Kings agree to extension with Harrison Barnes

The Kings will keep veteran forward Harrison Barnes off the free-agent market, having reached an agreement on a three-year, $54M contract extension, agent Jeff Schwartz tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

Barnes has been a full-time starter for the Kings since they acquired him from the Dallas Mavericks at the 2019 trade deadline. The 31-year-old has appeared in 317 games since then, averaging 15.4 PPG, 5.3 RPG and 2.3 APG with a .472/.387/.827 shooting line in 34.0 minutes per contest.

Barnes signed a four-year, $94M contract as a free agent in 2016 and got $85M for four years in 2019. Given his age and the fact that so few teams had cap room this summer, it makes sense that he’d have to settle for a slightly lesser annual salary; it’s also not a surprise that he’ll receive well above the mid-level, since his performance hasn’t noticeably dropped off in recent years.

The Pacers were reportedly among the teams believed to have interest in Barnes, but he’ll officially sign a new deal with Sacramento before reaching free agency, since he remained extension-eligible until June 30.

Barnes’ new contract will cut into the Kings’ projected cap room, but the team should still have approximately $18M in space, according to Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype.

As Gozlan observes, Sacramento could use that room to give Domantas Sabonis a raise via a contract renegotiation-and-extension while still having enough left to go after another rotation player in free agency. The club would also have the room exception — projected to get a bump to $7.7M — once it uses up its cap room.

The Kings would also have the ability to operate as an over-the-cap team, which would allow them to access their full $12.4M mid-level exception and $4.5M bi-annual exception, but would remove the option of a Sabonis renegotiation.