Photo credit: heatnation.com

By Barbara Mason

The Sacramento Kings got right to work with some trades that could help them with a playoff push.  They are currently in 11th place behind 10th place Golden State after beating them Thursday 141-119.  

The Heat acquired Nemanja Bjelica hoping to provide some front court shooting and rebounding.  Many feel that this is a strong move for the Heat, but just what will it do for the Kings? In this trade, the Kings got Moe Harkless and Chris Silva. Both of these players have not played a lot of games with the Heat. Each of them has only played 11 games apiece.  Harkless started at power forward on opening night, but has been out of the rotation since then for the most part.  Kind of leaves you scratching your head. The Kings need a lot of help from the bench and the hopes are that Harkless can provide that help.

So with this trade, Harkless could possibly help the Kings biggest weakness and that is their defense.  The Kings also got five years younger in this transaction.

The Detroit Pistons have sent Delon Wright to the Kings for Cory Joseph and two second-round picks.  Wright will turn 29 in a month and thought to be the better player of the two.  He is averaging 10.4 points a game.  He is also shooting at almost35 percent from three point range.  So we have Wright as a defender off the bench, again where so much help is needed.  

So we will see if these trades can do anything for the anemic defense that Sacramento has exhibited all season as well as more productivity off the bench.  Improvement in these two departments will make a nice difference in the King lineup.