Zach LaVine has made his move, and it leaves Sacramento staring at a much tighter offseason picture.
According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, LaVine has picked up his $49 million player option for the 2026-27 season, a decision that had to be made by the last day available. For the Kings, that takes one of the biggest possible swings off the board and locks in a major chunk of money on their books.
LaVine arrived in Sacramento as part of the huge three-team trade at the 2025 deadline involving the Kings, Chicago Bulls and San Antonio Spurs. He came in with the résumé that made him such a coveted piece: a two-time All-Star, a career 20-point-per-game scorer, and one of the league’s more dangerous shooters.
He’s a career 39% shooter on six 3-point attempts per game. The shot-making is real.
But the résumé has always come with the same asterisk. For all the scoring and spacing, winning has not followed in the same way. LaVine has played in only one playoff series, a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in 2022.
There had been some hope in Sacramento that he would decline the option and work out a new deal at a lower annual number. The Kings had also reportedly given him a chance to “sell himself around the league” in case a sign-and-trade market developed.
That route would have required another team to come to terms with LaVine on a longer contract at a lower AAV, then have Sacramento sign him and move him in exchange for assets such as expiring salary or younger players. Sacramento knows that mechanism well; last summer, the Kings were on the other side of one when they sent modest draft compensation to Detroit to land Dennis Schroder.
The problem is that a sign-and-trade is not a simple escape hatch. The CBA requires those contracts to run at least three seasons, even if only the first year has to be guaranteed. That may have been enough to keep this from gaining real traction.
LaVine is no longer buried in the injury concerns that once followed him, but teams may still have been wary of committing beyond two years. It’s also possible that the money he wanted just wasn’t appealing enough for suitors.
There was still a path where he could have turned down the $49 million and tried to make it back over the next three seasons on friendlier terms. That’s the kind of gamble Sacramento seemed willing to pitch.
But walking away from that much guaranteed money is a brutal ask. Players only get so many chances to cash in, and passing on that kind of figure would have been a major leap, especially with Trae Young having done something similar last week.
Instead, LaVine will collect nearly $50 million this season and then head toward unrestricted free agency next summer.
That decision matters because it hits directly at the Kings’ roster math. Sacramento now heads into the 2026-27 season with $174 million committed to LaVine, Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan, De’Andre Hunter, Keegan Murray and Malik Monk, or $189 million if DeRozan’s salary is fully guaranteed.
The numbers get ugly fast from there. The salary cap sits at $165 million, the luxury tax threshold is $201 million, the first apron is $209 million and the second apron is $222 million. With Precious Achiuwa back on a minimum and Emanuel Sharp on a two-way deal, Sacramento’s projected cap sheet already shows the second apron in red.
That’s the kind of spot front offices spend months trying to avoid, not clean up after the fact. An extension similar to CJ McCollum’s would have changed the equation and reset LaVine’s value.
There was even a version of this where a three-year deal around $100 million made sense. But LaVine chose the bigger payday now and will sort out his next contract next summer.
For Scott Perry and the front office, the hand they’ve been dealt is a tough one. Sacramento still has ways to work through it, but LaVine’s decision is now a major factor in determining which direction the team can realistically take.
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