It's not often young niggas get a chance to enjoy riches in legitimate fashion So many of us say fuck it get a bucket and run up in something and keep smashing It's all about survival but jealous rivals make it hard for us to do this So everybody got a gun but when we was younger our only weapon was our two fists Now who missed the first lesson in life don't be no punk If you a man have heart be a savage whether you sober or drunk I seen niggas in the pen getting their ass dug out over some hop or a pack of Kamels But that's the game home boy and every move you make is a gamble Them squares don't under stand so it takes niggas like me to explain it I show vengeance violence and hatred because underneath it's so much pain I aint no sissy or punk so don't trip when you see me crying A nigga just hella mad his partners is dead and his folks keep on dying My enemys feel the same way they want me dead they think I'm the nigga that put they partner 6 feet under and left his son with no father figure I live day by day not giving a fuck and when they ask me why I pause for a minute then I reply because lifes a bitch and then you die

I apologize for the long lyrics, but I think in many ways it sorta describes what I'm writing in this hopefully shorter than it will probably will end up being. Oh wellzies.

I've had an interesting month. I got hired for a new job, got fired 4 days after starting, started school with a refresher algebra course, that I missed the whole first week due to the new job that I got canned from, quit and returned to my old job, and I'm feeling good about understanding distributive properties. The victory is sort of in the small things realm. Or as the saying can be said," Tasteful in small things is tasteful in all things." Probably not though. I'm not sure I'm tasteful, but I'm pretty sure I'm a fat crude loudmouth blow. At least I don't love shooting Communists. (Dick Cheney here I come! I'm kidding that was an accident. Wink!) That's my consolation prize. But this isn't about me. This is about Reggie Theus. So pay attention from here on out.

When Reggie Theus went to UNLV it might have been considered a mistake by some. (I'd love to find proof, but I wasn't alive in the mid 70's, and it really doesn't matter in the end.) UNLV wasn't a major program, at that time in the mid 70's, and Reggie's success with UNLV (including a Final 4 appearance in 1977) helped laid the groundwork for his leaving the program in 1978 as a Junior. (Yes, he left early. I didn't know that either.) So, by the time he's in Chicago, and has played for, SEVEN, coaches in 6 years, before he's traded, and ends up in KC and Sactown eventually. Ever look up Reggie's career sometime? It's rather interesting. His durability, his scoring, his passing all stack up with many of the games best. The only thing he didn't do on the NBA level was win games. And I ask, and this is a rather important question, how many All-Stars did he play with over the years? Well, to my recollection, he played with a couple at the least. He played with Dominique Wilkins in Atlanta. He played with Artis Gilmore in Chicago. And that's pretty much it. He left Sacramento before Danny Ainge came around. Reggie has pretty much and seen or heard it all. I think given all his experience it might not be worth saying he's on thin ice when all he has to do is steer a team with a lot of young talent and no real enviable position beyond seeing Spencer Hawes, Jason Thompson, Donte Greene, Beno Udrih and Kevin Martin work together as a strong core. Throw Garcia in that mix, and maybe Shelden Williams, or somebody like that, and pretty much you have a young team full of young talent that if it meshes, and that's a big if, you got a wide array talent of abilities.

When Reggie played most of the time the franchise's he played on lacked stability. Atlanta was the most stable of all the teams, and even then that was for only one year. This Kings team is the first time in Reggie's coaching/playing career where the most drama might be coming from his curly hair and his pouty lips. In other words, if Theus sticks to quality, but fairly colorless sound bites, he will do much better than he did with say, Sam Amick and Jim Crandell. But, and this is a major but, Theus also managed to sugar coat a major issue which some have forgotten almost entirely (in this context anyway) now. Nobody gives Theus credit for keeping together a fracture unit together. That's very hard. Some say the Kings team had no offensive semblance, but I ask this, and this is a rather major but, but how do you do this with a 1 on 1 ball hog like Ron Artest around? I love Reggie's trying to adopt a version of the triangle. (There are a few, but the long & short of it is, if you don't know who invented the triangle, i'll give you a hint: Pete Newell. I'm not saying Tex Winter is a chump, because he isn't, but Winter and Newell both used and adopted/introduced different methods. Winter just stuck around coaching longer than Newell did.) Either way I like that Theus wants to teach young players, and players who have seen a new system, in say Kevin Martin's case, 4 times now in 4 years, and isn't embarrassed by it. I hope it continues.

I didn't like the Spencer Hawes episode. I don't think anyone here did for that matter. Besides making fun of Shawes for being a Republican (something I could do for days and will choose to refrain at this time for a variety of reasons), and pointing out his tact was as subtle as dropping a bomb on a daycare in Iraq, one could be disappointed that the kid talked about "creating" a solution when one was already presented. I was also disappointed that not a single person mentioned Theus with the notable exception of not having power in that particular "situation". But, and this is of course bad grammar and form and all that sorta nit picky editor bullshit, Shawes ending up doing it anyway. I think this is so for 3 reasons:

1) Because Geoff Petrie didn't back the power play and it ended there 2) Because Kevin Martin chose to become a leader and say something to Reggie, as opposed to going to Geoff and being pissed off that Shawes went around Reggie in the same way Kevin could have done, but chose not to 3) Shawes had to put up & shutup and just do the damn thing.

Now, the first point. One of the things that irritates me about all the Billy Beane "love" is that he isn't the best GM of this decade. He isn't really a top 5 GM of the decade. I don't really give a crap how much money the team had to spend, and all that sorta nonsense, but the Twins have every problem the A's do and put out better teams overall throughout the decade than the A's have. Why doesn't anybody mention Terry Ryan (even though he's no longer the GM in Minny now) as the best GM of the decade? Because Moneyball wasn't written that's why. That stupid ass book (and so many pointless points being made to boot) have permeated much analysis of the A's since. Which is a shame. Because all the Billy Beane critics could just point out that the farm system of the decade has been a mess. Starting with the "Moneyball" draft and the firing of Grady Fuson. That is my side A's point.

