Hawks trade Huerter to Kings
Kings get:
Kevin Huerter
Hawks get:
Justin Holiday
Maurice Harkless
2024 first-round pick (top-14 protected)
Atlanta Hawks: B+
More moves seemed likely after the Hawks added Dejounte Murray in a trade earlier this week, and moving Huerter is the next (though perhaps not last) domino. Adding Murray gave Atlanta a crowd in the backcourt, with Huerter and Bogdan Bogdanovic also competing with him for minutes at shooting guard. Paradoxically, it also left the Hawks pretty thin with just eight proven NBA players before getting to recent first-round picks AJ Griffin and Jalen Johnson.
This deal addresses both issues, flipping Huerter into a pair of wings on cheaper contracts who play bigger while also recouping a bit of the draft value sent to the San Antonio Spurs for Murray.
Of the two players Atlanta gets back, Holiday is more important. Despite being listed an inch shorter and 10 pounds lighter than Huerter, he has been more likely to defend bigger opponents over the course of his career. According to Second Spectrum tracking, 52% of Holiday's defensive matchups last season were against players who primarily played one of the two forward spots as compared to 45% for Huerter.
Entering the final year of his contract, Holiday is making a little less ($6.3 million) than the taxpayer midlevel exception. That savings is important for a team that pushed into the tax with the Murray trade. The Hawks have now moved below the tax line, though they'll go into it by filling out their roster -- pending a possible trade involving power forward John Collins.
As for Harkless, he's a fringe rotation player on a good team at this stage of his career. Harkless played sparingly as a poor fit with the Miami Heat before finding a larger role with Sacramento, starting 44 of the 73 games he played for the Kings the past two seasons. At 6-foot-7, Harkless can defend bigger forwards, but his iffy shooting (31% on 3s last season, 32% career) limits his offensive value.
The draft pick Atlanta gets out of this deal is much more heavily protected than the ones the Hawks sent to San Antonio. There's a three-year window from 2024 through 2026 for it to convey, though protection never drops below top-10 in 2026. According to The Athletic, it would otherwise convert into a pair of second-round picks.
In a vacuum, I'm not sure whether I'd rather have Huerter or two players and a draft pick that realistically might not convey. (Sacramento has picked outside the top 10 just twice in the past 14 years, one of which came when the team owed an unprotected first-rounder in 2019.) Within the specific context of Atlanta's situation, however, this was a trade worth doing.
Sacramento Kings: B-
As Kings plans go, the one they've executed in the first couple days of NBA free agency seems better than most. Sacramento has added a pair of wings in their mid-20s (Malik Monk, who agreed to a deal yesterday, is 24 and Huerter will turn 24 later this summer) who shoot the ball well. Both hit 39% of their 3-point attempts last season and are on reasonable contracts.
Huerter ended up being traded on the very first day of the four-year, $65 million extension he signed with the Hawks last fall. That deal pays him like a midtier starting wing, which is what Huerter was in Atlanta. Huerter is a plus 3-point shooter on decent volume (7 attempts per 36 minutes last season) who can handle the ball a bit and isn't a defensive liability.
The big Kings-specific question is how much of an upgrade Huerter is over Donte DiVincenzo, acquired by Sacramento at the trade deadline in exchange for Marvin Bagley III. The Kings opted not to make DiVincenzo a qualifying offer, allowing him to become an unrestricted free agent, and the additions of Huerter and Monk surely indicate he's headed elsewhere.
Huerter is undoubtedly the better player at this stage over DiVincenzo. He's a stronger shooter, particularly as compared to what we saw from DiVincenzo coming off ankle surgery last season (he shot 34% from 3, dragging his career mark down to 35%), three inches taller and nearly two years younger.
Certainly, Sacramento wasn't obligated to bring back DiVincenzo after getting a free look at him after the deadline. But I'm not convinced the difference between their next contracts will be worth giving up a pick that could still be quite painful from the Kings' standpoint.
Given the importance Sacramento has placed on ending the NBA's longest playoff drought and the opportunity teams now have to reach the play-in tournament, tanking to keep the pick won't be an option. So if the Kings do send one to Atlanta, it will likely be in the middle of the first round.
