Vet free agents and filling out the roster

No matter which approach you take the bottom line is that you are not winning many games.

Personally, I prefer the approach of loading up with the kids and sprinkling in some good veterans building a culture and believing you can win any game and going into games with expectation of winning. Pretty much the same approach that the team took after Cousins was traded. Play the youngsters and get them to play hard every second they are on the court.

What that means you are still essentially tanking but the difference is that you are teaching these kids good habits along the way and developing them. They will get wiped off the floor most of the nights despite their best effort. Every now and then they will upset a team and get a win but at the end of the day, you are still losing, you are still in contention for a top 3-5 pick. The Kings will still lose a lot, but they will lose with kids that will get better and not with veterans where the team is stuck in mediocrity.

When you team will be made up of no less than 10 players on rookie deals (or in Bogdan's case rookie on a bigger deal) you are going to lose whether you bust you backside on the court or not. There is no 19 year old LeBron on this roster.

Tank mode is intentionally losing. The 76ers tanked prospectively this time of year the last few years by not spending any of their cap space on free agents that would have made them more competitive. There is every indication the Kings are going to be aggressive in free agency. If the Kings sit on their space, that would be indication they do not have desire to be particularly competitive. There is NO indication that will be happen, but we will find out soon enough.

Totally agree. I'd also add the importance of Temple's leadership skills with all these new young guards will be crucial going forward. I went to nearly every game last year and can say losing Tolliver AND Temple wouldn't be a very wise move. Easily the two most loved teammates. Also want to get a better look at Malachi.

I don't think anyone denies that in all likelihood the Wizards retain Porter. Frankly I will be fine with whatever pieces we add to fill out the roster. We are in development and asset collection mode. Fundamental NBA growth for a super young roster.

Also, we are going to lose a lot more than we win, but I guarantee it won't be because the players or coaches aren't trying to win. We may snag a few wins that, at least on paper, we shouldn't. Joerger has been squeezing every drop from his players since he coached in the minors, winning 5 championships between 2 different teams. Not a stranger to rookies.

It's going to be a fun ride.

I'm actually looking forward to FA as opposed to last year. A lot of money comparatively , seems our draw has improved 'somewhat' as well. I expect a bigger fish this year than the 4 middling vets of last year if we are actually trying to find win now pieces

Another thing that smart teams will do is plan 2-3 years ahead both in terms of cap and types of players. What I mean by this is basically look what is potentially available in next year's draft pool, project its strengths (e.g. this year was the year of the PGs) and based on that determine your free agent shopping list is going to be like.

For example, if you project next year's top 5 picks to be made up of three SFs, then the SF that you sign in free agency should not be someone like Otto Porter Jr but more like someone like Joe Ingles.

Smart teams will plan 2-3 years ahead when it comes to cap, draft, free agency and re-signing their own players.

Agree in a lot of what you say with a tweak toward winning now. We have only one vet starter and we need three or four more. It takes minutes from the kids but only until they show they can contribute like a starter. It would be unfair and disheartening to start them when they are not up to it. And in the business of developing the kids it would be counterproductive. If the kid has got it then of course play the heck out of him. And as for doing what you say for tanking purposes, hell no!

I think they are going to try to wedge themselves into a multi team deal where we absorb a large salary and a few assets come our way. Then depending on who those player(s) are they will either be released or fill a small role. If said player is cut and provided we have a roster spot then maybe Tolliver gets a ring.

That depends on what the market dictates. I don't think we need to throw $60-100 million guaranteed over 4 years at somebody just because we have the cap space. Other teams do that and almost immediately regret it as they're locked into immovable contracts for declining performance. Look at what the Lakers did last summer -- they gave Luol Deng a 4yr/72M deal and Timofey Mozgov a 4yr/62M deal and neither one of them came close to justifying those contracts. It's easy enough to say we just won't give out those kinds of deals but if 1 other team is offering a ton of money to a guy we want are we going to match that offer or sit on our cap space and wait for something else? That's what I'm worried about. By drafting 8 players in the last 2 years we've put ourselves in a position where we're basically 2 deep at every position in prospects we want to develop:

PG: De'Aaron Fox and Frank Mason III
SG: Buddy Hield and Bogdan Bogdanovic
SF: Justin Jackson and Malachi Richardson
PF/C: Skal Labissiere, Willie Cauley-Stein, Georgios Papagiannis, and Harry Giles

Fox is a top 5 pick so by all indications he's the PG of the future. Buddy Hield was the centerpiece of the Cousins trade and all indications are he's the SG of the future. Bogdan may play more SF than SG if he looks like he deserves starters minutes. And then we have all those young bigs plus Kosta Koufos.