The real point is that Geoff does not run the team. He is in charge of the whole bubblepath that is Kings mania. The job of running the team day to day is Reggie Theus'. That's part of the job description. It goes with the territory and the like. That's just the way it is. Geoff knows it, and I suspect Shawes may not make that same mistake again. I seriously doubt this will teach him to change his approach, but if he keeps getting rebuffed, and I don't want to speculate much here because I think it's based on too many what "ifs", but this is a potential major problem. My hope is that Shawes mistake was one of youth, as opposed to one of arrogance right wingerism. Well, being a right winger is being an arrogant fool, but that's another story. Ugh, I made fun of Republicans again! How dare I? (Well, I'll even it out. Democrats have no backbone, and no ability to create headway with the American public. No willingness to point out Welfare is pointless for instance, well that is if companies would actually invest in employee health care, another issue all together, So there, I've made fun of the Dem's and Repub's. They all suck. For posterity I'm a registered Dem who holds his head in shame at the very thought of it. Still voting for Obama though, and I'm not particularly thrilled about that either. Oui vey. This just keeps getting worse.)

If Reggie Theus did anything right, and he did many times over, he kept talking about basketball. He criticized Donte Greene for not being up to standards defensively. Good! He told Martin his adjustment won't be easy. And all the rest. He did those things because coaches have to do that. Rather than not adopting a system for a ground of players, especially many who were picked because of their abilities to fit in a particular type of system I suspect, then Reggie is doing the right thing by not saying anything in return. And being that I'm in the Theus corner at this moment, if for no other reason because I think the guy deserves the benefit of a doubt for coming into a franchise in major transition, I think pointing out how little power he has is a moot point. As long as he is a head coach he has power. I think Scott Skiles as a lame duck last December proved this point eloquently.

About the only thing I agree with people, who believe Reggie Theus is not the right coach for this team moving forward, is that I think a coach with an agenda, or the wrong fit for this team could damage the development of the young talent in this group. I don't see any real evidence, yet, of Reggie doing that. Or having done so in the past for that matter. Which brings me to the rap of "he doesn't play young players."

Well, and I gotta say this in Reggie's defense, and yet not another single person mentioned it in the Shelden Williams discussion, but a relationship is a 2 way start. Perhaps one reason Shelden didn't play more because Reggie didn't have a good feel for Shelden, and because Shelden wasn't doing everything he could to get Reggie to understand, who had his own share of problems by March I realize, where he stood on things in the "feel" department as well. It takes 2 to tango, and Reggie wasn't tango'n with Shelden in April when there was no reason not to play him. Or maybe he was a bit wasn't he? 24 mins vs Houston and Williams had decent production. (Made both FT's, and grabbed 6 boards. I've seen much worse lines.) 11 mins vs the Clippers. 19 mins 2 days later vs Denver. 22 mins a night later vs the Lakers. Overall, he averaged nearly 24 points a night for Theus in April. I don't think the lack of production for Shelden was just on Shelden himself given he had only a few weeks to play for Reggie up to that point, but if you look at Shelden's whole year it's really hard to find a high point. And anybody choosing one is focusing on something like steal's or assists. Because he had a few "notable" games, like he made an outside contribution, but in a blowout game does that mean much for his confidence? I don't think Shelden's bad play is entirely on Reggie last year, but I do think it's up to Reggie to give Shelden a clean slate this season. I hope Shelden and Reggie work together. Because I believe SW can fill a badly needed physical enforcer type void this team needs. (Similar to Scot Pollard without the stupid hair do's and dumb clown comments.)

I don't think it's fair to say Reggie didn't play his young players. Spencer Hawes claimed he didn't want to hurt his knee running end to end as he believed that's where some of his problems came last year. (I doubt that, but I'm a cynical fat prick. This doesn't help matters either.) What young player was Reggie supposed to play? John Salmons? Francisco Garcia? Kevin Martin?!?! Beno Udrih? Kenny "Woofer" Thomas? If Reggie Theus doesn't have a young team, and he really didn't this past season, than how can he play young players, particularly when the youngest member missed almost all of training camp due to a knee surgery on knee's he's had operated on several times since he was a YOUNG TEENAGER. Clearly, and I don't think I'm alone in this, but some of the slack Reggie deserves I think is being pushed by cynicism that Reggie will make winning the priority. Sorry, not to be contrarian with things I've said in the past, such as losing Artest doesn't matter ultimately because the team isn't winning anyway, and this is one of many examples, but it's Reggie's job as Head Coach of the mighty Kings TO WIN! That's his job. That's what he's there for. To prepare the 12 players on the active roster to WIN! This isn't a college fight song where most of the words are complete propaganda like crap. The name of the game in the pro's is to win. That's what he gets paid the big bucks for. That's why the players get paid lot's of money. They are not there to sit around and wander about a career clipping a poodle's toe-nail's. That's for Lou Diamond Phillips to do. I think Reggie's LAST job is to "develop" the young talent. That is there job. To develop, to pay attention, and to learn.

"You gentleman, have one job here. That is to listen, and that is to learn." "Sergeant, isn't all of this stuff just a bunch of bullshit?" "When I was in Vietnam I had a friend, and he was taking a smoke break, like you and me here, and he was smoking when he was shot. The sniper could see his cherry of his cigarette and that's how he shot him." That is development of youth. That is making a point to disillusioned youth, or some such. (I'm talking about the movie Tigerland btw. Quotes might not be exactly accurate, but they're close enough. I don't feel like sorting through the movie and 20 minutes to get them completely perfect.) Reggie's job is to prepare the whole team, young players too, to help them and to push them in a position to win as many games. If he wasn't doing that, and I'd take exception to it, then he deserves to be fired. If he's pushing this team to win all the games it can, then he should be commended. Because this team will guarantee to increase the amount of gray in his hair already. I wouldn't even be surprised to see him go bald by the end of this season if he sticks around. Why? Well, why do you think? Coaches are obsessive. Reggie is a bit that way too. It's probably why he coaches.

I personally am a fan of what Reggie has done, outside of the Amick/Crandell interview, which was in excellent contrast to the Peachosaurux Rex/Fat Boy Fake Laugh interview, and the incessant harping of Artest to be necessary, the whole cell phone brouhaha, and the John Salmons/Mikki Moore fines, I think Theus has done quite well for himself. You keep a fractured team together and see how you do. Did anybody around here care? No, we are all bitching and moaning and whining about the low draft pick. On draft day many of us, myself to a degree included, were moaning about losing on Jerryd Bayless. And, you know what? I'm glad. Bayless is not a player the Kings need. They already have one combo guard they can't get on the court with Quincy Douby, and even then his flaws are such that getting him on the court without a real PG is an actual problem. In otherwords, the Kings went big with an unusual pick, but a nice roll of the dice given what they had to work with.

