De'Aaron Fox/Zach LaVine trade grades
The Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, and Chicago Bulls pull off a fun, somewhat surprising trade of their own
While rumors of De’Aaron Fox leaving Sactown had been rumbling like distant thunder for a long time, they felt exactly that: distant.
That is, of course, until the reporting came that Fox was politely requesting a trade (not demanding; that incurs a fine) and even more politely suggesting it be to San Antonio.
While Fox hasn’t exactly been dogging it like Jimmy Butler, he’s scored 20 points or fewer in eight of his last nine games (a minor injury after a scary fall stole a few more from him), far below his 25 PPG average. Sandbagging, playing carefully to avoid further injury, or whatever, he got his wish. The Kings shipped Fox to San Antonio. But the return was a surprise, at least to me!
The trade:
Whoa. (Immediately, you can’t help but compare what the Kings got — a borderline All-Star player and a solid amount of interesting draft capital — to what the Mavericks got for Doncic, a vastly superior player to Fox. And man, Dallas fans, I’m sorry.)
Let’s break it down for all three teams. Thank the basketball gods this one happened at 8:30 pm, a slightly more reasonable hour than yesterday’s Doncic/Davis misery (which you can read here! I’m quite proud of it, conditions considered). Can’t wait till Jimmy Butler gets traded at the witching hour on a school day.
Sacramento Kings
I have no idea what my fellow analysts and pundits will say… but I like the fit of LaVine in Sacramento a good bit, at least in the short term!
Fox is a better player than LaVine in a vacuum, but the Kings haven’t suffered much without him. Fellow guard Malik Monk has been able to step up and take the reins whenever Fox rests without missing too many beats, and the Kings have actually been slightly worse with Fox on the court than off. Relatedly, shooting has been a scarce commodity with DeMar DeRozan and Domantas Sabonis operating in the paint next to Fox.
LaVine brings the rangefinder. The shotmaking has been frankly unbelievable: he’s shooting 51% from the field and a mind-numbing 45% from deep on more than seven attempts per game. He’s even been superb at the rim, where he’s surprisingly prolific — more than a third of his shots come at the rack, a good number. Although LaVine is known for his triples and dunk-contest exploits, he’s an underrated midair technician on tough layups:
Synergy rates LaVine “very good” or “excellent” in the pick-and-roll, in transition, spotting up, and careening around handoffs; he’s been downright dominant in isolation. This is a capital-S Scorer, but with plenty to differentiate him from DeRozan’s free-throw-line artistry. I expect the Sabonis/LaVine handoff combination to be explosive. He should be a snugger fit on offense than Fox.
LaVine’s on-ball defense has even been pretty good this year, although his head remains in orbit off-ball. The team will suffer defensively without Fox to an extent, as Fox is a better defender than Monk, too, but it’s entirely plausible that the team’s offense (which currently ranks 11th) can find a top-five ranking for the rest of the season.
No, this trade doesn’t make them contenders, but neither does it consign Sacramento to the godless desert it had wandered in since the early 2000s. If they’re worse, it won’t be by much; this team started so poorly that their head coach got fired just months into a contract extension.
There’s a real chance the team continues their recent hot streak (or at least holds serve), and they added a couple of firsts and oodles of seconds! The Hornet's first is entirely fake, as it’s lottery-protected and will turn into two seconds next year, but the Wolves ‘31 unprotected pick is quite juicy. The Kings could trade that pick alone for a valuable player down the line.
There is a major caveat here: LaVine has been injury-prone for much of his career, while Fox has traditionally been quite healthy. That’s important, and it’s likely a reason why so much draft capital had to be added to the scale to equalize the values.
The money side of things also adds color. Fox is 27 and about to sign what I assume will be a maximum contract extension, as I’ll discuss more in the Spurs section. LaVine turns 30 in a few weeks, and he has two years left after this one at nearly 30% of the salary cap. While Fox will soon command more money annually, LaVine is getting paid a whole lot. If his lousy fortune strikes again, this could look much worse.
But at least Sacramento has the draft picks to console themselves. While losing your 27-year-old franchise cornerstone is never ideal, this is as good a return as could be expected. Too bad this didn’t happen 48 hours ago; the Mavericks could’ve taken notes.
Grade: B
San Antonio Spurs
Fox occupies a really weird spot in the NBA hierarchy.
He’s a very good point guard in an era where there might be, conservatively, at least six better players at his position and possibly as many as 12.1 (Seriously, click that footnote if you don’t believe me.)
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