The Kings have been calling opposing front offices to gauge the value of packaging Harrison Barnes and Kevin Huerter, league sources told Yahoo Sports. Not exactly the youthful tandem that came back from New York, and Sacramento won’t consider moving sophomore sharpshooter Keegan Murray, sources said. But Sacramento has third-year guard Davion Mitchell available for trade, and the Kings hold future picks beyond this year’s first rounder owed to Atlanta to help facilitate any deal before next month’s deadline. Huerter, it should be noted, was recently moved to Mike Brown’s bench in exchange for Chris Duarte. -via Yahoo! Sports / January 5, 2024

James Ham: Mike Brown has spent a couple of minutes on the Harrison Barnes in post game. “We don’t run plays for HB.” Brown pointed to the team scoring 117 points and that should be enough. He also said he defended Zion Williamson well. -via Twitter @James_HamNBA / December 5, 2023

The Kings improved to 3-0 in West Group C while the Timberwolves fell to 2-1 with one game remaining in the group stage. The winner of each group and one wild card team from each conference will advance to the knockout stage with a chance to reach the Final Four Dec. 7-9 in Las Vegas. Harrison Barnes had 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting for the Kings (9-6), who rebounded from back-to-back losses to the New Orleans Pelicans to finish the road trip with a 4-2 record. Malik Monk came off the bench to score 17 points. Domantas Sabonis had 15 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, three steals and three blocked shots. “The New Orleans trip, we had two uncharacteristic games for ourselves, so just to bounce back, finish out the road trip and get back home with a win was big,” Barnes told reporters in Minneapolis. -via Sacramento Bee / November 25, 2023

Brian Windhorst: If you ask executives around the league, Siakam and LaVine are the two names that immediately come up. There will probably be a February surprise that pops onto the market — there always is. There isn’t a lot of “star” availability at the moment, but there is a long way between now and the deadline. -via ESPN / January 8, 2024

But after their disappointing 2022-23 season ended with an embarrassing play-in loss to Chicago, Ujiri and Toronto’s front office cut off almost all communication with Siakam last summer, leading the seven-year vet to wonder whether he was being punished, according to a source close to the player. The lack of contact was especially strange, with Siakam entering the final year of his contract. Typically, players of his calibre don’t get that close to free agency without signing an extension. Ujiri’s very public message to Siakam on Media Day: you’ll have to earn it – the natural implication being that he hadn’t already. -via TSN / January 7, 2024

How close was Siakam to getting traded over the summer? It depends who you ask, but there was clearly some very real interest from multiple teams – most notably Atlanta and Indiana – and some very real consideration from the Raptors. Those teams remain in the mix and several others have shown interest, to varying degrees – Sacramento, Dallas, Memphis and Detroit among them. Philadelphia and Golden State could come calling, if they haven’t already, and they just might be interesting enough to push for Siakam’s approval. -via TSN / January 7, 2024