Here's what I think Reggie has in his favor this time around. Kevin Martin likes him. Which is a big plus. Because Geoff Petrie likes Kevin too. Which is another big plus. Reggie and Beno understand each other. Petrie is satisfied with Beno. Okay, so Shawes hate's Reggie's ass, but you can't win them all. If Reggie is successful at integrating Jason Thompson over the course of say, 3 months, into the regular rotation I'll be pleased. The kid doesn't have to morph into a regular redneck by Halloween. April will do just fine. The best thing about this roster is that there aren't any major moaning & groaning types on this roster with any real power (Shawes & Greene have much time to develop this trait). That makes it easier too. I think, as I said earlier, Reggie is doing the right thing by installing a set offense. Phil Jackson has said that it takes 3 years to learn the whole intricacy's of the whole triangle. I don't think Reggie has any control over a few things. Health of course being the big thing. Another is the perception of how people inside the franchise are perceiving the job, and whether he's doing the type of job they think makes him worth retaining.

My feeling is simple. If Reggie gets this team to 35 wins, helps Thompson, and perhaps Greene to a small extent, and see's Shawes expand his role, this is perhaps a dangerous team next season. Reggie is about being competitive. He knows first hand how much apathy and frustration come with constant losing. He also knows he's probably not getting this team into the playoffs. (That, of course, is not to say he still shouldn't try.) My feeling is that this team will over achieve again as it did last year. Some food for thought: The pythagoreon theorem for the following seasons. 2004-05: Pythag: 48-34 Actual Record: 50-32 Coach: Rick Adelman 2005-06: Pythag: 46-36 Actual Record: 44-38 Coach: Rick Adelman 2006-07: Pythag: 35-47 Actual Record: 33-49 Coach: Eric Musselman 2007-08: Pythag: 33-49 Actual Record: 38-44 Coach: Reggie Theus

I'm not a total fan of any one metric for a variety of reasons. As I said to somebody earlier today, it's like just about any tool you choose. You mis-appropriate the use of the tool, and it isn't worth much of anything except, or this is usually the case anyway, destroy something. A Hammer is a great example. It's great at keeping something together, but it's terrible at being worthwhile otherwise. It's use is putting two things together by inserting an object by holding it together. A coach can't afford to be that clear cut or black & white though. Nobody can in real life. It isn't that simple. Part of the hammer analogy was to point out that some metrics are useful, but up to the point that they're useful, and no more. Part of the hammer analogy was to point out that Reggie as a coach has to choose when to be a hammer and a flower child. He's got to pick and choose which method works best. And with a mediocre, veteran laden, poorly mish mashed group to work with as a rookie coach, it's not exactly the way to kick off a coaching career. After all, particularly after a playing career that couldn't have been more dis-jointed if he was Vlade Divac's conditioning routine, it's understandable that Reggie was defensive in April about the way he defended Artest. He was doing, as a coach, what he should have done. He never did, in fact, criticize Kevin Martin. It was far more subtle than that. He was illustrating how difficult a rock & a place is for anyone, and the more Kevin Martin kept the pressure on, and the more he kept his mouth shut, the more it became obvious that Reggie will end up coaching the players in the Evil Cowtown. Because that's the only choice he has.

I believe Reggie had an underrated pro career as a player. I don't think his college career gets as much respect as it should either. I think his route into coaching was strange, but so was Phil Jackson's. There isn't any one way, but simply the one that makes it work for you. As TZ stated many times during the coaching search of last year, the very pick is as much a crapshoot as anything. The team wanted a different coach, but in Stan Van Gundy's defense, the moment Orlando says "Yes", you come running faster than Michael Johnson hopped up on speed, crystal meth, and crack put together. You go and you don't care if you run over little old ladies, school children, special needs people, and the like. You just go. And you don't care what feelings were hurt. With Reggie, and Brian Shaw, in all likelihood the most viable 2 candidates of the remaining 3 the Kings were looking at, I think the Kings didn't really have a choice with Reggie. At least Reggie wasn't bad mouthing the Kings. (I'm not sure he ever bad mouthed Sacramento the way somebody like Chris Webber did in fact. Ever.) I think because Reggie came into a seriously flawed mediocre team on the cusp of making major roster changes, with more to come certainly this season, then what you're asking for the coach is to do the impossible. And the more you ask him to do the impossible (I suppose a woman could do this job, but I'm not really sure it would be worth it to a woman. Wouldn't being Pat Summit be worth it? For crying out loud, there are alot of guys who would love to be as good a coach as Summit is. I'm just saying. A heavyweight is a heavyweight. Still not sure why a woman would want to coach a male pro league), or worse demand that the impossible be attainable, which is the worse thing the Maloof's could do at this point, what you want a coach who is willing to do the best he can with what he got. Which is why all the crap about Reggie's particular warts, and what not, along with the idea that a head coach's job is about developing young talent, which is a major reason why there are assistants in the first place, or lovingly referred to as the army of 3 piece suits, a stupid 20 year old kid not paying attention to anything but himself mouths off, and a bunch of neurotic fans are pining to make Reggie into something he's not. Leave the pretty boy alone and do his job. That is if you're making hollow criticisms. Any examples of this? "He doesn't coach defense." Riiiiiight.

If he hangs himself than he does. But if you set the noose to the expectation of something that doesn't exist, like seeing Justin Thompson morph into an All-Star by next season, then you might realize the guy does the best he can with what he has. And that, despite his winning titles with a female point on TV, is the hallmark of any quality coach on the pro level. Not dumb comments about other places, or how about the spirit of chi is essential to maintaining the integration of self in crucial moments or whatever stupid bullshit Phil Poopy Mouth is spouting today. Reggie Theus doesn't have to be hippie Phil. Reggie Theus has to be Reggie Theus and be comfortable with it. Which I imagine he is. It would be nice if the rest of us joined a discussion that didn't start with "he doesn't do this or that", and leave the actual coaching to those who do it. I'm not saying fans can't be critical, and all that. Hell, I say fuck that. That's one of the points of a blog right? What would be nice if Reggie got fired on the merits of doing a poor job, as opposed to the merits of an opinion of owners who've chosen to make decisions that the team is paying now. It would be nice, for a change, that squawking about concepts is a thing of the past, and that doing them is the standard. What, in essence, the point is, is that rather than pre-determining what a coach's role is, let's participate in a more difficult, but in the long run more useful, task of judging Reggie's success or failure as the head coach of our beloved neurotic basketball titans, on what he's actually succeeded or failed at. Not at what we would like him to be. Personally, and hopefully I'm not alone, judging Reggie's time here on the merit's of his actual coaching and actual usefulness is far more important than hoping he plays a young player. It would be really nice, if nothing else, that Reggie gets a chance to hold an interview without having to cater to 5 sides all at once. Because doing the rubiks cube while talking, chewing gum, emailing Bill, shooting some elk to hang at the club, watching not so idle threats from your remaining near all-star on the roster, hearing how you failed on a job that simply standing was a success to begin with, and doing it with the belief you did what you could, then hell I guess Reggie sucks. On the other hand if Hippie Phil could have won 42 games with that bunch last season he might have earned his 10 million dollars. And the 9 championship rings. And all the other accolades he's gotten. For once, rather than sticking Reggie in this poorly designed cardboard box that is wet, and ready to crumble any second, I say give him a modest oak box to work with. After that there are no more excuses. Reggie it's time to go to work. I hope the six shooter was a good time. Because it's likely an Evil Cowtown isn't pining for you to get there. In some ways Reggie has come full circle. I say it's time for a beginning of a new circle. And for a new criticism of coaching that starts with common sense. YOU CAN DO IT!

