4. Sacramento Kings – Jaden Ivey
As the Houston Rockets, the Sacramento Kings here should think more about the best player available rather than team fit. They might be enticed to try to find someone who could mesh with their new star duo of De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, but taking a lesser talent but better fit for their current roster would be a huge mistake.
The Kings already traded away rising star Tyrese Haliburton for Sabonis in a rash decision to try to uphold their playoff mandate last season. Wasting the fourth-overall pick — a blessing from the NBA gods considering they entered the draft lottery with just the seventh-best odds — on a fit pick rather than the best player available would both be idiotic and completely predictable coming from Sacramento.
The best piece to put alongside Fox and Baby Sabas would probably be AJ Griffin Jr. or Jalen Duren, here. Both are excellent prospects in their own right, but neither have the star potential of Jaden Ivey.
Ivey is probably the best athlete at the guard position to come out of college since De’Aaron Fox himself. He has a penchant for shot creation, able to hit tough shots from every spot on the floor and opening up opportunities for his teammates with his offensive gravity.
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He’s completely redundant with Fox, but there’s a pretty decent chance that Fox doesn’t even finish the 2022-23 season with the Kings, regardless of who they select in the draft. Instead, Sacramento should grab the best building block available, and that would mean taking Jaden Ivey with the fourth-overall pick.
