How new CBA rules can help Kings reload during important offseason

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What is the path to improvement? Over the next two months, Sacramento Kings general manager Monte McNair and his staff are taxed with taking a team that plateaued or maybe even regressed slightly, and making them into a perennial playoff contender. 

The Kings aren’t that far away from being a 50-win squad that competes for one of the top spots in the Western Conference, but this next step will take an aggressive approach and a little bit of luck. 

Priority number one is to retain star sixth man Malik Monk, but the team still needs length and athleticism at almost every position if they hope to compete with the teams around them in the standings. 

Sacramento isn’t a team with cap space, like last summer, but they have a few mechanisms in place to aid in the build and the NBA’s new CBA (collective bargaining agreement) added a few wrinkles that could come into play. Some of this is complicated and nuanced, but here is a look at some of the ways in which the Kings can improve their overall talent level this summer.

How does the new CBA help the Kings?

As a non-luxury tax paying team, the Kings have access to a full mid-level exception, set at $12.859 million. Since they did not use their bi-annual exception last season, they also have access to the BAE, which is $4.681 this summer. 

The league added a new wrinkle when it comes to these exceptions in the latest CBA that allows teams to not only sign free agents using these exceptions, but they can also use them in trade. It gets slightly complex, but the Kings can accept a player back via trade using either of these exceptions, as long as the contracts being acquired don’t exceed the dollar amount or years of the exception.