Big man Domantas Sabonis doesn’t mind playing out his NBA career with the Sacramento Kings, as he revealed in an interview with Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. The Kings had acquired Sabonis in a trade with the Indiana Pacers, who received Tyrese Haliburton and Buddy Hield, and both teams had made the playoffs since the deal. For one, Haliburton led the Pacers to the Eastern Conference finals last season, while in 2023, the Kings reached the postseason for the first time since 2006.
Asked about possibly ending his career with the Kings, Domantas Sabonis was direct.
“Yeah, of course. They’ve only been nice. It’s been amazing. The fans have been awesome,” the son of Hall of Famer Arvydas Sabonis said in the interview with HoopsHype. “As a player, you always want to build a legacy somewhere, and you can’t do it if you’re not in one place and doing great things for that team. Obviously, it depends on my performance and the team’s performance, but that definitely would really be a cool thing.”
The Kings move forward
After a relatively disappointing 2024 season, where they lost in the play-in tournament to the New Orleans Pelicans, the Kings landed DeMar DeRozan in a sign-and-trade with the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls had seemingly committed to a rebuild, dealing away DeRozan and trading Alex Caruso to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Josh Giddey.
However, Lonzo Ball might return to the Bulls, which gives the ascendant Coby White a playmaker and guard defender beside him. Still no one knows whether Ball can return to the form that helped push the team to the best record in the Eastern conference at one point in 2022.
Nevertheless, DeRozan looks to revitalize his career with the Kings, having missed the playoffs for five out of six seasons after consistent postseason appearances with the Toronto Raptors.
It was just his luck that the Raptors kept bumping into LeBron James, the biggest obstacle to the Raptors winning a title before Kawhi Leonard signed there.
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Playing with DeRozan should also add more offensive versatility to the Kings, who already employ a dynamic duo in De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. They’ll have a potent weapon in the mid-range who can create his own shot.
Likewise, his veteran experience will give the relatively young team some stability as the offense slows down in the postseason, and their youth and speed won’t quite work as well as it did.
It’s easy to understand Sabonis’ willingness to spend his career with the Kings, if they make consistent playoff appearances. However, the loaded Western Conference might have something to say about that.
