Playing buy or sell with each NBA playoff bubble team

Sacramento Kings: Sell

Just … ugh. The Sacramento Kings were ahead of schedule in 2018-19, winning 39 games and staying in the hunt for the No. 8 seed for quite a while. De’Aaron Fox made a second-year leap that truly gave Kings fans hope for 2019-20.

Then they signed 68 big men, went back to a rudimentary pace and fired the coach who helped them to that success. Instead of Fox being given the freedom to run up and down the court, Luke Walton wanted them playing at a more traditional speed to get the bigs more involved.

A little more than halfway through 2019-20, it’s safe to say which style is best around Fox and Buddy Hield. The Kings need to find pieces to complement these two, yet Bogdan Bogdanovic is set for restricted free agency and Harrison Barnes is locked up for another three seasons after this one. At least Richaun Holmes is good and cheap … until 2021.

The signings of Dewayne Dedmon and Cory Joseph were overpays at the time and now look even worse. Harry Giles wavers between the G League and Sac-town and is a free agent at season’s end. Marvin Bagley III’s injuries haven’t helped the Kings find out how good he is, but there’s someone in Dallas who was available at No. 2 in 2018 instead of Bagley.

Kent Bazemore’s expiring salary is something, at least, but because he was just acquired in a trade, his salary can’t be aggregated with others. Maybe spare parts can be acquired for him. Nemanja Bjelica makes an average of $7 million per year for this season and next and he could help a contender.