My name is Barack Obama, and I support this message.

This is going to be a very belated post with not much meat or point to the details. So much for being a chatty asshole.

With Artest's deparature, and Singletary/Ewing Jr along with Bill, you're looking at 8.3 million in less salary before you add the future obligations of Jackson and Greene. Or what you really have, or there abouts anyway, is nearly 62.7 in committed salary before you add Jackson and Greene.

Let's say that Amick is wrong on the salary, or he's not, and let's just say that for our purposes here today, in the sake of being belated, that B-Jax's salary is around 6.9 million. (NOt saying it is, but for today I am for the fact that I'm very limited in time.) Let's say that Jackson's salary is nearly 6.98 million, and that Greene's will be a shade under 972 K. That will be roughly 7,872,000 or so in committed salary assuming the figures are correct. Since you're looking at nearly 500K less in salary, and that's a chunk of change if you're talking about having to spend a dollar for dollar tax, rather than get a tax payment, and the question remains: Why wasn't Singletary kept? I don't think training camp would have cost the Kings that much overall, and certainly not the difference of inviting several players for roughly 50 or 60 K combined would be a big deal. After all, it is training camp, and we're talkin about a team with a likelihood of a 70 Million payroll. So the real question I think about the Artest deal in the aftermath, while some are speculating Udrih's worth, or how many points Kmart will score opening night vs the Wolves is, is what did Singletary do to not end up with a possible shot at this team in training camp?

And that, like most things I suspect, is the only real devil, if there are any, in this deal. If dealing Singletary was a financial motive, and it seems like it was on the surface, then it makes sense to deal him. But if it wasn't, and I doubt it will end up that way, then why deal him? That's the answer I would like more than why the Kings traded Artest. Because that's the part of the trade that will probably ending up haunting them more than any other.

Left a good job in the city, Workin for the man evry night and day, And I never lost one minute of sleepin, Worryin bout the way things might have been. Big wheel keep on turnin, Proud mary keep on burnin, Rollin, rollin, rollin on the river.......

I think it's fairly clear that pretty much everyone who thought Houston was a trade partner at this stage of the game to be zero. I know I thought Houston had given up on their acquisitions end because they were limited in what they could do. Maybe, I just simply took Daryl Morey at face value. My mistake. I always knew the Rockets had the best possible outcome, but I just had given up on them after Morey's statement saying they were going to take limited and measured steps. Apparently, and the price they paid suggests this, is that acquiring Artest is in fact a measured step. So, without further ado, and if you thought this was a long opening paragraph, you haven't read anything I've written before. I suggest grabbing 3 or so beers. Just a suggestion. Do what you want.

4 months and 9 days ago I called Geoff Petrie Don Quixote. I meant it then, and I stand by it now. The only difference between Eddie Najera, JR Smith and Denver's 1st round pick (20th overall as it turned out), was that Donte Greene seems to be a true sleeper stud. But that could be argued about JR Smith too. I don't really mind that Petrie passed up Denver, but I do mind that Artest stayed on the team after the deadline. It was a mistake, and now the team had to deal with the consequences. And to quote myself if I may:

I leave with this. If Petrie thinks his options improve over the summer in sign & trades he's obviously mis-reading the market. That's entirely inept to believe Artest's value will raise over the last 30 games because he will play well or whatever. It's also equally faulty logic to assume that Petrie's vision of losing Artest for anything less than premium value is a sound strategy, unless he's absolutely mandated by the Brothers/family, to shed salary in avoiding luxury tax. If you consider re-signing Beno Udrih, a priority for me, then why would you put it at risk by not allowing the team to have certain distance from luxury tax next season by not trading Ron Artest?

The only thing I've flip flopped was on the signing of Beno Udrih, and I flip flopped several times in days leading up to it. I'm satisfied with the signing, but I also was concerned about the money total at the time. I still am actually, but I'm hoping, like Kevin Martin, Beno will play into his contract. That's the only hope any of us have that the contract is worth it after years of so many bloated and unmovable contracts on the roster. And, 4 months and 9 days later, Petrie basically got what he was offered by Denver with a slight edge in the draft pick (that he had the same advantages with in 2008 that he will have in 2009), and JR Smith for Donte Greene. He got nothing better, and his patience didn't bring about anything. I'm curious why the change? Was it Artest? Was it Martin? Who knows, but I'm going to speculate on that further below do trust on that. On to the next point.

We spent days, and days, and days, arguing what type of value and which teams it would come. Hell, just yesterday even, I got into as close as I could get, in a bitter argument with Savage Beast over some fairly minor details. What kind of value Artest should fetch in return. And the like. And you know what? I was right, but just not at the scale any of us were hoping. It was actually lesser value than what we were arguing. I was hoping that the Kings would be able to dump Kenny Thomas (who doesn't around here?), along with Artest and get some cap room for 2009 along with a draft pick. It didn't happen, and as the JA Adande link says above, the Kings are apparently going after the 2010 Free Agent class. Whoopee.

I still think Cleveland, unlike LA, had the best options to aquire Artest. I do think, though, there are only 3 ways they don't acquire him.

