Amidst the unprecedented flurry of trades that the Cleveland Cavaliers finalized in the final hours of the NBA Trade Deadline, one of their deals was a three-teamer that sent out Iman Shumpert and Derrick Rose to the Kings and Jae Crowder to the Jazz in exchange for Rodney Hood and George Hill.
The trade was reportedly verbally agreed to in the early morning hours of the final day of the trade deadline, but before the final offer papers were sent over the Kings pulled a classic Kings move by trying to add a little something extra into the deal.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN:
“Altman had negotiated the trade with Kings assistant general manager Brandon Williams, who works under GM Vlade Divac. The management structure in Sacramento can make deals dicey, because Divac seldom gets on the phone for the trade-building parts — and yet he ultimately has decision-making power with owner Vivek Ranadive.
That’s why a 3 a.m. ET deal memo sent from Sacramento to Cleveland left Altman at first incredulous — and then angry. Suddenly, Kings center Georgios Papagiannis had been included as part of the three-way trade. Cleveland and Utah were adamant that Papagiannis’ name had never been discussed. Williams would later say that Papagiannis or Malachi Richardson were set to be included in the deals and insisted his notes confirmed that.
Because Sacramento had the makings for a trade with Toronto for Richardson, rival executives say that the Kings pushed to spare themselves the embarrassment of waiving the No. 13 overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft — and let someone else do it. In the middle of the night, Altman and Williams vocally disagreed over the insertion of Papagiannis into the trade. Cleveland couldn’t take him into its roster because the NBA’s repeater tax would turn the balance of his $2.3 million contract this year and $2.4 million next year into three times that with the luxury-tax bill.
In the morning, Altman let the Jazz know about Sacramento’s inclusion of Papagiannis. Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey was livid. To him, this was a deal-breaker. He hadn’t dealt directly with Sacramento, because there had been no need: The deal went through Cleveland, and Altman had never suggested to Lindsey that Utah would have to take a 7-foot draft bust onto his roster.”
Could anything be more indicative of the way the Kings franchise has been run over the past 10 to 12 years? Did they really think that they could just pull one over on Cavaliers General Manager Koby Altman and Jazz General Manager Dennis Lindsey? I can imagine an exhausted and caffeine-wired Altman seeing the memo and looking at it multiple time to make sure he wasn’t imagining the inclusion of Papagiannis.
It is apparent that the Kings weird organizational structure and decision-making process was likely the culprit for these situation as it has become clear that Vlade Divac is a little out of touch with the process of actually trading with other teams as we have learned multiple times.
Their bold and bizarre move actually benefited them though as while not accepting the inclusion of Papagiannis, the Cavaliers and Jazz both sent cash to the Kings to essentially cover the cost of cutting him, while not preventing the embarrassment of cutting a lottery pick from the year before or having this report surface after the fact.
In an era where the vast majority of franchises are run very well, it is some fun fodder to have an organization that is as unorganized as the Sacramento Kings.
