A recent mock trade has the Sacramento Kings sending Malik Monk to the Los Angeles Lakers in return for a forward to help bolster their wing depth.
Mock Trade Sends Kings' Malik Monk to Lakers for $59 Million Forward in Offseason Deal originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
As the NBA offseason has entered August, things have grown extremely quiet around the league as not many deals have been made.
Of course, teams are still searching for ways to upgrade their roster heading into next season and among them are the Sacramento Kings.
For the Kings, they have elected to keep their core of Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine together this offseason and they have also made some notable additions to their roster despite many around the NBA expecting them to enter a rebuild.
So far this summer, the Kings have added Nique Clifford and Maxime Raynaud in the 2025 draft and they also signed Dennis Schroder in free agency to fill the void at their starting point guard position left by them trading De’Aaron Fox last season.
Sacramento has also been linked to many other players around the NBA and some of their players have also come up in trade rumors, including Malik Monk.
Kings predicted to send Malik Monk to Lakers for Rui Hachimura
Due to this, Yahoo Sports recently released a mock trade that would send Monk to the Los Angeles Lakers for a forward that would help the Kings bolster their wing depth.
In the trade, the Kings would send Monk to the Lakers for Rui Hachimura, a 2031 first-round pick and a 2032 second-round pick.
Would you do this trade? 🤔
— Lakers Wire (@lakerswire1) August 5, 2025
Los Angeles Lakers Receive: Malik Monk
Sacramento Kings Receive: Rui Hachimura, 2031 Los Angeles Lakers first-round pick, 2032 Los Angeles Lakers second-round pick
(via @YahooSports) pic.twitter.com/VS2mHN1waA
Of course, Monk is coming off the best season of his career and it is clear that Sacramento is looking to take advantage of his increased trade value and they would do just that in this trade.
Not only would the Kings swap Monk for Hachimura to upgrade their forward depth while also freeing up playing time for their abundance of guards, but they would also add much-needed draft capital.
For Hachimura, he would be a solid addition to the Kings’ bench entering next season and if Sacramento decides to move on from DeRozan at some point, he would be able to slot into their starting lineup.
The 27-year-old forward is a solid scorer who would provide a massive boost to Sacramento’s bench, which was an issue for them last season.
Despite this, the Lakers may not want to give up that much to acquire Monk, though he would give them a much-needed scoring guard off the bench behind Luka Doncic.
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Aug 8, 2025, where it first appeared.
Category: Basketball
