The Sacramento Kings are in need of a point guard. They have now traded away two star-level point guards of the last few seasons, and once again are looking for someone to take over at point. Recent Kings trade rumors claim that the team has narrowed in on a couple of star guards as options. We fired up the NBA trade machine to see if we could land a star point guard in Sacramento.
Our Kings trade machine idea looks like this:
Kings Receive: Trae Young
Atlanta Hawks Receive: DeMar DeRozan, Jonas Valanciunas, and Keon Ellis, two first-round picks
This Trae Young-Kings trade idea may satisfy exactly what the Kings are looking for. Young has the chops to lead an elite offense. Pairing him with Domantas Sabonis in the pick and roll would be extremely dangerous. Having Zach LaVine as a third option scorer would be a luxury.
The picks the Kings send out could be protected as they are giving up some value with Keon Ellis, and with Young’s enormous contract, the Hawks could be willing to give him up for less than expected.
Losing DeRozan and Valanciunas doesn’t hurt the Kings' current roster that badly. Young is much younger and would pick up most of, if not all of, the offensive gap left by those two.
As the Kings' trade rumors continue to grow, they need to consider a deal like this to land Young. They’d be able to keep key players like Sabonis and LaVine, while only giving up mid-tier players and a bit of draft capital.
This Trae Young-Kings trade would be betting on the fact that Sabonis and Young could create a pick and roll pairing as formidable as Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokić. If not, the defensive issues Young would bring could cause Sacramento some big issues. But is that a risk worth taking?
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