The Sacramento Kings were seemingly hours away from making a major splash in free agency earlier this month, but their deal with Andre Iguodala fell through. Actually, most reports indicate they took the offer off the table.
Though he denied it, Iguodala seemed to express his frustration with the Kings on Twitter after they decided to go in a different direction. In a recent interview with NBA.com’s Scott Howard-Cooper, the former Denver Nuggets point guard said Sacramento gave him a deadline, which rubbed him the wrong way.
“When you’re dealing with deadlines as a player, it’s not really a positive thing to say, ‘All right, they’re giving me a deadline,’” Iguodala said, via Pro Basketball Talk. “You don’t want to really get into deadlines. We had really good conversations and I was close. After the first day, they were in the top three teams, top two teams.
“I think with (new owner) Vivek (Ranadive) coming from (the Warriors) ownership group and going out on his own and getting a team, he has a really good vision of what he wants to build in Sacramento. That vision was really attractive. I was almost close to going there.”
What likely happened is that the Kings got the impression Iguodala was using their offer as leverage to to drive up his offer from Denver. They felt like a pawn in a game he was playing, so they decided to pull the plug. Iguodala then turned around and signed with the Golden State Warriors, which probably gives him a better chance to win anyway.
As we said before, the Kings’ new ownership group was making a statement with the way it dealt with Iguodala. Now, the question is whether it will come back to haunt them.
