The main reasons that he has no trade value are:

1. His health

2. His contract

He’s still a decent player.

No he was just hurt all season

Mike Brown deserves so much credit for that Princeton offense he had the Kings running. That’s the offense that properly optimizes for Sabonis’ skillset, had him looking elite despite the fact that he’s an undersized big that can’t defend his way out of a paper bag.

It’s the defense and injuries that holds him back. Can’t keep up with the super athletic switch everything guys.

We’re ~3 years away from Sengun having the same kind of reputation.

He was hurt basically all year and the year before that he played 70 games and averaged 19/13/6 on 42% 3pt shooting.

Good players on bad teams rarely get talked about and they’re never on national TV so no one really watches them either.

But yeah he’s still pretty damn good, assuming hes able to recover from his injury that is. 

Also not sure where you’re getting “nobody wants him” from. The Kings don’t seem all that interested in trading him.

It’s weird being a center today that can’t defend the rim and can’t shoot threes. 

No he was just injured most of last season and is overpaid with skills other teams typically aren’t looking for.

I think even if you don’t like Sabonis you can’t say he’s bad. Just not really a good fit for most teams.

The problem with him is even at his best, you kinda need to build the team around his strengths and weaknesses. Do you really want to do that?

I’m going to try to distill this idea down to a few sentences. 

You can be very good at basketball but if your weaknesses leave a large flaw when you have to play a playoff style of basketball you’re not going to be valued by the league. 

People then shorthand this predicament to calling a player “bad”. 

He’s not bad. He’s just flawed in a very damaging way. 

Bad? He’s ok but nowhere near worth that money. He can’t space the floor. He had a couple of decent 3 point shooting seasons, but on so low volume that defenders don’t respect it. He isn’t a rim roller and a terrible defender. Really hasn’t proved to be a capable playoff performer in his limited games. He’s an elite rebounder and DHO merchant that can provide some interior scoring.

people saying no have no watched him play basketball recently. yes, he is bad

He’s a good stats guy.

He’s just a bad team merchant

I loved him when he was on the Pacers. The issue is he isn’t quite big or long enough to be a five. I always thought his skillet was better suited to be a four but that messes up your spacing. he isn’t a good enough three point shooter. But his rebounding and his passing are elite. He is good in pick and roll.

He can give you almost 20/10/5 but nothing on defense for 45M a year and he just hit 30. That’s just hard for a lot of teams to fit into their cap. If he was making 25M a year tons of teams would obviously want him.

He can’t handle the playoff physicality. He gets bodied by big athletic centers. And he loses his composure often. He’s still a good player but he’s not someone I would want as anything more than a #3 option.

He is not bad, but he is probably overpaid and no longer out plays his contract. A lot of the NBA is about performance compared to contract especially with the tax tier system. If Sabonis was making \(30M he would be very much sought after. At \)45M his production isn’t worth the cost to acquire him

I think he’ll get traded or eventually end up in Brooklyn where they will value his passing and surround him with shooters and use him as a veteran.

Head coach Jordi Fernandes utilised Sabonis well when he was assistant head coach with the Kings.

Sabonis is seemingly overpaid at the moment with two seasons left on his massive contract.

No

He oesn’t play goo efense

I swear I read it as bald not bad. It’s more interesting question

He’s not bad, just banged up, overextended, and exposed on defense. Still elite passer, Kings around him got worse, not better.

He can’t shoot and won’t shoot past 8ft. DHO becomes pretty useless once he stopped being a threat from that position and he’s not good anywhere else on offense. Not good enough to have the ball in his hand but can’t be an effective rim runner or in the pick and roll. Not great with ball and in his hands and bad not effective without it.

And he’s not athletic so he’s just tall on defense and average at rebounding. So he’s doesn’t provide the stability in the front court that you’d like for a non-primary scorer.

He’s an awkward fit everywhere. He’s not good enough for his skill set to have his role and contract, while also not being good enough at the things he should be.

He is far from bad. His stats took a small slide last year and before he was very consistent hitting his numbers. More than anything GMs are not trading for him out of fear he takes another slide this year.

No but people now compare skill to their contracts in today’s league which his is a bad one

He was never really that good. He’s a borderline all-star type.

Above average post player. Great rebounder. Good passer. Poor defender. Poor shooter.

hes not bad. because the bigs with his kind of skill set are so few that he gets lumped in the exclusive club of unicorn-type centers in the league. so theres a value inflation for him.

The pistons would probably be better off trading Duren for Sabonis

he’s still good. he’s a connector of talent and enables good guard play. problem is, we suck.

He’s been ass

He has a bad contract and what he does well requires him to be a primary ball handler, but he isn’t an elite primary ball handler. Unless you are Jokic, most teams want their guards doing that high post ball handling.

Not at all. He missed like 70 games last year in large because the Kings held him out. He’s still the exact same caliber of player based on any advanced metric, although the idea of him playing another 82 game season might be out of the question

The new apron rules have made it to where you have to weigh player contracts far more heavily than before.

Sabonis is an objectively good player, but he’s not a good asset relative to his contract.

Kevon Looney legitimately ruined him.

Well Detroit didn’t want him and a first for Duren which was the right move btw

He’s good he’s just overpaid. So teams don’t value him with his contract. Similar to how Lavine is good just overpaid, I think Sabo is situation is worse tho

Kings should never have traded Hali…

He’s in a similar tier as DeMar DeRozan, Brandon Ingram, and early Timberwolves’ Karl-Anthony Towns.

Insanely talented All-Stars who make difficult shots, but are not efficient or consistent enough to be the #1 to build a team around. They also struggle to be the #2, as it requires consistency on defense and shooting to play a complementary role.

Karl-Anthony Towns ended up succeeding as a #2 primarily because Towns is 1) already efficient as a #2/spot up shooter/mid range, 2) improved as a help defender in his last year on the Wolves, 3) had a roster on the Knicks that can pick up the defensive slack when he got into foul trouble (a primary concern of Towns). He went down the Kevin Love/Brook Lopez route, two all-stars who changed their game significantly to improve on defense and be insane team players.

But that requires more awareness and footwork to position on defense, which DeRozan, Ingram, and Sabonis still struggle with to this day.

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“Haven’t watched the Kings lately …” That’s cause there are no games on now…. 

He’s something like the 25th best center who’s getting paid like the 5th best center.