Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports

Scotto: The Kings have been active in trade talks, and the biggest name that’s come up recently is Pascal Siakam. It seemed for a hot second there that maybe they were going to get him, then talks pulled back. From my standpoint, I had heard that the Sacramento talks for Siakam centered primarily around Harrison Barnes, Kevin Huerter, Davion Mitchell and a first-round pick or so of potential draft pick compensation of a first-round variety for Siakam in those talks.

Ham: There’s certainly interest with the Sacramento Kings. I think we saw it all play out on Friday while the Raptors were here in Sacramento. Not only was Siakam here, but their entire front office was in Sacramento. You kind of had this moment where if something was going to get done, it might get done on one specific day with all of the parties in a room and being able to work through some of these issues that they might have.

The Kings have been in on Siakam for probably the last two years. Same with OG Anunoby. There have been plenty of discussions between these two teams just because they kind of match up, especially what the Kings need and what the Raptors might be looking for. I think when OG was shipped to the Knicks, it sort of sent out a message that this is what the Raptors are looking for. They’re looking for 23, 24-year-old players, and the Kings have Keegan Murray, but the Kings aren’t trading Murray. Everything I’ve heard from inside the walls is they have no interest in trading Murray. The Kings believe him to be a star in the making.

It makes it a little difficult because now is Toronto willing to take on a couple of veterans? Huerter is a guy who’s only 25 years old. He’s under contract for two more years after this year at a reasonable rate. Barnes still has plenty of basketball left in him. At 31 years old, he’s under contract for two years. And then Mitchell is sort of that player looking for a fresh start as a former No. 9 overall pick in 2021. I’m not sure that package is enough to get it done.

I think the Kings would still be in it, but some of the issues that we’re hearing right now at this point might be that Siakam didn’t want to come to Sacramento or he made it known that he would not sign an extension. I don’t have it on my end, but here one of my buddies here at ESPN 1320 in Sacramento, Damien Barling, according to his sources, Siakam made it clear to the Kings that he would likely not re-sign if they did trade for him. That just kind of crushes this entire deal because of the salary structure, and the fact that the Kings wouldn’t have a whole lot of cap space to replace Barnes and Heurter if they did move on from those guys and then lost Siakam in free agency.

The Kings aren’t looking for a rental. They’re looking for the piece that they believe will put them over the top, or at least put them in the championship contention range. Siakam could be that player, but if he’s not willing to buy in and be part of what they’re building here, then I don’t see the Kings coming back to the table.

Scotto: Even on paper the fit would be interesting because you’d have Domantas Sabonis at the five, you’d have Pascal at the four, Murray would have to shift to the three, and then you’d have Malik Monk probably at the two, and De’Aaron Fox at the one on paper. It’s got a lot of pop, no question.

Siakam is going to want a max contract, and if you’re the incumbent team that trades for him, you can offer the most amount of money. I wonder eventually if there would be a push comes to shove moment because, in theory, if Toronto doesn’t want to give him a full max, then would you signal to another team that you don’t want to go there when maybe they would (offer a max)?

There are teams out there that are desperate to improve. Certainly the Detroit Pistons, for example, are a team that’s been linked to him. They’re desperate to improve. For Sacramento, that would be a winning situation for him if he was able to go there. Other teams have certainly called as well.

Huerter has taken a step back this year for whatever reason. For Mitchell, I think it’d be best for both sides at this point for a fresh start because when Keon Ellis took his spot in the rotation, it raised some antennas around the league. I think it’s at a point where other teams see some value in him as a defensive guard. The longer it drags out that a guy who is undrafted and on a two-way contract is playing over a lottery, the optics outside of the organization are not going to look good for his value. I certainly would expect him to be a guy that’s on the move. When I did my top trade targets piece for HoopsHype at the start of the year, he was my top trade candidate there.

As for draft picks, I’m curious what Sacramento would ultimately do for Siakam because I think that would be the needle-moving component if you’re not going to give up Murray, which I’ve heard as well, and any other team I talked to around the league that talks to Sacramento.

Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports

Ham: Heurter was the Kings third-leading scorer on the highest offensive rated team in the history of the NBA. We’ve seen some moments from him where he struggles. I think it started, to be honest, at the 3-Point Shootout in Utah last year during All-Star weekend. You saw him get in his head a little bit. He recovered after that and he had a pretty good March and April for the Kings shooting well from three, but then we got to the playoffs and you had the same exact situation where his 3-point shot went out on the fritz and he almost played himself off the court in the playoffs.