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My point is we don't want to block our future core players with veterans and we don't want to stuff up our cap with big multi-year deals. Any Free Agent worth taking a starting spot is probably going to command a big deal from somebody if this year is anything like last year. Somebody like Paul Millsap would be a nice placeholder to bring the kids along slowly but if somebody wants to give him $20 million a year for 4 years we should back out. We're really better off signing 2 or 3 year deals at this point. That's not playing to lose, it's keeping the future in mind and building toward the end goal at a realistic rate. We're probably not going to make the playoffs next year. We probably won't be the worst team in the league either. Frankly I don't think we should be at all concerned with the standings. As long as we see the progress we want to see from our flock of young studs we'll be in good shape.

Portland should be a cautionary tale for us -- they went from one of the most promising up and coming teams in the league to a financial disaster in just one year of unchecked spending. I'd rather we sit on all of our cap space for a year and maybe try to get a draft pick from somebody by taking on a junk contract or two instead of following their path and acting like we have to spend every penny we've got.

Anyone thought about Troy Williams for depth at sf if we can't get Porter?

He's still just 22, and I doubt Houston matches a reasonable offer with them talking about cap space recently for FA.

Good athlete, some previous D league time.

Seems like a minor risk that may be a decent reward.

I think the ones in denial is those who keep speculating over getting Porter or trying to scrap together a 32 win team by signin guys like PJ Tucker or Amir Johnson or sum veteran point guard. And that seems to be most people in this forum including you.

Since King have hired some smart new pelple in front office, im confident that we are going to the season with young players getting most of the playing time signin only smart contracts with future as a first priority.

No one is losing games on purpose but it just makes the most sense that our young players will be the ones that determines our results. Being in denial is understandable since its natural to hope the team wins as much as possible, even tho the means to do it would be very short sighted

Wanted to post about him, but you beat me to it. He is a nice 6'7" wing and whats most interesting to me is that he weighed in at 218 pounds at the combine last year. Yes Richardson and Jackson have the length to play SF but bigger wings are just going to get through them.

Knowing how Joerger works now after a year, he views 12 meaningful minutes in a tight game as more important than 30 meaningless minutes in a blowout. I do see us signing a PG but I'm not so sure it's going to be a guy that needs to play 30 minutes. Very important to let Fox and Mason get minutes. I do see us investing in 1-2 SF's with 1 of them being a stretch 4 like Tolliver. We need a starting SF. We need to be competitive. I'll be honest, a gu like Tyreke is not a bad signing since he can play PG and SF in a 3 guard attack. Positional flexibility is huge so that we can keep the right mix of vets and young guys on the floor

Reading many of these responses I can't help but think "They'd really like Danilo Gallinari here"

He's my most likely big name... Seems to fit the profile of a guy management would like and a player that might come here.

Gallinari is a solid player but he misses 1/4 of just about every season and is going to command a good chunk of change. You sign him with the intention that this is going to be your starting SF when the kids hopefully are ready to make a run at the playoffs.

I like what he brings on offense but he's a bad defender. I think we should start tipping the scales a little more toward defense.

Yeah I think he has enough game to become a decent starter over time. Seems to me like the perfect guy with an age match & will be cheap.

This is true but there's another side to it. You undermine development of young players when you ask them to play role they are not ready for. Asked to do too much, thrown to the wolves prematurely, they struggle and lose confidence. This is what happened to Ben. This is what happened to Emmanuel Mudiay. Of course you have to spend prudently and not give out contracts you come to regret. There is an indication the Kings will NOT lock themselves into regrettable deals based on deals they signed Tolliver and Affalo. This showed restraint when other teams like Lakers and Blazers were reckless.

But the Kings do NOT have a starting SF on this roster. They do NOT have enough support at the PG to go with two rookies. They could also use a stretch PF and someone to split time with Skal. Joerger has a good sense for bringing young players along at right pace to keep confidence up and put them in positions to succeed. But to bring our young guys along properly, conducive to how they play in Summer League, training camp, and early returns once the season starts, Joerger needs to have options beside rookies and 2nd year guys. There is certain amount of projecting that has to take place because players could be more or less ready for a given level of responsibility that remains to be seen. Obviously you don't want to get caught in bidding war and then suffer buyer's remorse. But since the objective is to maximize the success of the players you have added in the last two drafts, then you don't sit on your space. You spend wisely so your coaches has options for individual and collective success.

I wish Tony Snell was more as a pure SF, instead of SG / SF, but he would be a good get at the right price. I am not opposed to Andre Roberson either. I would like to see Ty Lawson come back if we can get him for 2/10 with team option on the 2nd year. Gallo becomes possibility if Love goes to the Nuggets, but Gallo projects as a stretch PF as he approaches 30, a better version of Ryan Anderson. Gallo would be dangerous and risky move if the expectation is to play him at SF. We can chase Otto but I think it will be futile. The point is that there is low to medium risk moves to be made to help our rookies succeed without jeopardizing flexibility going forwards, and these are the moves I expect Vlade to make. I think he has earned more confidence after his draft and fairly responsible spending last season, the Matt Barnes signing withstanding.

