Trey Lyles shipped to Sacramento Kings in 4-team deal

Just as he was finding his footing in the NBA, Trey Lyles received the worst news any NBA player can get: he’s been traded to the Sacramento Kings.

On Thursday morning, ahead of the 3:00 p.m. EST trade deadline, Lyles was traded from the Detroit Pistons to the Kings in a four-team deal that also includes the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers. The Athletic’s Shams Charania was first to report the news. The Pistons will also include wing Josh Jackson in the package to Sacramento.

Lyles spent one season at Kentucky from the 2014-15 season before getting selected No. 12 overall in the 2015 NBA Draft by the Utah Jazz. The Kings will be his fifth franchise over his seven-year career in the league.

The Pistons are trading Josh Jackson and Trey Lyles to Sacramento, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Four-team deal with Detroit, Sacramento, Milwaukee and LAC.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 10, 2022

The full four-team deal is as follows, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski:

Kings receive: Donte DiVincenzo, Trey Lyles, and Josh Jackson
Bucks receive: Serge Ibaka, two future second-round picks, cash
Clippers: Rodney Hood, Semi Ojele
Pistons: Marvin Bagley Jr.

Lyles, who turned 26 in November, has been playing the best basketball of his life with the Pistons. Through 51 games in Detroit this season (including three starts), the 6-foot-9 power forward is averaging a career-high 10.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.1 assists on 45.6 percent shooting from the field in 19.4 minutes per night. A career 33.6 percent 3-point shooter, he’s down to 30.4 this year, but is making and taking a career-best on his free throws at a 78.4 percent success rate.

From a BBNBA perspective, Lyles will team up with former Kentucky point guard De’Aaron Fox on a Kings squad that is currently fighting for a play-in spot in the Western Conference standings. Sacramento is a poor 21-36 on the season, but just 2.5 games out of the final play-in spot with 25 games left on the schedule. The Kings recently traded a cornerstone piece in Tyrese Haliburton for an established All-Star in Domanatas Sabonis, signaling a win-now move. Sacramento also shipped out Marvin Bagley Jr. as well, a previous lottery pick who never panned out with the franchise (sound familiar?).

I’ll be wishing Lyles all the luck along the way, but I won’t expect the Kings to magically find any competence and help him along in his career. Hopefully this is just a brief stop for Lyles and he can continue to keep up his production during this stint. Again, he’s only 26. There is still a lot of good basketball left in Lyles’ tank.