Back in 2015, in an attempt to clear salary to sign veterans for a misguided playoff run, the Kings sent Jason Thompson, Carl Landry, Nik Stauskas, 2016 swap rights, 2017 swap rights, and an unprotected 2019 first rounder to the Philadelphia 76ers. I went back and looked at the discussion thread the other day and most people, myself included, expected Dario Saric or the Sixers 2019 pick to be headed our way. Instead, Sacramento settled for non-NBA prospects Arturas Gudaitis and Luka Mitrovic. It was difficult to grasp the “why” behind the trade, but most analysts expected to only give up a mid-first rounder in 2019, which wasn’t such a bad cost for a massive salary dump.

Instead, the Kings have imploded multiple times in the past two years and haven’t made any progress in their path to mediocrity. Because of Joel Embiid’s dominant rookie year and the 76ers finally seeing returns on their tanking (8-2 in last 10 games), as well as Sacramento’s recent slide (3-7 in last 10 games), the Kings only hold a narrow half game advantage over Philadelphia.

There are multiple teams and multiple scenarios that come into play for our first round pick this year. Below is a flow chart that should clear up some of the mess that is the future.

2017 First Round Pick:

Note: Even if the 76ers end up outside of the top ten teams and swap picks with the Kings, Chicago has no rights to Philadelphia's pick. (For example, if Philly exchanges their 12th overall pick for the 8th overall pick, the Bulls cannot take the 12th overall pick from Sacramento as it was technically Philadelphia’s selection.)

2017 Second Round Pick:

The Kings 2017 second rounder directly correlates with where they finish in the standings as well.

2018 First Round Pick: Kings Own

2018 Second Round Pick: Kings Own

2019 First Round Pick: 76ers Own (no protections)

2019 Second Round Pick:

And Philly somehow also has control over our 2019 second rounder.

Hopefully, this clarifies things for everyone trying to figure out if the Kings should blow it up, tank, or something in between.