
Even Rondo’s old coach with the Dallas Mavericks who he butted heads with on numerous occassions, Rick Carlisle, says Rondo could warrant a max deal. Following courtesy of Tim Cato from Mavs Moneyball.
Rick Carlisle on Rajon Rondo: "He's a max player next year. Someone's going to have to back up the truck to get him."
— Tim Cato (@tim_cato) November 29, 2015
Now Carlisle might be delivering that quote with a little sarcasm behind it but Cato went on to say that Carlisle had no notion of delivering any sort of sarcasm.
The bottomline is, this Kings team is built around DeMarcus Cousins and a reluctance to deal him, even through times of turmoil, means it is his team. If Boogie wants Rondo to stick around, then the Kings better get on board with it or risk him being unhappy for one more season. The trio of Rondo, Cousins and head coach George Karl recently had a meeting so hopefully everyone is on the same page and going forward the Kings could do some serious damage.