1) Mike Brown was unsure how to use Artest offensively 2) Danny Ferry wasn't able to keep a dialogue with Geoff Petrie, or didn't want to, dating back to not being able to acquire Mike Bibby 3) Dan Gilbert overruled the aforementioned 2 because he didn't think spending the extra money would put the Cavaliers over the top 4) LeBron overruled everybody and told the organization that he thought Ron-Ron was a better rapper than him and it offended him

Okay, everything but 4 is serious, but even then, when you consider that everything Gilbert has done was to "satisfy" LeBron, then it's an important point to remember. No matter what Gilbert does, LeBron will always matter more to that Cleveland franchise because there is one of him. There are other owners who would be willing to spend what Gilbert is. Maybe not alot, but there are some.

As far as LA was concerned I think that was fueled by 3 things:

1) The Lakers desire to be a bigger part of the news than the Clippers 2) Management, primarily owner Jerry Buss and Mitch Kupchak, wanted to send a message to Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol that soft play when it counts won't be tolerated 3)That because Jerry Buss is very conscience about paying luxury tax, he didn't want to take the risk of dealing with Artest under that situation

I don't know whether Cleveland or LA ever came into play, but clearly Morey and Adelman took their shot. If I may I'm going to suggest a couple reasons why they feel Artest is all reward and little risk. One is fairly simple. If Greene isn't ready to contribute right away and get minutes on a title contending team when healthy, then it's going to be hard for Adelman to be willing to play him. After all that organization is in "winning a ring mode." Playing Greene is not the likely avenue to winning that ring. Plus, there is also the added bonus of the "Gerald Wallace problem" at some point coming into play. And by that I mean you have him for 4 years, and you're no longer a championship team, and he isn't a superstar, but he wants that type of money, and hasn't really proven much, and has given the team a problem or two about PT and various other small things not known to virtually anyone but the franchise, and it becomes a hassle. These types of things happen in the NBA. That's why Gerald Wallace is in Charlotte right now. (That and they coughed up too much dough to keep him. Kevin Martin or Gerald Wallace is always how I look at. Who would you choose today?)

Last night listening to Jim Kozimor's show he had the Radio Voice of the Rockets on, Craig Ackerman (I think that's his name), and he said the Rockets gave up nothing to get a top tier player. Well, in a sense I agree with him. The Rockets didn't have to give up any of their more prized veteran talent to get Artest. After all, how was Shane Battier going to help the Kings next season? The Kings, after all, did okay with the return for what they get. In the end, if nothing else, they didn't take a uni-lateral step back as a franchise just to deal Artest away. In a sense when Indiana delt Artest in 2006, they did in the following summer after jumping through many hoops to return Al Harrington to the franchise. I think the Kings got the better end of the deal, and Donnie Walsh and Larry Bird aren't "el stupido if" you get the drift. They just were screwed far worse in the wake of Artest's antic's and the brawl in Detroit still fresh in most people's minds by that time.

Seems like a very long time since Ron got arrested about 17 months ago. (Note: this was actually a post before Ron got arrested that day. That crapola thread existed later at some point. It's in the archives on March 5 2007 if you wanna chase it down. I don't. But here is a great post, and a great comment by Louis MG--hope you're still lurking dude--about how Artest's arrest over-shadowed Kevin Martin's winning Player of the Week.) It's been even longer since I first posted on TZ's old blog: Sac Kings Blog. (I shudder at the memory of how poorly written that stuff was. And I'm talking about my comments not Tz's writing.) StR has been on SBN for so long now it's hard to remember that old thing. I was bored the other day, so I tried to look it up, and now it's even disappeared. It's okay, but I wish I had archived some of my comments about Bibby, Peja, Adelman and other things. Oh well. The long and the short of this is that after 3 years, and then some, the Kings are at the same place they were after the Webber trade. They've treaded water since, not a total surprise, and now they've started the blow it up phase now that Artest is no longer on the roster. So where do they go?

That is the ultimate question I suppose isn't it? Where do the Kings go now that Artest is gone? Who do they trade? What kind of value are they looking for? I suppose that's a matter of opinion, but here's mine.

First, whatever you do, you don't take on longer contracts unless it's a superior player, and a fairly superior one at that, in the next several years. You do your best to keep your cap flexibility for 2010. Whether that culminates in the signing of a Free Agent (a very overrated action IMO), or a Marcus Camby type deal where a trade exception is created for the team giving up the player, or the Kings simply creating more cap room for the amount of mass talent they've decided to stand pat with. Cap Room is not about signing the LeBron's of the world. Let's not kid ourselves. LeBron is not coming to play in Sacramento. So let's not worry about it.

Second, and this is a fairly important second, you don't get over-eager because Tracy McGrady becomes available. Or an older player such as that, and you don't let your Vegas boy, 6 thou wine drinkers at that, make decisions. It's not decisions they make well. Joe and Gavin are not George. Joe and Gavin are figureheads. George is running the biggest part of their operation in Las Vegas. There is a far greater difference. It's one reason the family makes decisions. Joe and Gavin aren't trusted to make them. Families don't make decisions because they want to get together and play dominoes while getting shit faced. They do it to protect themselves against poor decisions by inner-factions against their knowledge. Have you ever listened to Joe Maloof after Rick Adelman got fired? (There are mp3 files that an older poster Pyro posted while she still posted here. She has since stopped posting too. Ugh, is all I'm going to say. If you want some of the mp3 files they are halfway down the comments to scroll down. Big up's again to her for posting them and recording them. They are a goldmine and a ton of insight to the Maloof's, Rick Adelman, Grant Napear and Mike Lamb to an extent, and even Elston Turner. It's worth hearing if you never have. But, to be fair, at this point it's mostly for historical content.) The bottom line is that ownership is there to ask questions of their basketball employee's, and create fiscal discipline. They're not there to create trades, and if they do they better have basketball background similar to Al Davis when he became owner of the Raiders, and now Al has lost his touch so it doesn't make a difference, or sit in the background and cheer like fan's. Otherwise, they're not much good in this whole rigmarole. But, after all, they cut the checks and it's hard to tell someone paying you to go fuck themselves. That's the bottom line in pro sports. Ownership that let's their people do what they need to, and have an open and honest relationship, which I think Geoff and the Maloof family have, which tends to help things work out for the better most of the time.

