Report: Waiters One of Kings' Top Targets in Free Agency

SACRAMENTO - Free agency opened with a bang Thursday night when the Los Angeles Lakers dropped a 4-year, $64 million deal on reserve center Timofey Mozgov. Welcome to the new NBA, where money grows on trees fertilized by a giant, multi-billion dollar television deal.

By all accounts, the Sacramento Kings were active on the market. They've put their feelers out and have centered in a small group of players at positions of need.

According to Chris Mannix of The Vertical, Oklahoma City Thunder restricted free agent Dion Waiters is high on the wish list. The shooting guard is coming off a career-worst 9.8 points on 39.9 percent shooting this season, but he played an integral role in the playoffs. Waiters, 24, is an aggressive scorer and even showed some life as a defender, especially in the spirited seven game Western Conference Finals series against the Golden State Warriors.

Also on the list of potential targets is Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Matthew Dellavedova, who is fresh off a championship backing up Kyrie Irving. Voted the league's dirtiest player during this season, the 25-year-old plays with a grit that the Kings have been lacking. He averaged a modest 7.5 points and 4.4 assists in 24.6 minutes per game while knocking down 41 percent of his 3-point shots.

[HAM: Kings free agent primer: Expect at least one substantial trade]

Sacramento has also kicked the tires on Blazers restricted free agent Allen Crabbe, a sharpshooting wing with a ton of upside. Portland was busy extending a max-money deal to free agent small forward Chandler Parsons, which might preclude them from matching a substantial deal with Crabbe. The 24-year-old guard/forward averaged 10.3 points while shooting 39.3 percent from long range last season and is looked at as a potential 3-and-D perimeter player.

The Kings also made contact with two known targets, Ryan Anderson and Courtney Lee. Anderson is drawing interest from plenty of teams around the league, but Sacramento is his home town and he has expressed interest in joining the team in the past.

Lee has also drawn interest from other teams, but the Kings are hoping to reunite the 30-year-old guard with his former head coach, Dave Joerger. Lee has ties to other players on the roster as well, including Omri Casspi who works out with him in the summers. Lee averaged 9.6 points between stops in both Memphis and Charlotte last season, but his impact on the floor went well beyond the numbers.

The Kings are armed with more than $31 million in available cap space and also have trade chips in Rudy Gay, Kosta Koufos and Ben McLemore that could open up plenty of more room under the new $94 million NBA salary cap.

The Kings have plenty of holes to fill and must spend wisely in a wild free agent period that is completely rewriting the NBA landscape. 

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