Report: Kings, Thunder were close to Gay-Payne swap before Payne broke foot

The Sacramento Kings have been resolute in their search for a trading partner to take on disillusioned swingman Rudy Gay, and they reportedly came close to finding one in September.

The Kings were "seriously engaged" in talks with the Oklahoma City Thunder on a deal that would've sent Gay to OKC in exchange for a package headlined by second-year point guard Cameron Payne, sources told The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski.

The deal was derailed when Payne suffered a right foot fracture during a scrimmage at the tail end of training camp. He is expected to miss six-to-eight weeks.

It seems likely Sacramento will have moved on by then. According to Wojnarowski, the Kings are dead set on finding a young point guard to run the team, and have been hounding the Minnesota Timberwolves about Ricky Rubio for months. They've also reportedly sought out a potential trade involving Miami Heat point guard Goran Dragic.

The point guard position has been a particularly unstable one for the Kings throughout their ongoing, decade-long, playoff-less nadir, and neither Ty Lawson (who's already in hot water with the organization) nor Darren Collison (who's about to serve an eight-game suspension for domestic abuse) appears to be the long-term answer.

Meanwhile, the Thunder's wing rotation looks flimsy, and with Kevin Durant gone, they could use a high-usage scorer like Gay to take some of the offensive burden off of Russell Westbrook.