UPDATE July 3, 2:05 am: The Kings pulled their max offer to Iguodala off the table and now will no longer pursue him. This caught Iguodala off guard.
July 2, 9:58 pm: With Tyreke Evans reportedly receiving a high-priced offer to play in New Orleans, the Sacramento Kings are looking at going in a different free agent direction.
From Marc Stein of ESPN.com:The Sacramento Kings have made Denver Nuggets swingman Andre Iguodala their free-agent priority, according to sources familiar with Sacramento’s thinking.
Sources told ESPN.com the Kings, meanwhile, are leaning strongly against matching the offer sheet restricted free agent Tyreke Evans is planning to sign with the New Orleans Pelicans on July 10.
The Kings were thinking about matching the offer for Evans, which is in the neighborhood of four years and $44 million. While saying “that’s Stephen Curry money” is factually correct, Curry would have been closer to a max player had the Warriors not extended him at the beginning of last season, and before he was fully recovered from the ankle injuries he’d been dealing with since the year prior.
That’s still a ton of cash to throw at a player like Evans, who hasn’t evolved into the star most were projecting he’d become after his rookie season. Plenty of that can be blamed on injuries and the way that Kings ownership mismanaged the coaches and personnel in charge of his development, and perhaps he will improve to the point where he lives up to that contract.
But it won’t be in Sacramento, and that’s probably a wise choice for the new people in charge of running the Kings franchise.
As for Iguodala, the Nuggets have maintained all along that they’d like to keep him. But instability in the front office, with the loss of GM Masai Ujiri and head coach George Karl, may make Denver a less appealing destination.
Although if the dollars are anywhere near similar, and given the way the two rosters are currently constructed, it would be tough to envision Iguodala choosing Sacramento.
UPDATE: Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports that the offer from the Kings is four years, $56 million. That’s a big number for Denver to match for someone with Iguodala’s skill set.