When the Sacramento Kings traded away Tyrese Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers last season, almost everyone dubbed it as yet another terrible move by a franchise that had made so many bad ones over the years. They had gotten Domantas Sabonis in return, but it wasn’t termed as being enough for a player with Haliburton’s upside.
While the guard has shone for the Pacers as many expected him to, Sabonis has been a revelation for the Kings as well. He leads the NBA by averaging 12.6 RPG and is also putting up 18.8 PPG to go with a career-high 7.2 APG. He has led the Kings to the third seed in the Western Conference, and JJ Redick had some high praise for him on The Old Man and the Three podcast as he compared him to Nikola Jokic.
(starts at 4:42 mark):
“This is not a disrespect to Sabonis but it is ‘Jokic Lite’. He’s not a poor man’s Jokic because he’s f***ing awesome.”
There are certainly similarities there, and there’s no shame really in being termed as Jokic lite. Sabonis isn’t quite the MVP-level player that Jokic is, but as Redick said here, he is pretty awesome. His teammate De’Aaron Fox though, believes Sabonis should be in the mix for MVP.
De’Aaron Fox Thinks Domantas Sabonis Should Be In The MVP Discussion If The Kings Keep Winning
Fox and Sabonis went on an ESPN tour recently, where the former said that the latter should definitely be in the MVP discussion if the team keeps winning. Fox had also stated earlier this season that Sabonis is a top 3 center in the NBA, along with Jokic and Joel Embiid, and he might well be.
There is finally some optimism surrounding the Kings after almost two decades of misery, and the Sabonis-Haliburton trade really has turned into a rare win-win trade. Both franchises are delighted with what they got and would be looking toward a bright future.
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