Geoff Petrie is an enigma wrapped in a mystery in a tomb in ancient Egypt. Nobody really knows what the guy is thinking, and when he says things like "we've had talks with them yes", especially when a trade is finished on "principle", then his crypticness tends to be a tell. After all his not saying anything about the Lakers gave a strong indication nothing was brewing there. The reason I know? Because he doesn't respond to rumors. This is years of watchng the guy work from afar. No other teams were bandied about except Detroit, and I'm sure those talks died quickly because they didn't have the package Houston did. Petrie's strength's are rather obvious. He's patient, and he drafts well. He's killed a ton of teams in this league on trades, although Geoff has given up talent, and the mix of players he put together was the actual success of the players he traded for, and that's not necessarily anything another team can do about. But team's also like to spin PR as positive as they can to get fans to buy tickets, jersey's and the like. If fans believe, accurately or not, that Geoff Petrie raped your team, it might make ownership or your management reluctant to deal with him. That's what I've seen written about Billy Beane (This is bullshit but that's just something I know to be true--want an example? The A's trade Nick Swisher to the White Sox for some of their better prospect. Okay that's a good deal, except the A's have done a terrible job drafting. So when you trade your major league players to re-stock your farm system, you're doing one thing to cover another where you've failed. In Geoff's case it's not that simple, but you get the idea.) but I don't believe it. Never have and never will. Actually I'm fairly thrilled most A's fans believe Billy is still the GM because I'm not sure how many of them would be stoked on the news that Forst is the actual GM, and has been since 2006. Oh well, not the place here for that. I'm just making an analogy. And the point about Petrie is simple. He makes excellent trades for the most part, Bibby is the best example, and Artest to a lesser extent, but he also has criticism's too. Those criticism's can't be ignored.

Anyone who has ever witnessed an argument between me and Otis goes something like this:

Me: The Maloof's have done more damage with their negotiating skills.

Otis: How can you blame the Maloof's for that? Not everything is their fault you know. Petrie's job is to negotiate contract's and if they're poor contracts, that's on Petrie.

Meh, Otis has a point, and one that shouldn't be ignored. Petrie does the bulk of the negotiating, as he should, but ultimately he's the guy who signed the bulk of the contracts. Unfortunately though, and I'm not alone as Ron-Ron's email hysteria on the eve of Baron Davis arriving back home to Anaheim North suggests, he really believed that the Maloof's would negotiate a fair contract extension if he didn't opt out. I, and am not the only one who noticed this, when Joe Maloof goes on the air and insinuates, your millionaire's club pays attention. You don't have to own a PhD to understand that if you don't terminate your contract early, the team MUST negotiate a contract extension with you. And Ron honestly believed that. And what Ron didn't get, and I'm not exactly sure why, is that wasn't Joe's call to make. That was Geoff Petrie's. He made the call, and Ron got mad because he knew was screwed. (Artest shouldn't be that mad. He's making more money that he could have gotten via either a sign or trade or an open market deal. Josh Smith couldn't get paid, and it took Luol Deng and Emeka Okafor to get their deals after several weeks of tough negotiating to get deals they were at least interested in, or felt worth with, to sign. What's the odds in that environment that Artest gets a deal he thinks he's worth? Then again, that's another problem with Artest. I think we've gone over that enough.) Now that Artest is in Houston, and making 1.5 million more than any MLE deal he would have most likely had to accept, then one can say his moving to Houston is a positive career move. Petrie isn't taking his lumps for this deal either. Ron has worn his welcome out, and has for roughly a year and half. Nobody was gonna cry the day he was traded, and the day is come, and guess what, nobody is crying. Geoff Petrie had nowhere to go but up with a deal like this because there was no way he was going to win a Ron Artest sweepstakes. He knew it, and every league GM knew it. So Geoff did what he does best. He assess's damage and works quickly as possible to alleviate the pain. That's really what he is. He's the battlefield medic of NBA GM's. When he came to the Kings they had Mitch Richmond, Spud Webb, Walt "the Wizard" Williams--he of the one left to right crossover my now 89 year old grandmother could have guarded-- and the 8th pick in the draft that ended up being Brian Grant. (It was either Grant, Vin Baker or Eddie Jones. Had BG stayed healthy I take him in a heartbeat. But it's really a flip of a coin and Eddie Jones had the longer career. I'm just making a point.) There are more options today. For one thing Kevin Martin doesn't have the time in Mitch Richmond did. For another Kevin is better paid with better representation. (One of the most underrated things in Sacramento era history is how Mitch's contract status over the 6 years spent in the EC ended up hurting and helping the team in the short and long run.) For another Petrie's acquired all the players on the current Kings team. He isn't dealing with the messy leftovers that Jerry Reynolds left him that he inheritated from Dick "I've got a championship ring how many do you got?" Motta. (Coach, I've got two. Maybe they should listen to me. God Bless that smartass Danny Ainge.) And that is of course the point. Yesterday effects today which effects tomorrow which effects 2 days from now. It's always inter-connected, and no matter how many arguments ensue, it's always important to remember the past to be able to gauge the future with a better feel.

Are the KIngs better off than they were in 1994? Yeah, for alot of reasons. Jim Thomas isn't the owner anymore is probably the 2nd biggest reason. There's a stronger salary cap preventing the Kings from losing any young stud in free agency provided they aren't the dum dumb's aka Atlanta Hawks, and negotiate properly with their young talent. You have Geoff Petrie who has a firm handle on where he wants to take this franchise. If it's let the young talent grow with the older "young" talent like Garcia, Martin, Salmons and Udrih, than I say so be it. That's a better plan than Minnesota has, and they've got a pretty good starting point in Al Jefferson and Kevin Love potentially. In the salary cap age, foresight is the most incredible thing to have. But, and this is a rather big butt, it's also important to get luck. Every championship team has had it. Every single one. The Celtic's of the 50's and 60's. Anybody here know how the C's got Bob Cousy? They got the short end (or so they thought at the time) of a dispersal draft because they thought he was some New York swingin dick showboat who couldn't lead a team after watching him play 4 years at Holy Cross. Guess Red Auerbach ain't perfect huh? The point is that when the Celtic's got him their franchise's fortunes changed, and having made that type of mistake, it taught Auerbach to think out of the box. 17 championship's later, and one motherfucking famous parque, it's safe to say the Boston Celtic's have done as much as anything basketball "team" to shape the history of basketball in the world. That's important to remember. It's almost important to remember that Auerbach worked at it too. Petrie still has touch to run this team. Sure, people like Carl were frustrated. Shit, so was I. I stopped watching the Kings after the trade deadline because I got tired of Ron Artest on the floor. I wanted him gone, and it was practically impossible to stomach watching him game in & game out as the Kings wound down the season towards a high lottery pick that was slated to not make the impact that a top 5 or 7 pick probably would have. But, and this is a rather big but, one way would define luck is to have a player who drafted at 12th overall ends up being a superstar and the best player drafted in several years. That would be one definition of luck, yes? Am I saying Jason Thompson will be Karl Malone. Hell no minions don't be Corky from "Life goes On." At the same time it's always possible. With young players you just don't know. And who knows about Greene? He showed some promise in Summer League too. (Or Bobby Brown. Didn't he show that at least when you combine his feats in Berlin?) It may be that Reggie Theus turns out to be a better coach of young players than he is of bitchy, enigmatic, mercurial veterans. Luck, intelligence, foresight, keeping in touch with history, and paying attention are how teams win rings. It's quite possible the Kings could be back at some point. It's sure as hell better to contemplate the future now that Neutral has left the building isn't it?

