Carl Landry’s second run in Sacramento looked like a smart bet at the time. Instead, it turned into the kind of contract the Kings would like to erase from memory.
Back in 2013, Sacramento handed Landry a four-year deal worth $26 million, or $6.5 million per season. Fastbreak Hoops (@FastbreakHoops5) pegged it as the worst contract in Kings history, and it’s easy to see why when you trace how quickly it went sideways.
Landry had already shown he could be a useful scorer and rebounder in a reserve role. During the 2009-10 season with Sacramento, he put up a career-best 18 points and 6.5 rebounds in 28 games. In a full season with the Kings, those numbers settled to 11.9 points and 4.8 rebounds, still solid production for a bench big backing up Jason Thomspon.
The problem came after the money changed hands. Landry missed the first three months of the 2013-14 season after hip surgery, then tore the meniscus in his right knee in March.
That injury needed season-ending surgery, and the result was a brutal first year of the deal. He finished with career lows of 4.2 points and 3.2 rebounds in just 18 games, including one start.
He did manage a better season after that, appearing in 70 games with 15 starts, the third-most of his career. The 6-foot-9 power forward averaged 7.2 points and 3.8 rebounds, but that wasn’t enough to change the bigger picture.
By the 2015 offseason, Sacramento moved on and traded Landry to the Philadelphia 76ers for the draft rights to Artūras Gudaitis and Luka Mitrović.
The size of the contract is part of why these debates usually get heated, but so is what happened on the floor. In Landry’s case, the injuries and the drop-off made the deal hard to justify almost from the start.
That wasn’t even his first exit from Sacramento. The Kings had already traded him at the 2011 trade deadline, sending him to the New Orleans Hornets, now the New Orleans Pelicans, for Marcus Thornton and cash considerations.
For context, the Kings have also made major financial commitments elsewhere, including more than $400 million to De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis over the past several seasons. Fox was a rising star, and Sabonis helped end the franchise’s 16-year playoff drought. Former general manager Monte McNair believed those extensions were justified, even though he traded Fox last February and Sabonis' tenure could end this season.
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