With the additions of Huerter and Monk, Sacramento's top-eight rotation looks pretty solid. Either Huerter or Monk could flank De'Aaron Fox in the backcourt with Harrison Barnes and No. 4 pick Keegan Murray at forward and Domantas Sabonis at center. That would leave Mitchell and the other guard coming off the bench along with center Richaun Holmes.
After that, the Kings' depth declines in a hurry to the likes of Terence Davis, Trey Lyles and Chimezie Metu. Depending on whether the Monk deal is completed using Sacramento's non-taxpayer midlevel exception or cap space, the Kings will have either their $5.4 million room midlevel or $4.1 million biannual exception available to continue filling out the bench.
Monk heads north up the 5
This time a year ago, Malik Monk didn't get a qualifying offer from the Charlotte Hornets and took a one-year "prove it" deal at the minimum with the Los Angeles Lakers. Monk proceeded to do just that, emerging as a bright spot in a lost Lakers season by starting 37 games and averaging a career-high 13.8 PPG.
Because Monk was on a one-year deal, the Lakers couldn't offer him any more to come back than the $6.5 million taxpayer midlevel. Instead of taking his chances building his value again and using early Bird rights to re-sign next summer, Monk went from SoCal to NorCal, signing a two-year, $19 million deal with the Sacramento Kings.
Now that the Kings have added another young shooting guard in Kevin Huerter via trade Friday, it's unclear whether Monk will start in Sacramento. Either way, he'll play a big role while being reunited with his Kentucky teammate De'Aaron Fox. Monk's high-volume 3-point shooting (39% on 7.4 attempts per 36 minutes last season) is a good fit next to Fox and Davion Mitchell, who will benefit from the floor spacing provided by Huerter and Monk.
Monk won't help as much at the defensive end of the court, where he's a below-average rebounder and generates relatively few steals. But $9.5 million on a short-term deal is a good investment in a player who could continue to grow at age 24. From Monk's perspective, this contract gets him back into unrestricted free agency just as he's in his prime years.
Hawks trade Huerter to Kings
Kings get:
Kevin Huerter
Hawks get:
Justin Holiday
Maurice Harkless
2024 first-round pick (top-14 protected)
Atlanta Hawks: B+
More moves seemed likely after the Hawks added Dejounte Murray in a trade earlier this week, and moving Huerter is the next (though perhaps not last) domino. Adding Murray gave Atlanta a crowd in the backcourt, with Huerter and Bogdan Bogdanovic also competing with him for minutes at shooting guard. Paradoxically, it also left the Hawks pretty thin with just eight proven NBA players before getting to recent first-round picks AJ Griffin and Jalen Johnson.
This deal addresses both issues, flipping Huerter into a pair of wings on cheaper contracts who play bigger while also recouping a bit of the draft value sent to the San Antonio Spurs for Murray.
Of the two players Atlanta gets back, Holiday is more important. Despite being listed an inch shorter and 10 pounds lighter than Huerter, he has been more likely to defend bigger opponents over the course of his career. According to Second Spectrum tracking, 52% of Holiday's defensive matchups last season were against players who primarily played one of the two forward spots as compared to 45% for Huerter.
Entering the final year of his contract, Holiday is making a little less ($6.3 million) than the taxpayer midlevel exception. That savings is important for a team that pushed into the tax with the Murray trade. The Hawks have now moved below the tax line, though they'll go into it by filling out their roster -- pending a possible trade involving power forward John Collins.
As for Harkless, he's a fringe rotation player on a good team at this stage of his career. Harkless played sparingly as a poor fit with the Miami Heat before finding a larger role with Sacramento, starting 44 of the 73 games he played for the Kings the past two seasons. At 6-foot-7, Harkless can defend bigger forwards, but his iffy shooting (31% on 3s last season, 32% career) limits his offensive value.
The draft pick Atlanta gets out of this deal is much more heavily protected than the ones the Hawks sent to San Antonio. There's a three-year window from 2024 through 2026 for it to convey, though protection never drops below top-10 in 2026. According to The Athletic, it would otherwise convert into a pair of second-round picks.
