Domantas Sabonis spent the entire offseason as a trade rumor. At Kings media day on October 1 he finally addressed it, and he did not bother being diplomatic about it.
“Easy. It’s all made up,” Sabonis told Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops. “I don’t know where you guys get most of it from.” He said he stays in contact with Sacramento’s management and his agents rather than tracking the speculation, adding that “I can’t control any of it.”
The rumors were not invented
He is wrong about that last part, at least on the facts. Jake Fischer and Marc Stein both reported exploratory talks between Sacramento and Charlotte in June, and Stein also reported a possible sign-and-trade framework at the end of June that would have sent Sabonis to Detroit for center Jalen Duren.
None of it closed, and Fischer explained why on a Bleacher Report stream on September 18. “Right now, there’s going to be continued disconnect between the Kings wanting to get back positive value and draft compensation for Sabonis compared to other teams not so eager to give Sabonis the contract extension he’s looking for,” he said. Sacramento wants picks. Rival teams do not want to pay him twice.
The contract is the whole story
Sabonis is 30 and owed $45.5 million this season plus $48.6 million in 2027-28, roughly $94 million across two years. He is a three-time All-Star and one of the best rebounders in basketball, and last season he played 19 games before a meniscus tear ended it, averaging 15.8 points and 11.4 rebounds on 54.3 percent shooting.
He says the knee is right now. “I’m 100%. Feeling good, feeling great,” he said, while admitting he second-guesses how long he waited: “Maybe I should have got the surgery straight away.”
The team around him won 22 games. Sacramento drafted point guard Darius Acuff Jr. seventh overall, is developing Maxime Raynaud at center, and watched Zach LaVine pick up his player option to return to a roster Fischer says the front office also hoped to move him off of. Doug Christie coaches it. Scott Perry runs it. The honest description is a rebuild with two expensive veterans parked on top.
Trade him anyway
Sacramento should move him, and should accept less than it wants to. A 30-year-old center on $94 million over two years, coming off knee surgery, on a 22-win team, is not an asset that gains value by sitting still. Every month the Kings wait, the deal gets smaller and the return drifts from draft capital toward salary filler.
The case for keeping him is real enough. Acuff is a rookie point guard and Sabonis is the best screening and passing partner he will ever have, which is why Fischer expects Sacramento to hold him into January before revisiting the market before the February 2027 deadline. That plan helps a rookie’s statistics. It does not move the Kings any closer to winning games that matter.
For the record, Sacramento’s front office has not publicly said it is shopping him, and no deal has been reported as close. So Sabonis is right that he did not ask for any of this and right that he cannot control it. He is wrong that it was fabricated. The Kings tested the market, learned what the league thinks the contract is worth, and did not like the answer. That conversation restarts in about three months whether he reads about it or not.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.