We got to the preseason this year, and out of nowhere, Mike Brown started talking to the media about Chris Duarte getting starts during preseason and that job might be up for grabs. I don’t think Heurter responded well to that. I don’t think he threw a tantrum or anything. I think that it got in his head a little bit and he was looking over his shoulder.

He’s only 25 years old and he’s under contract for two more years at a very reasonable rate. I think that there is some value to him on the open market. But the Kings still owe a 2024 protected pick for him. He’s still on the books as far as the transaction to get him, which makes it even more complicated when you’re going to trade him because now you’re basically if you’re throwing in a pick with Huerter, Barnes, and Mitchell, you’re actually losing another pick already for the Huerter deal in 2024.

Mitchell’s a very good NBA player and he’s a really hard worker. He’s just a square peg in a round hole in Sacramento, and I think we saw it last year like right away with the style of offense they want to play. This uptempo, passing, playing everything through Sabonis. He’s just not made for it. There’s a way that he goes somewhere else and finds a ton of success.

Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

Scotto: There had also been some Zach LaVine chatter a little bit earlier in the season. I had heard the two names that came up there from Sacramento during trade conversations were Kevin Huerter and Harrison Barnes. From Chicago’s side, There is a level of interest in Huerter for sure. To my understanding, they’ve done background intel on him trying to figure out what’s going on there and why he has struggled a little bit this year. He’s a player that they’ve liked. That’s a team (Chicago) that doesn’t want to rebuild. Before this regime, Vivek Ranadivé was there when they tried to give LaVine an offer sheet many years ago.

Ham: I look at the contract that LaVine is under. I factor in the knee injury early in his career. Then you look at the defensive fit and it’s just bad. He’s an electric scorer, but if you don’t play defense Mike Brown’s not going to want to rely on you. You’re committing close to $200 million if you were able to trade for him. I know that there is a lot of chatter around him wanting to play in Sacramento that he would love to pair up with De’Aaron Fox.

But I think when you’re looking for players, I think Siakam’s a winner. Siakam has won an NBA championship, and it’s not to say that Zach isn’t a winner, but he’s been to the playoffs once. The Kings, if they’re trying to build something and you’re looking at this group of players that are in that 28 to 30-year-old range, you want a player that understands how to get you to the next level. I’m just not sure that he’s that guy.

Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Scotto: Kyle Kuzma is a player that other teams around the league are certainly monitoring. Given where Washington is in rebuilding, there are teams out there that certainly think that they would move him. Regarding Sacramento and Kuzma, do you see anything there potentially if Sacramento can’t get Siakam?

Ham: Yeah I do, to be honest with you. Monte McNair basically had a trade worked out with Buddy Hield to the Lakers for Kyle Kuzma and Montrezl Harrell a couple of years ago and it fell through. The Lakers at the last second took the Russell Westbrook deal instead. Then again this summer, the Kings were very interested in Kuzma again. They had negotiations with Harrison Barnes and his group about a potential fit about bringing Harrison back. But then the Kings got to a certain point with negotiations and then went radio silent for like 10 days while they went out and made sure that they were making the right move for themselves. Part of that, from what I know, was to kick the tires again on Kuzma who eventually went back to Washington. We even heard some rumors of him potentially going to Houston this offseason before they were able to land Fred VanVleet.

When a player chooses to go back to a team, that’s not going to be good, giving up Bradley Beal during the offseason, bringing in Jordan Poole, and there’s just not a path forward for them, but he chose to go back there as opposed to going to Sacramento, if that offer was in fact on the table, for a really good situation on a team that just won 48 games and if you look on paper, he’s a perfect fit.

The Kings had the same exact money to offer him. They did. They had over $25 million to offer him, and that’s the deal that he signed. The one thing that I would say about Kuzma and why if I’m the Kings, I’m still in is because he signed the same deal that Buddy Hield and Harrison Barnes signed in Sacramento a few years ago when Ken Catanella was running the money for Vlade Divac, and it’s a declining scale contract.

To me, that’s perfect for the Kings because a couple of years from now, Keegan Murray is going to need to get paid. De’Aaron Fox’s salary will go up, Domantas Sabonis’ salary will go up, and you’ve got Malik Monk that needs to get paid this summer.

Sergio Estrada-USA TODAY Sports

Scotto: Malik Monk is going to be a free agent after this year. This is a guy that, by all accounts, I would think should get paid. He’s put himself in a much better position financially in Sacramento than he was previously before he came to the team. He’s been consistent. He seems to have been about the right things in Sacramento and been a part of a winning team, which helps dictate your value. I would certainly assume that Sacramento would want to keep him long term. What have you heard about his potential free agency future in terms of what he could cost and if Sacramento thinks that they can keep him or not?

