Kings need to shake precedent and either trade Bogdanovic or commit to signing him
The NBA trade deadline is Thursday and the Kings have one big question to answer by then: Is Bogdan Bogdanovic a part of this team’s future?
If the answer is yes, the Kings shouldn’t trade him and will need to re-sign him this summer. The Kings control Bogdanovic’s free agency and will be able to match any offer. If the answer is no, however, and the Kings view Bogdanovic as potentially too expensive to keep, then they’ll have to get what value they can. This is not a decision the Kings can afford to mess up.
Since Vivek Ranadivé has taken over, the Kings have not handled restricted free agency very well. In 2013, then-general manager Pete D’Alessandro signed and traded restricted free agent Tyreke Evans to New Orleans for a package that returned Greivis Vasquez and a couple of second-round picks. Evans wasn’t phenomenal in New Orleans and the Kings didn’t get a ton of value back, but at least they got some assets.
That was not the case one year later when the Kings faced a similar decision with Isaiah Thomas, coming off a season in which he averaged 20.3 points and 6.3 assists. The Kings opted not to match Phoenix’s very reasonable four-year, $27 million offer and lost Thomas for nothing. While it didn’t work out for Thomas in Phoenix, he went on to become an All-Star and MVP candidate in Boston and Phoenix even got a first-round pick in return. All the Kings had to show for one of their few great draft picks in the last decade was a trade exception (that they didn’t use) and the rights to Alex Oriakhi, who has yet to play a single minute in the NBA (and likely never will).
But that was all under a different general manager. Has restricted free agency been much different under Vlade Divac? Ben McLemore was the first player the Kings could have made a restricted free agent but they didn’t even bother extending a qualifying offer and he became an unrestricted free agent. McLemore had disappointed and failed to live up to his lottery billing so this was unsurprising. Still, the Kings likely knew that they weren’t going to re-sign McLemore and failed to get any value for him at the trade deadline.
The Kings faced a similar situation with Willie Cauley-Stein. While Cauley-Stein hadn’t disappointed to the same degree as McLemore, it seemed clear throughout the season that the Kings would look to move on during the summer, and move on they did, signing Dewayne Dedmon and Richaun Holmes. Cauley-Stein signed a veteran’s minimum contract with the Golden State Warriors. It’s possible the Kings might not have wanted to shake things up too much last season with the team fighting for a possible playoff spot and playing well, but they still made a big move for Harrison Barnes that changed the dynamic of the team. Getting value for Cauley-Stein, especially if they knew there was a low chance they would retain him, would have been smart asset management. Instead, they once again received nothing.
Bogdan Bogdanovic is one of the better players on this Kings squad. He could easily command a similar contract to the four-year, $94 million deal Buddy Hield received this summer. The Kings could afford to give it to him, but would they consider that too tough to swallow given the needed future investments in players like De’Aaron Fox and Marvin Bagley? If so, they need to make the tough decision to trade him now, because losing him for nothing would be so much worse.