SACRAMENTO -- The NBA trade deadlines has come and gone and the Sacramento Kings look exactly the same. Vlade Divac worked the phones until the last possible moment, but couldn’t come up with a deal that made sense for the team both in the short-term and for the future.
Rumors of a potential deal for 35-year-old All-Star big man Pau Gasol continued throughout the day, but nothing materialized. It’s back to basics for a Kings team that has gone just 2-8 over their last 10 games and have slipped in the standings considerably.
If there was a silver lining to the day, it was that two teams above the Kings in the standings, the Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies, made moves for the future that could impact their play negatively down the stretch.
Houston dealt Donatas Motiejunas and former Kings guard Marcus Thornton to the Detroit Pistons for a 2016 protected first-round pick. They were unsuccessful in their mission to deal away former All-Star Dwight Howard. Houston sits at 27-28, four games ahead of the Kings in the standings and a half game out of the eighth spot in the west.
The Grizzlies made two moves to reshape their roster, most notably a last-minute deal to send Jeff Green to the Clippers in exchange for Lance Stephenson and a future first-round pick. In a separate transaction, the Grizzlies sent Courtney Lee to the Charlotte Hornets in a three-way deal that yielded them P.J. Harrison, Chris Anderson and a pair of second-round picks.
[RELATED: Reports: Clippers acquire Jeff Green from Grizzlies]
Memphis currently sit at 31-22, good enough for the fifth spot in the Western Conference. But the loss of Green and Lee come on the heels of the news that center Marc Gasol is out indefinitely with a broken foot. They are down three rotational players and coach Dave Joerger will have to integrate plenty of new faces on the fly.
The Dallas Mavericks, Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz, who currently hold the six, seven and eight spots in the west, respectively, also stayed quiet at the deadline. Dallas is six games ahead of the Kings and both Portland and Utah sit at .500, four-and-a-half games ahead of Sacramento in the race for the playoffs.
The Kings face former head coach Michael Malone and the Denver Nuggets on Friday night at Sleep Train Arena as they kick off a 29-game sprint to the finish. They fly to Colorado over the weekend to face the Nuggets a second-straight time on Tuesday night. Denver currently sits a half game behind the Kings in the standings.
