By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
DeMar DeRozan will be back playing in the NBA Western Conference after agreeing to sign with the Sacramento Kings confirmed on July 7, 2024.
After spending the last three years playing for the Chicago Bulls, DeRozan opted to enter this season’s free agency and is bound to seal a three-year $74 million deal with the Kings.
A three-team trade made the deal happen as the swap package also involved the San Antonio Spurs who will be receiving veteran small forward Harrison Barnes from Sacramento.
Meanwhile, Sacramento will be dealing away three players to Chicago as they sent Chris Duarte and two future second-round picks.
Rumors already went viral regarding DeRozan’s fate with the Bulls and were also reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Tim Bontemps.
After another failed playoff run with the Bulls, DeRozan’s future plan with the franchise was quickly questioned. Their big three core experiment of Zach Lavine and Nikola Vucevic failed to work, only resulting in a total of one playoff appearance during the 2021-2022 NBA season.
During the 2023-2024 NBA season, the Bulls had another chance to re-enter the NBA playoffs but another play-in loss halted their hopes of making a last trip to the post-season.
After a dominant 131-116 win over the Atlanta Hawks, the Bulls were only one win away in the play-in to grab the Eastern Conference eighth spot but they received a painful lopsided loss at the hands of the Miami Heat.
In all those play-in games, DeRozan tallied a total of 44 points and concluded the NBA season with 24.0 points, 5.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds per game.
DeRozan suited up for the Bulls in 79 total games and recorded one of the healthiest seasons in his NBA career.
Now playing under a different system with head coach Mike Brown, DeRozan will be teaming up with Domantas Sabonis and De’ Aaron Fox when the NBA season kicks off this October.
