Is Sasha Vezenkov DONE with the Sacramento Kings?

Is Sasha Vezenkov DONE with the Sacramento Kings?

Sasha bankov we had some strange Kings news from over the weekend so the the moral of the story The the punchline here is that Sasha venkov time with the Kings appears to be over now there were conflicting reports over the weekend the first one said that venkov was told by the kings that he’s not going to be part of the team anymore yes but then the second report said venkov told the kings that he’s not going to be part of the team anymore yeah kind of kind of an odd juxtaposition of things because those two things are very very different no they are very very different so again we have Mato andriani um you know like I I do my best to try to vet these guys uh they’re reporters in Europe um and and he says hey he’s been informed by the kings that he’s not part of the play next season his priority is to stay in the NBA Kings will try to trade him sure uh and that came in at like 403 in the morning right and then at 58 we get sort of a rebuttal from mahalles Stefano uh which from like some people on Twitter have told me that he’s closer to Sasha anyway he’s informed from Sacramento Kings and he doesn’t intend to return for a second year of his contract and that’s open whether he’ll continue his career or he’ll decide to return to Europe like both of these are slightly weird because you can’t just say hey I’m not returning and you know in European basketball maybe they have this ability where you can just go somewhere else I certainly know in soccer you can’t inform your club that you don’t want to be there anymore and they can try to find someone who takes on your salary and then work out some sort of transfer fee but in the NBA it’s it’s a lot different um you know he has one year guaranteed uh this coming season at like 6.6 million and then the next year is a team option at 7 million he could walk away from that contract and just say hey just I if you don’t mind I’d like you to void that contract and the Kings could go okay we’ll void your contract but you know with a a clause saying that you can’t you know go to some other team in the NBA um but that would mean he’d walk away from 6.6 million and you know back in Europe he was making like two million bucks a year and that was after like multiple multiple raises and that was to keep him in from going to the NBA right so that’s a lot of money to walk away from him but hey maybe that’s what the plan is so I don’t know it’s conflicting and it’s confusing and I would just say look he didn’t have a great rookie season and I don’t know how he fits going forward um but I for me I’ll keep saying this as much as people might want to blame Sasha I kind of blame the roster as well and just like the right players weren’t in place to support him in the correct way and I thought when he was on the court he is better defensively than I thought he he was going to be I thought the shooting was as advertised he just didn’t get enough reps to actually get in a rhythm and sort of find himself but overall I I thought you know there was clear room for improvement in year two and I was looking forward to seeing him after working with the NBA training staff for an entire offseason what he looked like and I think that they could have cleaned up some of like his his uh his sort of limitations issue um if he was here in Sacramento working so we’ll have to wait and see but I think it’s very rare for a team to actually tell somebody like hey like we’re we’re going to trade you this summer because that’s the only time you do that is when you have a deal already worked out sure so and that’s possible it is it’s possible that the Kings have already worked out a trade and they’re just not going to announce it until the night of the draft we talk about like negotiating you can’t negotiate with free agents your own free agents until the day after the finals teams can be talking to each other right now all they want about like specific trades that that could go down or you know some things that they’ve been working on so we don’t really know what’s happening yeah I don’t I I I guess it it would make sense though if Sasha’s like yeah hey I’m not really sure what I’m doing here and he talked to the Kings and said hey what’s my role going forward and the King said nah like nothing right now you don’t really have one and I think if you’re Sasha and you don’t even have to ask you can read the tea leaves yeah and you can go hey if this team is going to get significantly better in their rotation and they’re going to add let’s say the Kings check all the boxes that that we we want to see them check this off season and let’s say they add Brandon Ingram and then let’s say they add a rotation player a top eight rotation player we Sasha’s not moving up no in the rotation probably it like that’s a really really Steep Hill to climb and so he probably has another season where he’s playing what he play 42 games 12 minutes a night he’s going to get a couple of shots he’s probably mostly going to be a white flag uh here game’s over you go out there and and mess around for a little bit um I think that was kind of his ceiling and this is not a 20-year old dude he’s 28 almost 29 yeah I I don’t I don’t think there was some there’s some version of Sasha venkov where he’s in the king’s rotation and playing Big Time minutes next year and like you said after that his contract’s not guaranteed and the Kings have a window here that they’re that they’re trying to maximize and I don’t I don’t I don’t know if if you’re a big believer in Sasha I would I would want to know how like he’s just not he’s just not the right combination of things to to be effective for the Kings yeah I mean I think that that’s the problem that you have is it there is a world in which he could actually work in Sacramento I told think that there there is a way in which that could happen how how I I think you would you would have to have a super long and super athletic like three and five to go with him like Off the Bench sure so so like look if the Kings well I okay I guess like if you were to go out and sign yonas Valen chunis and have sort of a tough guy back there that’s fine but like you need a Derek Jones Jr or you need you need a long super athletic dude to play with him a guy who can block shots I just think for some of the players on this team it was almost unfair like the way the roster was built was not conducive to their play style or I think a better way to put it is the this this the types of players they have don’t complement each other correctly and so it it’s really hard to blame a guy who you know is again slow-footed doesn’t have great lateral quickness but is a great shooter and an incredible off the- ball mover like he he’s open all the yeah super high IQ but you have to pair that with players that can can defend for him they can they can help take away some of the pressure off of him and the Kings don’t have that style of Team where he could he could fill in and you know even if they would have played him with a guy like Keegan Murray more that might have helped but like if we’re sitting here like trying to scrape together minutes with like weird combinations of players like that’s not going to work and like he he to me he’s too similar to what Trey LS brings to the table but I just think Trey LS is a better allaround player I agree and that that’s kind of it like you have sort of redundancy there and if you would have put Trey at the backup five for a bunch of minutes MH that’s one thing but they didn’t do that and so it’s tough because I don’t think you can I don’t think you can stop anybody if you have Trey Lyles and Sasha venkov playing side by side yeah it can’t be your FR Court no it can’t be your your second your back court off the your front Court Off the Bench and he just doesn’t he just doesn’t do do enough he’s not shooting on the move a lot he’s pretty much like spot up shooter only at least that’s the way the Kings used him he’s not like putting the ball on the deck in playmaking he’s just yeah he’s going to cut back door and he’s going to shoot it when he gets a ball in his hands in the corner or above the break or wherever and it’s not like he set the Nets on fire it’s not like he’s shooting 47% from three he 37 and a half percent yeah he’s a good shooter he he’s not like that’s not to say there’s not a role for him somewhere in the NBA but I think his role is yeah hey we need a little bit of shooting tonight let’s get Sasha out there um I don’t know that there’s going to be much for him beyond that especially because like he said he turns 29 in August yeah he’s going to be 29 for all of next season in his second year in the NBA like he just it’s just kind of is it is what he is yeah well and I think unfortunately for him too the two injuries they they didn’t just set him back like when you’re injured in the NBA it can be a really really lonely world oh brutal a and when you’re not from here and you’re already lonely and then you have that become an issue where you’re not on the on the court with the fellas yeah hanging out and doing you know having practice and shoot around and all that stuff you’re not able to do it it it can be a dark place so I thought at the end of the season um he said he didn’t make a mistake coming over he doesn’t have any regrets coming over to the NBA um you know that he’s he was excited to see where this went um but you know like I don’t know that the kings are the the perfect spot for him yeah and whether that the Kings can find him a new home or um or if he just goes back to to Europe I mean it it would be complicated but not impossible for him to go back to Europe and it’s possible that he would reduce his salary really low to get a to buy out and go back to Europe that’s possible um I just think it would take some negotiations we’ll have to see how it works

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