Mario Hezonja wants another shot in the NBA, but the Sacramento Kings don’t appear ready to hand him one.
The 31-year-old forward is leaving Real Madrid and trying to make a stateside comeback, which has naturally pushed Sacramento into the conversation. Hezonja’s old connection to Scott Perry is the reason the rumor mill started spinning, but that link may be doing more work than the actual interest behind it.
Perry was in Orlando when the Magic took Hezonja with the fifth pick in the 2015 NBA draft, serving as vice president and assistant general manager to Rob Hennigan. Hezonja never quite matched that lottery billing there, posting 6.9 points per game over three seasons.
He later reunited with Perry in New York after Perry became the Knicks’ general manager in 2018. Hezonja signed a one-year, $6.5 million deal and talked at his introductory press conference about the comfort of being around familiar faces.
"Meeting again with people that I'm super familiar with and New York, as a team, has a lot of players that I already know from a personal standpoint," Hezonja told reporters at his introductory press conference on July 10, 2018.
That Knicks season was his best NBA stretch statistically, as he averaged 8.8 points. It also produced the signature moment of his NBA career: a game-winning block on then-Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James.
Even with that solid run, New York moved on and did not bring him back the next summer. Hezonja then signed a two-year, $3.7 million contract with the Portland Trail Blazers, which ended up being his final NBA stop after he was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies and waived.
From there, he headed back to Europe and rebuilt his résumé overseas, where he has become a multi-time champion and collected several awards for his play.
Now Hezonja is looking to return to the NBA, and Sacramento has been floated because of Perry’s history with him. Perry has shown a willingness to revisit players he previously drafted or signed, which is part of why the Kings keep getting mentioned.
But according to Matt George, the Kings are not actively circling Hezonja right now.
"I poked around about this, and from what I can gather, the Sacramento Kings don't necessarily have Mario Hezonja on their radar at this point," Matt George said on " The Matt George Podcast" on Wednesday. "Doesn't mean things can't change, but from what I've checked in on, I do not believe there is any connection between the Sacramento Kings and Mario Hezonja at this time."
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