Malik Monk’s contract situation is one of the more interesting decisions sitting in front of the Sacramento Kings this offseason.
He’s extension eligible right now, just like Domantas Sabonis, after signing a four-year, $77.8 million deal to stay in Sacramento in 2024. That agreement mattered because Monk was an unrestricted free agent and had the freedom to leave.
For a Kings team trying to run it back after a 46-win season and a Play-In Tournament loss, losing him would have been a major setback. Sacramento used its Early Bird rights to give him the most it could and included a player option in the fourth year.
The market around Monk has already told part of the story. The Orlando Magic reportedly tried to sign him, but that interest never turned into a trade market. The Kings have also tried to move Monk for more than a year, and around the league his contract is viewed as a negative-value asset.
That reality makes the simplest path easy to see: let him play out the final two seasons, then - if he opts in to the player option - let him reach free agency in 2028. Still, there’s a case for Sacramento to explore an extension anyway.
The league has made extensions the default for both rookies and veterans, with free agency becoming more of an afterthought. That won’t really change until a new CBA alters the mechanics.
And with the NBA openly exploring expansion and looking to add two teams soon - possibly as soon as 2028 - roster-building could get even more complicated. An expansion draft would be the first since 2004.
Boston Celtics assistant GM Mike Zarren recently talked about how that kind of future affects planning, saying, “The more good contracts you have, the more good contracts you’ll have left after an expansion draft…the more good players you have, the more you’ll have left.”
That idea matters for Sacramento, too. By 2028, Keegan Murray is the only non-rookie scale money currently on the books.
The roster will obviously look different by then, but the Kings could still have five or six spots to fill with non-rookies. Those are the kinds of slots where having useful players on workable contracts becomes important.
Monk fits that conversation. He has limitations, but he’s been a good player in Sacramento.
The problem is that his current deal is not considered a good one by the league. That creates an opening for the Kings to try to reshape the value of the contract.
What that would look like is the same kind of market-correction extension teams use when a veteran is being paid like a star but needs to be brought closer to what the league actually sees. C.J.
McCollum’s recent extensions are a useful example. In that setup, the first-year salary drops back to the average annual value of the previous deal and then declines from there.
For Monk, that kind of structure would likely require him to decline his player option before extending, since that extra year has been a major sticking point. If Sacramento wanted to keep him immediately trade eligible after extending, the 2028-29 salary could be set with only a 5% decrease from 2027-28 instead of 8%. That would put the number at around $17.9 million in 2028-29, which would amount to a $500,000 raise.
There are tradeoffs either way. A deal at that level would make Monk subject to extend-and-trade restrictions, but it would also avoid the kind of overpay Sacramento ran into with then-31-year-old Dennis Schroder, whom the Kings acquired via sign-and-trade using the full NTMLE last summer and then had trouble moving once they realized how expensive the contract was.
At age 30, Monk at that number makes more sense than paying a journeyman point guard nearly double his market value. And even if his production holds steady, his value to Sacramento goes beyond the box score.
Monk’s career has already taken him through just about every stop a player can take: five-star recruit, lottery pick, no qualifying offer, minimum contract, NTMLE deal, and then the biggest contract the Kings could offer in 2024. That kind of path gives him real perspective, and that matters for a team with young players who won’t all develop in a straight line.
He can also offer something less tangible but just as useful. Monk wanted to be in Sacramento, and ideally still does.
He was part of the culture shift that helped define the Beam Team, has seen Kings basketball at its best in decades, and understands what Golden 1 Center feels like when the team is rolling. For a young locker room that will almost certainly go through plenty of rough patches over the next few seasons, that has value.
Like a potential Sabonis extension, a Monk extension looks like a long shot. But it probably shouldn’t be dismissed as quickly as it will be.
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