Hanifan’s offseason outlook: Evaluating the Sacramento Kings' 2026 offseason

The calendar has turned to September. You know what that means, right?! Our offseason outlook series is back for the third-straight year!

Hot Hot Hoops senior writer Matt Hanifan will provide his take on the offseasons of all 30 teams for the next 30 days! We will be going in alphabetical order, beginning with the Eastern Conference. To continue along, we will be diving into the Sacramento Kings’ summer.

Previous offseason outlooks:

Evaluating the Sacramento Kings’ 2026 offseason:

Additions: Ben Simmons, Jonathan Mogbo

Subtractions: DeMar DeRozan, Russell Westbrook, Devin Carter, Drew Eubanks, Killian Hayes, Doug McDermott, Patrick Baldwin

Re-signed: Precious Achiuwa

Draft: Darius Acuff (No. 7 overall), Alex Karaban (No. 29), Emanuel Sharpe (No. 45)

Hanifan’s outlook: The Sacramento Kings are trending in a new direction.

For their sake, I hope that’s up.

They parted ways with DeMar DeRozan this offseason — which was overdue. Westbrook retired. They haven’t opted to bring back veterans Drew Eubanks and Doug McDermott at the time of this publishing.

Instead, they are investing in their youth, a positive development. Most of all, the Kings landed the No. 7 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft and selected point guard Darius Acuff, who was the highest-ranked point guard on my board. If the Kings were in the Heat’s position at the time, I would have taken him as high as No. 4 overall. He was that good at Arkansas. And I think he will be that good as a pro, defensive concerns notwithstanding.

That was their most important move of the summer; Acuff is the player they should build around. I will give Scott Perry and Co. credit — they nailed their two picks after him, especially Sharpe, who I had as a fringe first-round pick. He’s a winning basketball player and will be an animal defensively.

Now, we await to see what happens with Zach LaVine and Domantas Sabonis. My guess is one of those two will be gone by the end of next season — perhaps both, to clear the runway for their youth movement.