NBA

The Sacramento Kings Had No Leverage In The De’Aaron Fox Trade

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The return that the Sacramento Kings received in the De’Aaron Fox trade might not have been the value that they were looking for. But they didn’t have much of a choice, as they had virtually no leverage in the situation.

De’Aaron Fox & His Agent Handcuffed The Kings’ Options

Fox was the best player on the trade market. It was made known early last week that Sacramento was fielding calls regarding their star point guard, just in time for the rumor mill to take full swing as the deadline approached.

But there was only one call that really mattered, thanks to his agent, Rich Paul.

The entire situation started with De’Aaron Fox turning down a contract extension over this past offseason. It was thought that he wanted to gauge the direction the Kings’ franchise was headed in, and whether they could maintain a winning culture. They’ve struggled to maintain a .500 record so far in 2024-25, which led to behind-the-scenes frustration.

Enter: Paul. Fox and his agent essentially let Sacramento know that they should trade Fox while they could. He wouldn’t be re-signing in with the Kings at the expiration of his deal after 2026, so they’d might as well get some value in exchange while they could.

But there was a stipulation. They had a destination in mind, San Antonio, and reportedly went as far as to tell other teams that he would only sign an extension with the Spurs.

Fox Wanted To Be In San Antonio All Along

The Kings were handcuffed. Their first option was to take the offers from teams that knew Fox wouldn’t re-sign with them, at whatever value he had as a year-and-a-half rental. Or, they could be at the total mercy of the Spurs. Whatever the package was that San Antonio had to offer was the one they’d have to accept.

They could of course keep Fox, and risk getting nothing in exchange when he left in free agency.

They chose option B. They chose to accept the deal presented by the Spurs, though it wasn’t actually San Antonio that they were getting their return pieces from. The deal turned into a three-way trade, with the centerpiece being Zach LaVine from the Chicago Bulls. The Spurs did send over three first round picks, only one of which has a good chance of being of any real value.

The Kings are hoping that they can remain competitive despite the loss of their star point guard. They won a handful of games recently without Fox while he nursed an injury, and there are reasons to remain optimistic, at least for the remainder of this year.

Sacramento would of course liked to get more in return for De’Aaron Fox, but there wasn’t much that they could do without any leverage in the situation.