The bottom line for me is this. If you move Reef (or have his salary taken off with a medical retirement), then you've lost his salary starting next season. That's a good thing. If you can trade away Kenny Thomas with either John Salmons or Bobby Jackson that's a good thing. Especially if you cut that salary in half with a quality player coming in return. With options Geoff Petrie can make things happen. He can decide to negotiate an extension with Francisco Garcia rather than letting Garcia decide he wants to go the Josh Childress route. (This should be a concern for the Kings. Cisco speaks Spanish. He goes to the Spanish League and makes big bucks, that's a problem for the KIngs if they want to get tough with negotiations with him. That's not a road I'm interested in seeing the Kings take.) I have said that the 2 biggest priorities are trading Ron Artest and signing Cisco to an extension. Well, the first priority happened, and it's time to work on the Second. Trades with Geoff happen in a 24 hour span, but negotiations can take weeks. So why not start the process now? Or at least in mid-August. It's safe to say, though, that if Cisco isn't extended by training camp, unless he wants to be in Restricted-Free Agency (RFA) next off-season, it's a failure on the Kings part to keep their young core together, a trade with Artest that certainly helps move the team in that direction, when trading Artest was one purpose of reaching that goal. It's one thing to want a guy gone like I've said many times. It's another to do so with a purpose, and I believe it's very possible the Kings have done that. Sure, it's not perfect or anything, but that's the real world. The NBA can be tough to trade certain types of players, and if you're trading Dwight Howard, is there a big equal of his talent? If he's the big man in the world who is going to match him? (How many big man do you think it would take to combine Dwight Howard? Mental exercise to keep you sharp. So keep up people.) Hence, why trading Artest was so difficult. Not only was he difficult to trade from a personality standpoint, he was also so underpaid that it made a limited select market on who was going to acquire him. Either you acquire Artest and receive an overpaid crap-pile like Kenny Thomas, or you trade a mid levelish player like Bobby Jackson with a young player and draft picks. Petrie doesn't have a lot of options with Artest unless he was making more money. And unfortunately, that's what made Artest so appealing to begin with. He is underpaid.

Bottom line is that Section nailed it last night. "Kevin Martin, line 1 holding for you. Your destiny is calling". Absolutely nailed it. TZ nailed the whole full circle thing too. Actually he pretty much nailed all of it, right down with the picture and Shakespeare-esque (if not him some classic writer I'm sure I've never read) writing. Now the Kings can dump a Mikki Moore for cap room. Now moving Bobby Jackson and trying to attach Kenny Thomas to any deal may be easier particularly at the deadline or sometime during the season. There are alot of things that are possible when teams are openly and actively seeking deals. The closer it gets to 2009 is the closer Kenny Thomas has some (as much as a crap-pile can have) to trade value. I'm game for that. In fact who isn't so we can beat the living crap out of you know. (I would venture to say there isn't many community enforced rules, but disliking Kenny Thomas is definitely near or top of the list.) Finding out about Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson would be nice. Do they have all-star talent? Are they consistent contributors to a title team? Do we have these answers on July 30th. No, of course not. Why would we expect to? But I know one thing if I know nothing else. There is no way the Kings can find out answers about their young talent and future spending every day catering to the whims of a Queensbridge madman on the loose in the Evil Cowtown. You can't do it. Reggie Theus had to spend time, and massaging his own ego simultaneously, defending Ron Artest publicly. He did such a poor job that it ended up turning the whole franchise's head. What Reggie ended up doing was waking up the ownership to just how difficult a PR cover up job Ron Artest really is for a team in transistion mode like the Kings are. Frankly, and I don't think TZ has gotten enough credit for this, but in SpringTime 07 he did an interview with Bill Bradley, then an editor, and still may be today, about the type of web coverage the Bee did. Ever since TZ leveled fair and honest criticism's it has gotten better.

