Sacramento Kings General Manager Monte McNair spoke to media Monday and was peppered with questions about Malik Monk’s free agency this summer. While he refrained from getting into negotiation specifics between the team and Monk, he noted the mutual affection that exists between both sides.
“Number 1 thing you want is that you want that player to be here, and Malik wants to be here. Number 2 is we want him, and we love Malik. And we know he fits. He fits what we’re doing,” he said. “I won’t get into any of those specifics but credit to Malik, he gets to make a free agent decision, I think we’ll put our best foot forward. He loves it here; we love him and so hopefully we’ll be able to do that when the time comes.”
McNair expanded on what Monk has meant to the team over the last two seasons.
“We love Malik, he’s obviously been a huge part of what we have done the last couple of years,” he said. “And not just what he does on the floor, but off the floor, his attitude and mentality, and his swag and everything that Malik brings. We’ll have those conversations when the time comes, but what he has done for us has been a huge part of our resurgence the last two years.”
Turning his attention to the other aspects of how this season played out and the offseason, McNair made it clear he is not content with the single win over the Golden State Warriors in the Play-In tournament, and appreciates the pressure and the new standard for the franchise.
“I love that 46 wins and beating Golden State in the Play-In is not good enough anymore,” he said.
From a high level, he spoke on some of the tools the Kings will have this offseason to better the team. This includes the 13th pick in the NBA Draft.
“We have the 13th pick in the Draft and probably 45 in the second. I think we have a lot of flexibility with our tools. You can trade into the MLE [mid-level exception] and BAE [bi-annual exception] now so that’s another thing you can do. And then we’ll have to look at potential trade opportunities,” he said.
He spoke on several other topics, including wanting more internal development, how the West got tougher this season and the team’s defense this season.
The Kings finished the season ranked 13th in offensive rating, 14th in defensive rating and 16th in net rating. Last season the team finished 1st in offensive rating, 24th in defensive rating and 8th in Net Rating.
Watch the full interview below.
