As the Kings keep shaping a roster around Darius Acuff Jr.’s rookie year and Maxime Raynaud’s second season, Jalen Duren has emerged as a name worth watching in Sacramento.
Duren was already on the Kings’ radar earlier this week, when reports surfaced that general manager Scott Perry could explore the Detroit Pistons center as a possible target. At the time, there was still a real path to a sign-and-trade, with Duren and Detroit said to be far apart on an extension.
The interest around the 22-year-old big man has not gone away. The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics were also listed as suitors, but both teams have since gone in another direction at center, with the Lakers landing Walker Kessler and the Celtics signing Mitchell Robinson.
That shift matters. With two major rivals off the board, Sacramento suddenly looks like the clearest landing spot if Duren and the Pistons can’t bridge the gap.
And the gap is a big one. Duren, who earned an All-NBA Third Team selection last season, put up 19.5 points, 10.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game while shooting 65.0 percent from the field.
He’s also chasing a major payday. According to Senior NBA Insider Michael Scotto, Duren is aiming for close to $40 million annually, or about 25 percent of the NBA salary cap on his next deal.
National NBA Insider & Reporter said Detroit does not want to go above $35 million per year.
For now, the Pistons’ early sign-and-trade openness appears to have faded. Still, Duren remains a restricted free agent, which leaves the door cracked for a team willing to pay up and force Detroit to make a decision.
Sacramento has the space to do it. More importantly, Duren fits the direction the Kings seem to be leaning. He would match the timeline of Acuff and Raynaud, while also giving newly re-signed Zach LaVine and the rest of Sacramento’s backcourt some help on the defensive end.
He’d also be a natural pick-and-roll partner for Acuff.
The biggest obstacle is obvious: unless Sabonis is moved, this kind of deal feels hard to pull off. But the Kings have not shut the door on trading their longtime big man, and the unexpected turns of this offseason have already changed the market in ways nobody could have predicted.
If Sacramento does build a Sabonis-Duren package, it could be one of those rare moves that helps both sides. Detroit would get Sabonis’ offensive game. The Kings would get younger, bigger, and more aligned with where their roster seems headed.
In Other News...
Kings Seem Ready To Move On From Two More Veterans
The Kings have already spent part of the free-agent period reshaping the back end of the roster, dealing Devin Carter in a salary-dump move and picking up the second-year team option on Killian Hayes. Those decisions have given Sacramento some flexibility as it continues sorting through the rest of the depth chart, especially with the front office still looking at a handful of available names to see which fits best around the current group.
Drew Eubanks and Doug McDermott appear to be the next veterans on the way out of the picture, even though nothing has been formally announced yet. Sacramento is still weighing other free agents such as Precious Achiuwa, Daeqwon Plowden and Russell Westbrook, with Achiuwa and Plowden emerging as priorities as the Kings try to keep the roster moving toward a cleaner fit and a little more balance. [Read more 🡒]
Kings Just Made Two Depth Moves Fans Will Want To Track
The Kings kept working the edges of their roster by signing Jonathan Mogbo and Adam Flagler to two-way contracts, a familiar kind of summer move for a team trying to strengthen its depth without sacrificing flexibility. Mogbo arrives as a forward who was drafted in 2024 and spent his rookie season with Toronto, while Flagler comes in as a guard with experience in the Thunder organization and a recent run with the Austin Spurs.
For Sacramento, these are the kinds of additions that can matter later even if they barely register now. Two-way spots often turn into the easiest way to find a useful piece over the course of a long season, and the Kings are clearly adding players with different paths but similar incentives: prove they can stick, earn minutes when called upon, and give the front office more options if the rotation gets tested. [Read more 🡒]
Bucks Explored A Franchise Shifting Move After Giannis News
DeMar DeRozans situation is now one of the more watchable roster questions on Sacramentos summer board, especially as the Kings continue weighing whether theres a workable trade path or whether they have to take a more drastic route. Salary cap limits make a clean deal tough to engineer, and around the league, teams are still sifting through fluid conversations on a few fronts, from Dorian Finney-Smith to possible multi-team constructions involving Marcus Sasser, Isaiah Stewart and others.
For the Kings, the timing matters because the front office is still trying to sort out how to move on without creating a bigger financial mess down the line. If a trade never materializes, waiving DeRozan remains the most realistic escape hatch, but the bigger picture is the same one hanging over several teams right now: the market is active, the ideas are layered, and some of the leagues most ambitious roster talks are still at the stage where interest has not yet turned into action. [Read more 🡒]