David Lee sat down with new majority owner Peter Mallouk this spring, a few months into his job of completely overhauling Sporting KC as its new sporting director.Mallouk took over as majority owner in the winter but offseason roster building plans were long set in motion. This summer was the first one where he could truly impact the team.The new owner wanted to talk to Lee about the summer window and the message was simple: Nothing is off the table, and how do we build a competitive team?In MLS, that starts with designated players. And thus kicked off a wild summer that included the biggest surprise of them all this weekend, when SKC sent DP forward Dejan Joveljic to the Seattle Sounders for a $6 million cash trade, as reported by The Athletic.Joveljic, a popular and productive forward, scored 26 goals in 52 appearances over a year and a half at the club.“We certainly wrestled with this decision,” Lee told The Athletic. “Opening a DP spot is one of the most valuable ways to improve your roster but maybe the most critical part of this transaction, we’re able to take $3 million in GAM. From a roster building perspective, we’ve got a double-pronged way to improve our roster.”Joveljic scored 26 goals in his year-and-a-half spell (Luiza Moraes/Getty Images)Sporting KC will have three DPs on the roster by the winter, if not by the end of the summer window on September 2. The club remains in active talks and pursuits for a center forward and attacking midfielder for those two slots, to accompany club-record signing Andre Luiz, a winger who joined for an initial fee of $18 million this summer.Mallouk told Lee this spring money will not be an obstacle to make big changes. Midfielder Manu Garcia was bought out to open a DP slot when the team was completing its deal to sign Luiz.The deal to sign Luiz is in the top 10 of the most expensive transfers in league history. Sources believe the team has the capacity to spend in a similar profile on each of the final two DP spots if they so choose.“We’re going to be as aggressive and as bold as we can,” Lee said. “We want the team to be better, we want that to be immediately. Ultimately this transaction is transformational in its capacity to allow us to build a stronger overall roster.”The reason Lee sees the potential transformative opportunity from the departure is twofold.First, the obvious: A DP spot has been opened. SKC will look to bring in another center forward, looking for a profile a bit different than Joveljic in someone who has a more all-around game.Second, the salary cap minutae: GAM is basically a tool that can extend salary caps. It is an extremely valuable roster building instrument. SKC has worked to refill their GAM reserves, which was negligible when Lee took over.An injection of $3 million is the max a team can convert from a transfer fee into GAM. In an intraleague cash trade, SKC was able to convert the money to GAM. If Joveljic was transferred abroad for the same figure, the team wouldn’t have been able to convert any of it to GAM. That’s why sending him within the league was more valuable.It’s been a work in progress as SKC has struggled in a transition year of 2026. Growing pains was to be expected as 17 new players arrived and Joveljic marked the 16th departure. Lee had to build out a front office infrastructure basically from scratch along the way, too.Sporting KC signed Luiz for a club record this summer (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)Among the key new additions includes a revamped defensive unit: Center backs Moisés Mosquera, Or Blorian and Diego Borges, plus fullback Emir Karic. Winger Capita Capemba and midfielder Lasse Berg Johnsen are also viewed as long-term starters, with a few more to arrive with the two open DP spots and further flexibility.“The decisions, frankly, are exciting,” Lee said. “The directive, speed and financial support to try to improve our roster in the way ownership can invest in the team is different now than we were expecting. It allows for exciting opportunities.”It may not be a popular move and will hurt the team in the interim until a new center forward arrives, and potentially beyond if that replacement doesn’t match or beat Joveljic’s overall impact, but it’s one the club felt they had to take, even as they sit last in the league.Joveljic, 27, was acquired ahead of the 2025 season after he starred for the LA Galaxy en route to winning MLS Cup 2024. He had 21 goals and eight assists in 33 games that year.“To be honest, if we felt this deal would still be there in six months we may have held, but unfortunately that’s not how the business works,” Lee said. “We felt this was the right thing for the club for years to come.”In Lee’s vision of the team, SKC will have a different profile up top than the fox-in-the-box that is Joveljic. More than just collecting talent, Lee and his staff are putting together the puzzle pieces that complement each other.“We want to be ambitious,” Lee said. “We want to get the team back to competing for titles in MLS as quickly as we possibly can, we have to be as bold and aggressive as we can be. No decision will be off the table from a financial decision.”