In a vacuum, I'm not sure whether I'd rather have Huerter or two players and a draft pick that realistically might not convey. (Sacramento has picked outside the top 10 just twice in the past 14 years, one of which came when the team owed an unprotected first-rounder in 2019.) Within the specific context of Atlanta's situation, however, this was a trade worth doing.
Sacramento Kings: B-
As Kings plans go, the one they've executed in the first couple days of NBA free agency seems better than most. Sacramento has added a pair of wings in their mid-20s (Malik Monk, who agreed to a deal yesterday, is 24 and Huerter will turn 24 later this summer) who shoot the ball well. Both hit 39% of their 3-point attempts last season and are on reasonable contracts.
Huerter ended up being traded on the very first day of the four-year, $65 million extension he signed with the Hawks last fall. That deal pays him like a midtier starting wing, which is what Huerter was in Atlanta. Huerter is a plus 3-point shooter on decent volume (7 attempts per 36 minutes last season) who can handle the ball a bit and isn't a defensive liability.
The big Kings-specific question is how much of an upgrade Huerter is over Donte DiVincenzo, acquired by Sacramento at the trade deadline in exchange for Marvin Bagley III. The Kings opted not to make DiVincenzo a qualifying offer, allowing him to become an unrestricted free agent, and the additions of Huerter and Monk surely indicate he's headed elsewhere.
Huerter is undoubtedly the better player at this stage over DiVincenzo. He's a stronger shooter, particularly as compared to what we saw from DiVincenzo coming off ankle surgery last season (he shot 34% from 3, dragging his career mark down to 35%), three inches taller and nearly two years younger.
Certainly, Sacramento wasn't obligated to bring back DiVincenzo after getting a free look at him after the deadline. But I'm not convinced the difference between their next contracts will be worth giving up a pick that could still be quite painful from the Kings' standpoint.
Given the importance Sacramento has placed on ending the NBA's longest playoff drought and the opportunity teams now have to reach the play-in tournament, tanking to keep the pick won't be an option. So if the Kings do send one to Atlanta, it will likely be in the middle of the first round.
With the additions of Huerter and Monk, Sacramento's top-eight rotation looks pretty solid. Either Huerter or Monk could flank De'Aaron Fox in the backcourt with Harrison Barnes and No. 4 pick Keegan Murray at forward and Domantas Sabonis at center. That would leave Mitchell and the other guard coming off the bench along with center Richaun Holmes.
After that, the Kings' depth declines in a hurry to the likes of Terence Davis, Trey Lyles and Chimezie Metu. Depending on whether the Monk deal is completed using Sacramento's non-taxpayer midlevel exception or cap space, the Kings will have either their $5.4 million room midlevel or $4.1 million biannual exception available to continue filling out the bench.
Monk heads north up the 5
This time a year ago, Malik Monk didn't get a qualifying offer from the Charlotte Hornets and took a one-year "prove it" deal at the minimum with the Los Angeles Lakers. Monk proceeded to do just that, emerging as a bright spot in a lost Lakers season by starting 37 games and averaging a career-high 13.8 PPG.
Because Monk was on a one-year deal, the Lakers couldn't offer him any more to come back than the $6.5 million taxpayer midlevel. Instead of taking his chances building his value again and using early Bird rights to re-sign next summer, Monk went from SoCal to NorCal, signing a two-year, $19 million deal with the Sacramento Kings.
Now that the Kings have added another young shooting guard in Kevin Huerter via trade Friday, it's unclear whether Monk will start in Sacramento. Either way, he'll play a big role while being reunited with his Kentucky teammate De'Aaron Fox. Monk's high-volume 3-point shooting (39% on 7.4 attempts per 36 minutes last season) is a good fit next to Fox and Davion Mitchell, who will benefit from the floor spacing provided by Huerter and Monk.
Monk won't help as much at the defensive end of the court, where he's a below-average rebounder and generates relatively few steals. But $9.5 million on a short-term deal is a good investment in a player who could continue to grow at age 24. From Monk's perspective, this contract gets him back into unrestricted free agency just as he's in his prime years.