Domantas Sabonis missed most of last season due to injury, and his fate with the Sacramento team was surrounded by trade rumors.
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It was close to D. Sabonis being traded to the Toronto Raptors in February – a decision that was favorably received by the Lithuanian basketball player himself, – ESPN wrote on Wednesday, citing a source well acquainted with the situation.
However, the trade for RJ Barrett and Jakob Poeltl ultimately did not happen due to the large contract of the Austrian center (J. Poeltl), and soon after, D. Sabonis underwent season-ending meniscus surgery.
“Kings” general manager Scott Perry also spoke with center Jalen Duren in early July, but a swap of big men with the Detroit Pistons also did not materialize.
Before the draft, there were talks about D. Sabonis moving to the Charlotte Hornets, a call about the Lithuanian from the Boston Celtics, according to sources, but ultimately the Charlotte club decided to trade LaMelo Ball and rely on their younger roster.
Thus, D. Sabonis remained with the Kings with the remaining two years of a $94 million contract.
According to sources, the 30-year-old Lithuanian has now expressed a desire to renew his commitments to the team and help the Kings perform better next season.
Sacramento’s hope is sparked by young point guard Darius Acuff.
The 19-year-old, whom the Kings were happy to select with the seventh pick in the NBA draft, scored 23.5 points and made 6.4 assists per game last season for the Arkansas team in the NCAA.
D. Acuff said that D. Sabonis wrote to him a couple of days after the draft, congratulating him on joining the team and expressing hope that playing together has potential.
“Sabonis is a great player,” said D. Acuff. “He’s an All-Star level player. Just playing with a guy like that will be a blessing, no doubt.”
D. Sabonis himself went to Las Vegas, where the NBA Summer League games were held. Like other veterans, the Lithuanian did not play there but sat down to talk with representatives of the Kings club.
Last week, Domantas also visited S. Perry in Sacramento.
Scott Perry, who became the Kings’ general manager in the spring of 2025, had just started working at the club when he sat down with D. Sabonis for a two-hour open conversation, during which various issues were discussed, including trade possibilities.
Now another meeting took place in Sacramento, where they discussed and reached an agreement on what would be needed for the Lithuanian to play well next season.
According to ESPN, D. Sabonis might have been offered a contract extension this summer, but talks about a new contract did not take place. The Lithuanian changed his basketball agency, shaking hands with CAA Sports last week.
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“He will play hard,” S. Perry said after talking with D. Sabonis. “I don’t think he knows any other way to compete. So, regardless of what might have happened or not happened, Domas assured that he will play and fight. That is my expectation. We need his best version this year, and for him to achieve the goals he has as a player for the rest of his career – he knows how he has to play.”
In 2022, after being traded from the Indiana Pacers to Sacramento for then-young Tyrese Haliburton, D. Sabonis initially looked promising in the team, playing alongside point guard De’Aaron Fox.
Although there were critics of the trade at the time, the Kings had not seen great success in the NBA for a couple of decades.
After arriving in Sacramento, D. Sabonis was again selected for the All-Star game, was seventh in the NBA Most Valuable Player voting, and made the third NBA All-NBA team when he led the Kings to 48 wins in a season.
Then the Sacramento club offered to extend the contract, and the next season the team played similarly – winning 46 games, although this resulted in ninth place in the West, not third.
The following season, coaches changed, S. Perry arrived, and the Kings’ performance on the court worsened, as did expectations for the acquired veterans – Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan.
Last season, the Kings finished with only 22 wins but did not get a very high pick in the draft.
Now the Kings have parted ways with D. DeRozan and are talking with other veterans – Russell Westbrook and Victor Oladipo.
It seems the team could try to survive a poor season without chasing wins, hoping to get a higher pick in the next NBA draft, but S. Perry rejects this path, which in the NBA is called “tanking.”
“I hate that word,” said S. Perry.
With a new young point guard and a somewhat reconstructed roster, the Kings will try to be a healthier and better team with coach Doug Christie, who remains at the helm for a second season.
“To be better in the second year than the first,” said S. Perry. “Those are the expectations – we want standards by which people see our basketball and say: ‘Okay, this is what Kings basketball looks like.’
That is the most important thing we want to instill. And then expect to win more games than last year. I think that is realistic, those are our clear expectations.”
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