Let's put it this way....

Anyone worth signing to a big deal who is still young enough to grow with our core is not going to be realistically attainable. Why you may ask? They are either a restricted free agent (meaning that their existing team can keep this valuable player if they choose) and/or they will be heavily sought after by other teams (since young talent is very attractive to teams).

So what does that mean? That means you're probably looking at guys who are either role players or who will be too old to be a significant contributor by the time our core is ready to compete. Guys like Millsap would be a huge mistake right now. Millsap would not only take up a lot of our cap (cap space that can we use in trades to help us acquire more young assets), but he would also devalue our 1st round pick in 2018 (by bumping up our win total). And what for? By the time we'll be ready to actually get serious about competing, Millsap will be on the decline and we will have a #8 talent instead of a #3 talent from the 2018 draft. It's a short sighted move that hurts this team's future. Signing role players with our cap space isn't wise either. We're in the business of finding our stars. Filling out a roster with role players on 3-4 year deals not only takes away cap space and roster spots, but it also takes away playing time from our young kids who we should be developing (10 young players counting Bogdan).

The way you build as a successful team is to "stay bad" until you found 2 or 3 stars. If you start using all of your cap space when you have no established stars or even just 1 star, you become Portland (current). You become the Kings (with Cousins). You become the Pelicans (before Cousins). You become the Lakers (Mozgov & Deng) Why are we so hell bent on repeating the same mistakes?

Do not rush the rebuild! If that means maintaining a lot of our cap space and making our 2019 pick a valuable pick, so be it. The trade is over with. Don't try and hurt another team only to hurt yourself. It's in our best interest to be patient and smart with our cap. Ideally, we would resign Tolliver to a 2 year deal with the 2nd year being unguaranteed. That would put us at 13 roster spots taken. I'd look to make a trade or two bringing back 1 or two bad contracts with pick incentives. Ideally they would expire after this season, but I wouldn't take on any bad contract that doesn't expire in 2 years.

Preferably, the Kings should setup their contracts so that they have max flexibility in the 2019 offseason. Hield, Papagiannis, Richardson, Labissiere, Fox, Jackson, Giles, Mason, Bogdanovic, 2018 1st rounder, 2018 2nd rounder, 2019 2nd rounder, & any picks we received via the salary dump trades mentioned earlier. Cauley-Stein would be the only one we'd need to resign (if we end up wanting to do that). At this point, I'm not totally sold on him being our long term starting C. His shot blocking and rebounding are concerning, but we do have a while before having to make a decision on him. If we don't want to pay him the big bucks, we could potentially move him for future assets in the 2018 offseason or the 2018-19 trade deadline. If we did end up moving Cauley-Stein, you're looking at having approximately $62 mil in cap space with these assets under contract: Fox, Mason, Hield, Bogdanovic, Richardson, Jackson, Labissiere, Giles, Papagiannis, 2018 1st, 2018 2nd, 2019 1st (via salary dump trade), & 2019 2nd. That's 13 spots right there.

At that points, you can look to add a couple max players before you need to give all of your young guys a big raise. Guys like Booker, Brogdon, Stanley Johnson, Winslow, Oubre, D'Angelo Russell, Porzingis, Towns, & Myles Turner will all be RFA and guys like Wall, Irving, Kemba Walker, Bledsoe, Rubio, Harden, Kay Thompson, Middleton, Butler, Leonard, & Love will be UFA.

Hopefully Vlade has the vision and patience to not use his cap space in many of the illogical ways I have seen proposed here.

Nobody is saying that this team should have zero veterans. What many of us are saying is that we should maintain flexibility for the 2018 & (probably more importantly) the 2019 offseason when we have a better idea of what we have. Spending big money on 28+ year old veterans when you have 9 players who are either rookies or 2nd year players isn't wise. Especially if those signings are going to prevent you from getting a very high pick next year. Is Tony Snell worth losing out on a Fultz or Fox? is signing Gallinari (who won't even be a part of the big picture when it comes time to start competing in the playoffs) worth a Simmons or Ingram?

Bring aboard high character, hard working journey-men on 1-2 year deals. This will allow us to...

