Evaluating a Potential Contract Extension for Kings' De'Andre Hunter

With the Sacramento Kings wrapping up what may be the worst season in franchise history, it is time to look ahead to the summer (in fairness, fans probably started running Tankathon simulations in November after the 5-16 start).

Lottery positioning and the draft will obviously be the focus of the offseason. Given how the 2025 draft went, there is reason to believe in their amateur talent evaluation.

The current reasons to doubt the front office are just about everything else. Last summer, they said Dennis Schroder was their number one guy. They said that they exercised Keon Ellis’s team option, so they had money to sign Schroder. They also said they would not use Ellis as a sweetener to get off their bad contracts, and were asking for a first-round pick in return for him.

Ultimately, Sacramento had to attach the player they said they would not attach to a salary dump to their number one guy. Questionable market value, prioritization, understanding of leverage, and negotiation across the board.

Their return in that debacle was De’Andre Hunter, who makes $24.9M next season and is extension eligible this summer. So, let’s take a look at how negotiations for Sacramento’s deadline acquisition may go.

The good? Hunter had a career year in 2024-25, finishing fourth in 6MOY voting.

The bad? None of that carried over to 2025-26. This is (at least partially) why Sacramento could acquire a player that costs two first-round swaps and three seconds in 2024-25 for a bad contract and a pending UFA in 2025-26. Jake Fischer reported that teams largely viewed Hunter as a negative value asset.

How does Hunter stack up with comps?

Here is Hunter’s 2025-26 compared to the platform seasons of recent wing vet extension recipients:

Sacramento Kings forward De'Andre Hunter — De'Andre Hunter statistical comparisons | James McCauley

And resulting extensions:

So, how does this play out?

Hunter was not good this season and is currently recovering from a detached retina. His agents cannot in good faith open with his max (4/$96M in 7/6/26-7/31/2, 4/$156M 8/1/26-6/30/27). They should open around PJ Washington/Harrison Barnes AAV, and should feel relatively good about doing so.

Both are starting, mainly off-ball big wings/forwards - what Hunter will probably be in Sacramento. Barnes, as team precedent for an older wing, is particularly important. That extension came from a different regime, but it is still worth raising from Hunter’s camp.

These comps have merit, but are distinguishable. Washington and Barnes had much better platform seasons, and both have been much more available. Hunter has now missed at least 25 games in four of his seven seasons, and he only played two games with the Kings before his eye injury sidelined him for the rest of the season. That left Sacramento with little to no sample to see how Hunter fit with the team.

Further, Barnes extended while running the Beam Team back, not during the ground zero of a rebuild after playing two games with a new team. Team precedent is important, but the circumstances are different enough that the investment in Hunter is not the same as what it was in Barnes at that time.

Sacramento should open with an offer equivalent to the 2027-28 NTMLE (starting salary of $16.6M, total value of 4/$74.6M, ~18M AAV). At this point, anything below will likely be a non-starter for Hunter.

I would feel comfortable staying there for a while if I were the Kings. Here is how Hunter stacks up with recent full NTMLE recipients - Schroder (‘25 & ‘23), Caris LeVert (‘25), and De’Anthony Melton (‘24):

Hunter again leads scoring volume, but lags nearly everywhere else (unsurprisingly leads in REBs, considering the others are guards).

If Hunter wants to bet on beating this in UFA or landing something close in a better situation, he certainly can. Sacramento would need to move up if they do not think they would get Hunter at this figure in UFA.

The reasonable midpoint is probably in the Terance Mann-Grayson Allen range. Both were solid starters and extended at AAVs meaningfully above the NTMLE.

This walks the line of making Hunter feel valued while not drastically overpaying him. Here is what Sacramento’s cap sheet looks like with this projected extension:

Sacramento Kings cap sheet if they extend De'Andre Hunter | James McCauley

This leaves Sacramento with $21M in 27-28 cap space - enough to make productive moves (see below), around a malleable wing duo (making a combined 26% of the cap) set to serve as stabilizers as Sacramento drafts and develops its young core. There are certainly worse places to be (example: the 26-27 cap sheet. Yikes.).

However, Scott Perry has noted an aversion to adding long-term money - understandable given (i) the messy books he inherited and (ii) the lessons learned signing Schroder last summer. It would not be surprising to see Perry make that NTMLE extension offer and not move.

So, here is how things look without extending Hunter:

This would arm Sacramento with meaningful cap space. They could use this space to absorb salary - think Brooklyn taking Michael Porter Jr. and a ‘32 first-rounder for Cam Johnson, essentially eating 12% of the cap for a future first.

Alternatively, they could sign shorter, above-market contracts that could help (i) elevate their young core - think Tobias Harris to DET, or (ii) salary match - think Bruce Brown to IND, eventually key salary in the P. Siakam trade.

Sacramento would have room to make one of these moves if they extend Hunter. If they want to maximize flexibility and ability to capitalize on desperate teams down the line, though, punting this to UFA leaves them with room to make several of these moves in 2027, starting the asset accumulation portion of their rebuild.

This feels like the preferred route for a team looking at a long-term rebuild that had next to no time to evaluate Hunter’s fit in Sacramento, or to assess whether he will recapture his 2024-25 form, or even get back to his career averages.

If Perry wants to do things his way, he should be ironing out (i) what he believes Hunter would do in UFA, (ii) how serious a market there will be at that price, and (iii) how hard he would push to sign him at that price, given potential alternatives and their prices.

As the season winds down and we continue looking towards the draft, keep in mind that we could see a De’Andre Hunter headline.