Kings mailbag: Should NBA suspend Jonas Valanciunas? Buy or sell at NBA trade deadline?
The Kings are on the road again and it’s probably better that way. Nothing good happened while they were home.
They went 0-5 during a five-game homestand and that doesn’t begin to describe the horror. De’Aaron Fox, Richaun Holmes and Glenn Robinson III all hurt their knees. Harrison Barnes hurt his foot. Marvin Bagley III hurt his calf. Poor Chimezie Metu suffered a broken wrist when Memphis Grizzlies center Jonas Valanciunas chucked him to the floor with a single-leg suplex off the top rope.
The Kings took one beating after another and failed to fight back, showing serious regression after winning seven of their previous eight games to move above .500. Now they’ve lost five in a row and things could get worse.
The Kings were 12-16 going into Saturday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls. The Kings will also visit the Milwaukee Bucks, Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks and Detroit Pistons before returning to the West Coast to close out the first half of the season.
Will the Kings find a way to win a couple of those games? Should Valanciunas have been fined or suspended for his violent act against Metu? Does the latest losing streak mean the Kings will move from buyers to sellers at the NBA trade deadline? Oh, and what ever happened to Jabari Parker?
You have questions and we have answers in this week’s Kings mailbag.
Note: Some questions have been edited for length or clarity.
Jonas Valanciunas should be suspended
@darthmalhar asks: Can we expect the Kings to file a complaint over Jonas Valanciunas’ actions on Sunday night? That was a bush league, dirty move by him and he deserves a suspension.
Kings general manager Monte McNair complained to the league office and coach Luke Walton complained to the media, calling it a “dirty play” by Valanciunas, but the NBA has turned a blind eye to this incident.
This all started when Metu dunked on Valanciunas with just over three minutes remaining in a 124-110 loss to the Grizzlies. Metu hung from the rim with Valanciunas standing beneath him and nowhere to land safely.
NBA rules allow a player to hang from the rim when he doesn’t have a safe place to land because coming down from there can be dangerous, but Valanciunas didn’t like that. He grabbed Metu’s left leg and spun inward, pulling him down from the rim and tossing him to the floor. Metu, a third-year player on a two-way contract, put his right hand down to break his fall. He ended up breaking his wrist.
Game officials gave Valanciunas a technical foul but determined no flagrant foul had occurred. In response to questions from The Sacramento Bee, the NBA office said it concurred with that ruling.
“In-game, the referees ruled the act to be a dead ball physical taunt and assessed an unsportsmanlike technical foul,” an NBA spokesman said. “Upon league office review, we agree with how it was adjudicated on-court.”
What Valanciunas did was not taunting. Under California law, you could argue it meets the definition of felony assault. There are few things that can happen on a basketball court that would be more dangerous than what Valanciunas did to Metu. Breaking his wrist is bad enough, but he could have cracked his skull or broken his neck.
The war of words on social media has been intense with some echoing Ja Morant’s opinion that Metu had it coming because he tried to embarrass Valanciunas. That’s not how it looked to me, but it doesn’t matter. A violent response to a perceived slight cannot be condoned. Valanciunas should have been ejected, fined and suspended. A weak response from the NBA only encourages this kind of thuggish behavior and leaves players with little choice but to police these things themselves.
Trade deadline: Buy or sell?
@RyanSmithDB asks: After the team’s recent skid, is it safe to assume the Kings will be open to moving anyone other than De’Aaron Fox and Tyrese Haliburton?
Yeah, Fox and Haliburton are essentially untouchable, but McNair has to be willing to listen to offers for everybody else leading up to the March 25 NBA trade deadline.
McNair took this job with a plan to rebuild the roster around Fox, the dynamic 23-year-old point guard who recently signed a maximum five-year, $163 million extension that could reach the $195.6 million super max with incentives. Over the next two to four years, the Kings want to bring in younger players who fit Fox’s timeline. McNair isn’t going to scrap that plan in a desperate attempt to chase the No. 8 seed, not when the Kings are 11th in the Western Conference with the Golden State Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies and Dallas Mavericks standing in their way.
Barnes is probably the only other player the Kings would be reluctant to trade right now. The Athletic’s Sam Amick recently reported: “To this point, sources say teams have been given the impression that the Kings have no interest in moving Barnes.”
Barnes, 28, is having the best year of his career. He is averaging 15.8 points and career highs of 6.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists while shooting 48% from the field and 38.8% from 3-point range.
Barnes is in the second year of a four-year, $85 million deal with a descending salary structure. He made $24.1 million last season in the first year of the deal. He will make $20.3 million next season and $18.4 million in 2022-23. Barnes would be a bargain at that price if he’s still playing at this level two years from now, even if he has moved into a backup role by then, whether that is in Sacramento or somewhere else.
McNair could add a collection of young players and draft picks to his war chest if he chooses to trade Barnes now. He doesn’t have to rush it, but he does have to consider capitalizing while Barnes’ value is at a high point in a trade market with far more buyers than sellers.
DE-FENSE
@csolis28 asks: What is it going to take for the Kings to play some team defense? On this losing streak, they have gone away from it, just when they taste a bit of success.
There’s no question the Kings have taken a big step back on the defensive end.
They showed significant improvement during that 7-1 hot streak in late January and early February, holding opponents to 109.3 points per game, but they are allowing 124.0 points per game during their current five-game losing streak. Opponents are shooting 52.2% from the field and 46.2% from 3-point range.
Walton talks a lot about communication, defensive rotations and defending without fouling. All those things are critical, but you also have to have toughness, intensity and pride. The Kings keep getting outworked and physically overmatched. They stepped up to meet that challenge during the aforementioned eight-game stretch, but they haven’t been able to maintain it.
Injuries have played a part with Fox, Barnes, Bagley and Holmes all missing time recently and the Kings’ depth issues exposed, but that doesn’t begin to explain their issues on defense.
Where’s Jabari Parker?
@stevea2364 asks: What’s Jabari Parker’s story? Hurt or in NBA limbo?
Parker had 19 points, eight rebounds and six assists in a win over the Los Angeles Lakers when the Kings concluded the 2019-20 season in the NBA bubble, but we haven’t seen him since.
Walton has explained that Parker didn’t have a chance to earn a spot in the rotation because he missed time early in the season due to an injury and a personal matter. Walton left the door open when asked about Parker in light of the team’s recent injuries, but we still haven’t seen him get into a game this season.
“We’ve talked to Jabari,” Walton said. “Jabari’s done a great job of staying ready. He hasn’t gotten a fair shot with it, but it was tough with him. He came in not playing in the training camp and then had the injury, but he’s done a nice job of staying ready and we’re looking into that.”