1. Maintain cap flexibility in the future when we have a better idea of what we have in our young guys (who we think will be stars/role players, who do we want to keep, who fits our culture/playing style, etc.)
2. Use that cap space in trades to acquire more young assets that will help us build towards the future
3. Have Joerger bring our youth along slowly (if he thinks that is the best approach) because he would still have veterans at his disposal
4. Keep our talent level low so we can get the best possible pick next year to give us another chance at landing a star player
5. Have veterans to mentor the young guys and teach them how to be professionals

It's really that simple. We have a lot of good prospects. We don't have a lot of great prospects that we think can be our star/franchise cornerstone. Next year's pick is probably the best shot we have at finding one of those players (considering Cousins is no longer here to bump up the win total), yet I see people here wanting to potentially throw that away for the likes of Snell, Gallinari, etc. It's ridiculous.

What about Tayshaun Prince? There is a strong connection with him and Perry and I can't think of to many better role models who know how to play team ball. He could also be great for Jackson as they have similar frame and skill set.

Assuming Bogdanovic comes over the Kings will have 12 players under contract and somewhere in the neighborhood of $45 million to fill those last three spots depending on how much they pay Bogdanovic.

C Koufos/Cauley-Stein/Papagiannis
PF Labissiere/Giles
SF Jackson/Richardson
SG Hield/Bogdanovic/Temple
PG Fox/Mason

We can quibble over who gets slotted at SF (Bogdanovic? Temple? Richardson?) and note that Bogdanovic or Temple could maybe play spot minutes at PG in a pinch, but however we slice it it seems the Kings need:

A PG - hopefully a veteran that can help Fox (and Mason) in his development
A SF - ideally a bigger bodied one that can play defense and maybe some smallball four
A PF - preferably one that stretches the floor

It'd be perfect to land a SF/PF who can shoot to kill two birds with one stone. Then a PG can be signed and the last roster spot can be used to take on somebody else's bad contract with the Kings landing a promising young player and/or a 1st rounder in return.

At PG the guys I like most on the FA market that make sense and are possible for the Kings are:

Milos Teodosic
Darren Collison
Shelvin Mack
Ty Lawson

At SF:

Otto Porter (WAS will very likely match)
Danilo Gallinari (concerns about injuries)
Joe Ingles

I'd also be fine with the following guys if they came at a reasonable price tag.

Shabazz Muhammad
Jerami Grant
Troy Daniels
Tony Snell

At PF:

Patrick Patterson
Amir Johnson
Ersan Ilyasova


Paul Millsap is an interesting one. I've heard enough about the Kings interest in him to believe that it's real. But it doesn't make much sense for a building team. But then I thought that maybe the driver for that interest is Ranadive. That makes a lot more sense as Millsap is about the closest thing to Draymond Green. I don't know. But as much as I love Millsap's game, I don't want to see the Kings sign him. And I'm not sure why he'd want to go to a rebuilding team when this is probably his last big contract.

I know he's a RFA and we have no chance to land him, but I'd love us to sign Covington.

There is alot of talk lately about stretch 4's but does Joerger even really want that? With DMC here it made some sense but it depends on what style of play coach wants to play.

Does Ilyasova fit that mold? Or is he strictly a PF now.

I don't love him but Jeff green fits as a SF/PF combo. Plus he has experience under Coach Joerger and took a 1 year deal this year, so he might be willing to accept the sort of short term deal that suits our timeline.

Yep exactly. Should also be noted that this is the year we need to be bad to "finish" off the rebuild with another top prospect and talent. All adding Paul Millsap is push our top 5 pick closer to the top 10-12 range, which as we know, has been a massive difference over the years.

Also:

Keith Smith‏Verified account@KeithSmithNBA
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After draft I project 11 teams to have cap space:
1. SAC-$52.8M
2. PHI-$36.6M
3. MIA-$34.5M
4. CHI-$25.5M
5. BRK-$24.7M
6. SAS-$19.5M
7. BOS-$17.7M
8. NYK-$17.5M
9. IND-$13.7M
10. DAL-$13.5M
11. ORL-$12.9M

Teams should be begging us to take their cap. It'll be a pretty big failure if we don't walk from this FA getting some quality future assets for our cap advantage.

Bob Cov is a guy we could potentially steal if Philly doesn't think he's a starter long-term with their core. Dude is an AMAZING defender, one of the best in the NBA and he can stretch the floor, albeit extremely streaky. He's a guy I'd be willing to throw big money on over a bad player like Snell; he actually has positional versatility and is actually damn good defensively.

Not likely as you said as Philly has a ton of space and can match easily, but he's a good guy to be targeting.

1. Max offer to Porter, if Was matches , Spend wisely on another SF - see step 4 (no max contracts)(max 15mil 3 yrs or maybe less)
2 Sign Bogs
3. If no Porter, there will be a lot of teams we can help using our Cap to help them swing big name deals (If we can get 2019 1st round pick) then absorb up to 20mil for max 2 yrs
4. Then depending on cap player, get two players vets min contract, If we need PG,SF,PF get two cheap contracts 1yr and option We will need these roster slots next year