The Sacramento Kings may be facing an imminent disbandment of their backcourt, as former All-Star De’Aaron Fox has voiced his desire to play elsewhere and the team has actively listened to suitors interested in Kevin Huerter. That could open the door for the Kings to bring in a promising young shooting guard to replenish their unit.
The Kings have been on an upward trend since Doug Christie took over as head coach on Dec. 27. Nevertheless, Sacramento could be down two of their four featured guards with the Feb. 6 NBA trade deadline right around the corner. Thus, adding a score-first option to their ranks could help them weather whatever adversity would come from the aforementioned departures.
Correspondingly, the San Antonio Spurs could part ways with their shooting guard Malaki Branham:
“Smaller, marginal moves like going after a backup center make a lot of sense for San Antonio. A move like that will likely include some draft capital or young players. Malaki Branham makes sense here. He’s had a rocky start to his NBA career, showing signs of shot creation from three and in the mid-range, all the while struggling on the defensive end. Branham has found himself on the outside looking in of the Spurs rotation, with no clear path to meaningful minutes,” SB Nation’s Harrison Faigen proposed when identifying the 30 players most likely to be moved ahead of the deadline.
Branham would be a worthy cost-effective option for Sacramento to go and get. The 21-year-old is under contract for three more seasons, where he’ll make $3.21 million this season, $4.96 million the next, and has a $7.11 million qualifying offer in 2026-27. Branham averages 4.8 points per game on 38.5 percent shooting from the three-point line. However, that could be attributed to his court time plummeting by over 11 nightly minutes to 10 MPG.
When he was a fixture of San Antonio’s rotation during his first two years in the league, Branham averaged 9.7 PPG in roughly 22 MPG. He is talented at dancing on his man and getting into the lane for pull-up jump shots and runners. The Ohio State product is also adept at getting his defenders in the air and dumping off timely passes to his big men in the paint.
The Kings’ future is anything but certain at the present, yet a trade for Branham could give them a solid, low-risk option to test out in hopes that he can build upon the promise he’s shown by in large when given the opportunities.
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