Kings acquire Jonas Valanciunas from Wizards for Sidy Cissoko

Keith Smith
Keith Smith, Resident NBA ExpertFebruary 05, 2025
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#nba #nba trade deadline #washington wizards #sacramento kings #jonas valanciunas #sidy cissoko
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The Sacramento Kings got creative with their exceptions to add a long-wanted backup for Domantas Sabonis. The Washington Wizards picked up some additional draft capital for moving along a short-term veteran.

Here are the particulars:

Sacramento Kings acquire: Jonas Valanciunas

Washington Wizards acquire: Sidy Cissoko, 2028 Nuggets second-round pick, 2029 Kings second-round pick

Let’s dive in!

Sacramento Kings

Incoming salary: $9.9 million in 2024-25

  • Jonas Valanciunas (C, three years, $30.3 million (final season non-guaranteed))

Outgoing salary: $1.9 million in 2024-25

  • Sidy Cissoko (SF/PF, two years, $4.1 million (2025-26 non-guaranteed))

The Kings had been searching for a viable backup for Domantas Sabonis for a few years. Alex Len has been serviceable, but is more of a third string center. Trey Lyles does what he can, but he’s a pure stretch four.

Jonas Valanciunas should more than capably fill that backup role. There are even some potential lineups constructions where Valanciunas could play alongside Sabonis in a double-big look.

This season, Valanciunas has adapted well to being a backup on the rebuilding Wizards. The veteran center is still an effective scorer, screener and rebounder. Washington mostly used him as a protector for Alex Sarr and to help set a tone off the bench.

With the Kings, Valanciunas will probably play less than he did with the Wizards. But less may be more, as Valanciunas should be able to play his physical, rugged style without worry of foul trouble or conserving energy for longer minutes.

The mechanism used to acquire Valanciunas saw Sacramento take advantage of the new rules that allowed them to use a portion of their Non-Taxpayer MLE as a Traded Player Exception. That allows the Kings to keep the big $16.8 million TPE that they created in the Kevin Huerter trade whole. Considering the MLE expires at the end of the season, this is solid use of it as a TPE.

Sacramento still has two open roster spots. They’ll have to fill one within the next couple of weeks. The Kings are about $2.5 million under the luxury tax, which will act as a de facto hard cap for the team.

While Sacramento isn’t quite good enough to pay the tax for this group, they have improved their team quite a bit over the last few days. That’s a hard needle to thread when you trade a former franchise player, but the Kings have pulled it off.

Washington Wizards

Incoming salary: $1.9 million in 2024-25

  • Sidy Cissoko (SF/PF, two years, $4.1 million (2025-26 non-guaranteed))

Outgoing salary: $9.9 million in 2024-25

  • Jonas Valanciunas (C, three years, $30.3 million (final season non-guaranteed))

We aren’t going to focus much on getting Sidy Cissoko for the Wizards. Reports are that he’ll be waived, if he’s not moved in a subsequent trade before the deadline.

This deal for Washington was about adding some additional draft capital. Jonas Valanciunas didn’t turn into a first-round pick, but getting two seconds for him is solid work.

The Wizards are still in the early stages of their rebuild. That means collecting assets. This one came in somewhat unconventional means, as Valanciunas was added via sign-and-trade this past offseason. But that’s the kind of creative, forward-thinking move you have to make when rebuilding.

The time Valanciunas spent in Washington also allowed the team to not have to force Alex Sarr to start at center until he was ready. And going against Valanciunas in practices for a half-season has helped Sarr.

With Valanciunas off the books, the Wizards project to be a cap space team this coming offseason. Effectively, Washington is shedding $10 million off their 2025-26 books by trading Valanciunas, but they’ll likely take on around that much when they complete the trade that swaps Khris Middleton for Kyle Kuzma.

 


#nba #nba trade deadline #washington wizards #sacramento kings #jonas valanciunas #sidy cissoko
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