:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67837261/1227911789.0.jpg)
Vlade Divac’s mistakes have already come back to haunt the Sacramento Kings. According to Carmichael Dave of Sports 1140 KHTK, Harry Giles won’t return to the Kings next season; something that has been assumed since Divac made the head-scratching decision to decline Giles’ fourth-year option last year.
The Sacramento Kings and Harry Giles will part ways, according to multiple league sources.
— Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave) November 21, 2020
Unclear where he is headed, but his time in Sacramento has come to an end.
Giles, the No. 20 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, was acquired by the Kings on draft night the same year, however, he didn’t make his debut until the 2018-19 season because of a devastating knee injury he suffered prior to his freshman year at Duke.
Since then, Giles has been relatively healthy, and he’ll end his career with the Kings having played 104 games. In those games, he averaged 7 points per game on 52.4 percent shooting from the field, in addition to 3.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.5 steals and 0.4 blocks per game in 14.3 minutes per game.
Giles never looked like a star on the rise with the Kings — even when he got meaningful minutes towards the end of the 2019-20 season — but he definitely showed flashes of being a solid, starting-caliber center in the NBA. Whichever team picks him up next will get a better idea of what king of player Giles will be in the NBA, seeing as the 2020-21 campaign will only be his third season.
With Giles departing the team, the Kings still have two centers on the roster: Marvin Bagley III and Richaun Holmes . That should be enough for them to survive the 72-game regular season, but they’re reportedly targeting Hassan Whiteside in spite of that. With the way the market is trending for centers, it’s safe to assume Whiteside, 31, will command more than Giles, 22.
This isn’t the first time Divac’s questionable judgement has hurt the Kings, but it’s safe to assume it won’t be the last. Hopefully Monte McNair and Co. can do as much damage control as possible going forward.