Ham: Monk signed a two-year, mid-level deal with the Kings, which puts them in a pretty precarious situation here. The best they can offer, from my math, is a starting salary at $17.4 million with eight percent annual raises. I think it puts it around a four-year, $78 million contract. I think if you would have offered that to Monk at any time before last season, that would have been a no brainer. He would have signed on the dotted line, and he would have signed twice if you wanted.

At this point, that might not be enough. Sacramento has to be really honest about that. They need to be honest about it right now. They need to know if he’s going to be sticking around or if he’s not. I think there are a lot of reasons why he would stick around in Sacramento. Number one, De’Aaron Fox and him are like brothers. They were college backcourt mates at Kentucky. But even more than that, when Malik was in Charlotte, they were never able to be on the same page. He was never able to reach his potential. When he went to the Lakers, he started to reach some of that potential as sort of the secondary guy playing off of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. He found some success there.

When he got to Sacramento… I think that he’s found a way to blossom and allow his personality to come out in a positive way where he is the heart and soul of that team. He’s a catalyst player. Where Malik goes, the Kings go on most nights. You don’t want to have to replace that.

I expect him to chase money. I expect that the Kings will be in the conversation. But at the end of the day, if someone comes through with $25-30 million a year and gives him the keys to the offense and says you’re our starting guard or whatever it is, the Kings are going to have a tough time competing with that.

Scotto: The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and I don’t know for him if he went to another situation, if it would be as good. They’re not the same player, but for example, when Lance Stephenson played outside of Indiana, he wasn’t the same guy. You’ve got to look at that and say, well, maybe it is about fit. For Malik, certainly Sacramento’s been a great situation for him.

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Scotto: We also touched on Keegan Murray, and I wanted to get your thoughts on him, because if they’re going to get Pascal Siakam or Kyle Kuzma, you’re going to move Murray positionally down to the three. Is Sacramento trying to upgrade at the four while moving Keegan to the three? What’s the thought process in Sacramento, given where he’s at, especially since you mentioned they think he can be a star.

Ham: They view him as a star. I’ve had conversations within the walls. I asked the question, would you trade him for Lauri Markkanen last season? The answer was “No. We believe he’ll be better than Markkanen.” So that should tell you everything that you need to know about what they feel about him as a player.

I was also told this by someone within the walls that they view both of the Murray twins as late bloomers, and they have young bodies. For NBA teams, what that means is that if you get him in the right situation with the right training staff, that you can kind of choose your own adventure. If you want to bulk him up and make him a four, that’s fine. If you want to lean him down and make him a three, then you can probably do that as well.

He’s a better athlete than he was in college. He’s a better athlete than he was last year, and he only seems to be getting better. There was a time where I pegged as maybe a league average defender, maybe a little bit above league average and with some switch ability between the three and the four, but I thought he was more of a four than a three. At this point I think he’s more of a three than a four. He can defend the one, the two, the three, as well as the four. He’s showing me that it doesn’t matter what the Kings need. He can fill whatever the void is that they aren’t able to get.

It’s what makes them okay going out and looking at Siakam, LaVine, or Kuzma again because his roster flexibility, his ability to shoot the ball, and defend multiple positions really does give you a wild card if you’re a general manager.

The Tyrese Haliburton situation happened. They’re not going to repeat that unless somebody were to come in with a Godfather offer, and no one’s walking in the door and saying they’ll give you Giannis Antetokounmpo as long as Keegan is in the deal. Those are the types of things that I think it would take for the Kings to move off of him, at least as of right now.

Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Scotto: I heard they would like to get some defensive upgrades if they can. I don’t know if Juan Toscano-Anderson and those 10-day deals are going to fill that. I certainly look for Keon Ellis to be in the mix for a guaranteed contract conversion when they go to the playoffs.

Ham: Once they get through the trade deadline, they’ll make decisions on who’s going to be there long-term, and you need roster flexibility. They love him (Toscano-Anderson). Mike Brown has a long history with him from their time together in Golden State. Then there’s Ellis, who is just a bundle of joy. He’s long and athletic.

Brown said, “I don’t want to compare him to Bruce Bowen, but the way he gets through a screen, the way that he can go over the top of the screen and fight through, or he can go under a screen and still close out fast enough, that reminds me of Bowen.” They have a lot of faith in who he is as a player and what he’s becoming. I expect him to be around. If they have a roster spot that doesn’t need flexibility after the trade deadline, I think he would be a player that would be in line for something like that.

You can follow Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) and James Ham (@James_HamNBA) on X, formerly known as Twitter.