Earlier today, the Sacramento Kings traded Nique Clifford to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Sacramento received 2028 and 2030 second-round picks in exchange for the second-year wing. 

This comes just about a year and a half after Sacramento traded the San Antonio Spurs’ 2027 first-round pick (protected 1-16) to the Thunder to select Clifford with the 24th pick of the 2025 NBA Draft. The graphic below shows the ultimate results of these two transactions when taken together. 

Sacramento ultimately traded the Spurs’ 2027 first-round pick (protected, but very likely to convey considering how San Antonio looks to start this season) for 83 games of Nique Clifford before deciding to cut bait and trade him for second-round picks. Not great. 

How Does This Affect Sacramento’s Cap Sheet? 

Clifford is in the second year of his rookie scale contract and makes roughly $3.3M this season. The Kings did not get a player back in today’s trade, so they created $3.3M of additional breathing room under the luxury tax. Sacramento now sits about $6.4M below the tax.

This gives the Kings more money to use as they fill their remaining roster spot(s) (more on this below). 

Sacramento also created a $3.55M Traded Player Exception from today’s trade, which they can use to acquire a player via trade. This expires one year from today. 

Do The Kings Need to Do Anything Moving Forward? 

Yes. Since the Kings did not get any players back in this trade, they now have just 13 players on standard contracts. Teams can only be below 14 players on standard contracts for 14 consecutive days (can be below the threshold for 28 total days in a single season), so the Kings will need to sign a player by November 22. 

Kings insider James Ham has reported that the Kings will “take a few days and mull over their next roster move.” This is probably to assess their needs and to reach out to current free agents, but it also comes with financial benefits. For luxury tax purposes, a minimum contract counts as $2,449,421 on a team’s cap sheet this season if signed before the season begins. That amount is prorated for in-season signings. Each day they wait will save them about $14K.

Sacramento could go a few different ways with this signing. The in-house frontrunner is probably Leaky Black, who is currently on a two-way deal and now playing substantial minutes at the wing. If Sacramento chooses to go another direction, they could certainly stand to add another point guard to help lighten Darius Acuff Jr.’s workload.

Regardless of who Sacramento signs for their 14th roster spot, it is clear that the team has a lot of work to do to get on track. That starts with a home game against the Miami Heat tonight at 6:00 PM PST.