The Sacramento Kings are one of several teams expected to make a move before the trade deadline rolls around come February. Their success has been inconsistent as they have started the season 12-17 and outside the Western Conference playoff picture. The controversy surrounding superstar DeMarcus Cousins continues to worsen and Sacramento doesn’t have a clear direction for the future. To pile onto all that, the Kings don’t have a point guard under contract for next season as Darren Collison and Ty Lawson are both slated to hit free agency this upcoming summer.
That being said, Sacramento is likely in the market for a point guard and two names that have been floating around the rumor mill plenty are Brandon Knight of the Phoenix Suns and Goran Dragic of the Miami Heat. Following from The Vertical’s Chris Mannix regarding Dragic’s availability:
Dragic is open to a trade, league sources told The Vertical, and Miami has pursued that option. An early season swap with Sacramento for Rudy Gay fell apart when the Heat sought Darren Collison, sources said, and teams that have probed Miami about Dragic have found the Heat open to offers.
Adding to the Kings’ perceived interest in Dragic, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst discusses how Sacramento has had substantial interest in Brandon Knight for a while now:
It’s hard to read Sacramento. Sacramento talks a lot but then never does anything, so Sacramento’s very frustrating to people,” Windhorst said. “I know that Sacramento has been talking to Phoenix about Brandon Knight since the summer. Will that ultimately get done? I don’t know, but it’s out there.
Both these guards are intriguing options for Sacramento. They could both provide an extra scoring punch and distributing prowess to complement the elite interior game of Cousins. It would also make sense for Phoenix and Miami to potentially ponder getting rid of Knight and Dragic.
Brandon Knight has seen his role reduced as he has taken on the sixth man duties for the Suns. He is the first guard off the bench on a nightly basis, playing behind Eric Bledsoe and the promising Devin Booker. Both Bledsoe and Booker’s spots in the starting lineup aren’t going anywhere anytime soon so Knight may want to spend his youth years somewhere where he falls higher in the pecking order. Knight is a more than capable scorer and can help run an offense given a talented roster around him. At 25, he could draw interest from teams around the league as his prime years still lay ahead of him.
As for Goran Dragic, he’s in a different stage of his career. At 30, he’s playing the best basketball of his career but his decline is on the horizon. A trade to Sacramento could be beneficial for Pat Riley and the Heat as they look to rebuild around youth and the high-flying play style of franchise centerpiece Hassan Whiteside.
Whether any of these teams pull the trigger depends on the price tag. With the contracts of Rudy Gay, Lawson, and Collison all expiring after this year’s campaign, teams have to be tentative because any of the three could be wearing different uniforms next year. For Sacramento, a lot lies on whether Vlade Divac and company see Boogie Cousins and his baggage as a part of their long-term plans. Either way, Dragic and Knight are two potential names to keep monitoring as trade season begins to heat up.
