It must be exhausting being a fan of the Sacramento Kings. Baffling transfer after baffling transfer appears to sabotage a group with a loyal but tortured fan base, with one current transfer already coming again to hang-out them. In the summertime of 2023, the Kings accomplished a 3-way signal and commerce with the Chicago Bulls and San Antonio Spurs, the place they obtained DeMar DeRozan.
In change, they shipped veteran Harrison Barnes and a 2031 choose swap to the Spurs to make the salaries work. That commerce has became a catastrophe for the Kings. Who would have thought that Barnes would play so effectively for the Spurs?
HARRISON BARNES AND A KINGS 2031 PICK SWAP FOR NOTHING.
Brian Wright 🫡
— Zach (@ZachNBA_) November 19, 2025
He has began greater than 90 video games since being in San Antonio and has been a flawless match subsequent to famous person Victor Wembanyama. In spite of everything, his dimension at 6’8″ and taking pictures capacity have made him the proper stretch 4.
Final season, he drilled a career-high 43.3% from three, and he even received NBA Participant of the Week for November 18-24, 2024. This season, he has been as impactful, taking pictures 48.6% from deep and even just lately placing the Memphis Grizzlies into an early hibernation.
HARRISON BARNES SCORES 7 STRAIGHT.
DE’AARON FOX WITH THE FILTHY WINDMILL SLAM.
SPURS END THE GAME ON AN 11-0 RUN TO SEAL W. pic.twitter.com/qxo37dDpLd
— NBA (@NBA) November 19, 2025
He scored seven straight factors in crunch time to seal a Spurs win, with them lacking three of their 4 finest gamers. If Barnes’ resurgence weren’t sufficient to annoy Kings followers, he just lately dropped 20 factors in opposition to Sacramento.
In the meantime, fellow former Kings participant De’Aaron Fox had 28 when the 2 groups confronted off on November sixteenth. Fox enjoying effectively subsequent to Barnes has to remind Kings followers what they’re lacking, and that does not even embody the 2031 choose swap.
The Harrison Barnes commerce is a catastrophe for the Sacramento Kings
The Kings have missed the playoffs all however as soon as previously 25 years and seem poised to take action once more this season. This makes the Kings’ choice to commerce a 2031 choose swap to the Spurs to dump Barnes baffling.
That choose may completely be a lottery choose, a excessive one even with the choice being far sufficient out that there’s a probability that not one of the Kings’ present gamers are even on the group come 2031. That doubtless means an inevitable rebuild, and the Kings wasted choose after choose throughout their 16-year playoff drought, seldom discovering gems within the draft.
If the Spurs are the most effective groups within the NBA in 2031, and the Kings are one of many worst, the Kings would have traded a lottery choose for an growing older DeRozan. Yikes.
That underscores simply how terrible the Barnes commerce was for the Kings, who at the moment have a disjointed roster and little means to enhance. Hopefully, they’ll study from their errors, or they could possibly be paying for them come 2031.