For those who don't think people in the Kings organization read this blog you're wrong. They most certainly and definitely do. It's one forum, a fairly unusually intelligent forum, and compendium of opinions that pretty much hit every Kings issue under the sun. When you have a community that does that, and doesn't enforce specifically and spectacuraly one sided idea's that only partially reach the point that the enforcment is looking to seek, than the point of having an opinion is lost. Did StR force Artest to be traded? No, again, of course not. Did StR help the Bee re-think it's web coverage? It almost certainly did. Newspapers are struggling with income from every angle, and they're losing readership by the day because the Internet has been such a broad and complete source of everything from anorexia to zylophones. It's kinda hard to top that if you print a headline "Bush read's a newspaper without making a fart joke while sniffing Cocaine." People get tired of that crap, and the Bee has found a way to make coverage of a tired one horse media town somewhat worthwhile. And it didn't start exactly with TZ's criticism, but it helped get the ball rolling. Sam Amick is a terrific beat writer whom the Bee and KIngs fans are equally lucky to have. He doesn't take anybody's crap, and he's the best source of Kings information I've seen fans have since Mark Kreidler. (For whatever reason I'm into political analogies today. I saw a political caption over a column from a Seattle Times editorialist with a caption of T-Rex representing the US debt with W as the master of T-Rex pulling him around on a chain while McCain and Obama watched. Extremely amusing. I'd link to it, but I doubt the Seattle Times website has it. If it was in the Bee I hope you saw it. For whatever it's worth I enjoy reading the Editorial's more than I enjoy reading anything else. Like the 20 cent plastic bag tax that's taking effect in 2009. It's stupid, and will end up hurting the environment more in the long run with more plastic being expended. But that's unfortunately the society we live in today. We don't quite seem to get cause and effect the way we should. And it's not just politics. It's sports too.) I'm from Sacramento. Graduated from Sac High until it sunk into the depths of KJ's hands. And it's sunk further. Not a great shock, but whatever. The school had sucked for years. The problem with Sac is that it's a company town. Always has been when I lived there, and probably always will be. People aren't going against the grain much there. (And this is not just Sacramento either to be fair. But in a city that's unusual, too many people don't seem to think outside the box like they should. It's a shame. Great city, nice people, fairly good climate, and a kickass place to go anywhere when the local watering hole gets old. We all leave where we live.) Talk radio is contrived for chrissake. Talk Radio is about opponent's anger screaming at each other. And even that's boring because it's so predictable. Sacramento is unfortunately a low corporate town due to the huge presence the bureaucracy the State of California takes up. Everywhere between 3rd and Alhambra do you find State buildings that do this, that, or the other. What isn't there tends to be city oriented type stuff, and the County of Sacramento has quite a bit of office's too. In otherwords it's a company town. And as a favorite book character of mine said," Bureaucracy clogs the imagination." Actually, I don't think it's all that it does, but I definitely think the power to think critically of the Kings is almost generally absent in most area's of Kings talk. Actually, and I don't think is a total critcism of just KIngs fans, but sports talk in general. (Or Americans if you want to take a broader scope.) It comes down to this, or it comes down to that. It's one reason I'm not a "Scoop" fan. He's covered the Lakers, and all that junk, but for every piece of good information he provides, he provides his opinion. Some of that is necessary, I mean shit, he does report on the NBA, but some of that is overboard. (He is also a Lakers fan, even though he won't publicly admit it.) We don't live in an era where information is publicly and willing shared, but in an era where information is withheld with a grudge by TV, Radio and some Newspaper sources. That's why, among other things, is why StR and other blogs like it, provide such a recourse. So, in one sense the interest of 1140 to make certain types of news on the Kings sound better than it is, and on the other hand you have the Bee which doesn't have a full leg to stand on. It has to report news straight on, and not hold forth against opinions because the exist. The full disclosure of informatino that most cities just doesn't happen in Sacramento. That isn't an accident. It works well, but not like it did. With blogs such as this, or even Kingsfans.com to an extent, Kings fans now have a recourse to say what they want, or up to a point, for the most part how they want. You can't do that on 1140. I can't criticize the Maloof's for poor posturing in negotiating on Grant's show. I can here. There is no guarantee anyone anywhere will agree, but that opinion can be heard. Ron Artest is the greatest proof of this.

Coming as completely full circle, you have why Artest was traded, and the reason's other teams may not have gotten involved. You have the timing and the difficult of trading a player and low monetary value such as Artest. You have some glimpse at the future and what it may bring. You have the value of free information in a fairly tightly clustered media information area like the Evil Cowtown. What hasn't been discussed, and needs to, is how this team will miss Artest. And make no mistake, and I say this knowing full well I wanted the guy gone, and knowing the team will be better eventually, this team will suffer a bit without Ron Artest. So the question is how?

We all hated watching Ron dribble for 10 seconds and jack up an off balance slightly to the left from 20 feet away from the hoop. We all screamed about why he wasn't on the block, or how was it he so naturally and effortessly killed ball movement on contact. But that was also, in a sense, sort of like Chris Webber before him with his superstar complex, a benefit too. You want a guy on your team willing to take bad shots and trying to take the game over. Most NBA teams, outside of maybe Detroit, seem to want that. Reggie Theus certainly played that angle up, even though it was far more subtle than it was loud as day, unlike his mouth. Kevin Martin was spared this. His efficiency is one of his greatest attributes, but the greater question is that without Ron Artest will he be willing to take those bad shots, or that subtle criticism of how he gets shots off, to help the KIngs? Ron Artest took that within stride. He wanted to be the "Man", so he did those off balance bad shot clock shots. Did he contribute to the poor convolution of those possessions? Absolutely, and that's what most of us reacted to I suspect. But, and this is rather strong but, Kevin Martin has relied heavily on Brad Miller's passing skills to get 10-20 points a night off easy layup's and FT attempts. If Kevin can't take guys one on one consistently every night, while beating double teams in the process, is going to be the true measure of Kevin's next step. Only time will tell on this. A greater problem perhaps, or maybe this is my imagination going with a monster fanpost that keeps taking off and then some, is how will Kevin deals with the media and his time being more of demand? After all, when Ron went into a city he was generally the first player interviewed. More teams were interested in his thoughts on just about everything from gardening to whether organic chicken is the ticket. Martin will now get those questinos. He won't be ignored. He will have his face on gameday programs, and on the Kings season guide. All those massive responsibilities, that Webber and Artest did, are now on Martin. Do I think this is a great problem? As I've already mentioned about how little footprints the media in the EC make, it's not going to create many problems for K-Mart. He already has Sam Amick's ear, and as April's little tussle proved, he's getting his way. His comment about wanting more leadership in Ailene's column had as much subtlety as "Ron go the fuck away" would. He was saying, as plainly as he could, that the team was his to take over. It was his time,"It's our time...It's our tyyyyymmmmmeeee!" (Warning: Complimentary Goonies quote now over.) And it is now. It's his time. But the day it goes bad for him, the day he misses the Jump shot when it was all on the line and the Kings are hung in the process, how does he handle that? Does he have that ultimate alpha male ego that Artest has on the court? We don't know any of these answers for certain, but that's the beauty of trading Artest now. Martin asked for it, and he got it. It's put up or shutup time kid. You may think your game, but only April holds that answer.

In the end the Kings are kinda like that top tier college team. People debate the worthiness of just about everything from the mascot to the Head Coach playing enough guys. We obsess about the team to the point where it makes us seem crazy. (Portland and Utah has similar fan bases to this extent. I believe this is in part due to the fact that both Utah and Portland have college programs making strong impacts in tough conferences.) What is Sacramento's excuse? Sac State, the next dynasty? I'm going to stay silent, and snicker at the "Go Hornets" chant. It's a commuter school. Unless you get an all-world talent that every single school recruiter missed, the Hornets will never be an upper echelon team with the resources they have. It's the way the cookie crumbles. So if there isn't this mass hysteria over a local college (And I don't consider Pacific a local college because it's in Stockton), and I don't remember ever listening to 1140 with tons of college calls about Cal and Stanford, then what is it? It's a bit hard to describe, but it's like the terrible parent being angry at their kid being taken away. I may not love it, but you ain't taking it away from me either. And that's the closest analogy I can come to how a team in the middle of cow country to the south, wine country and the bay area to the west, casino's to the east, and so much agriculture around it that it make's your teeth hurt come farmer market's time. Why does this have anything to do with Ron Artest? Because he's a media whore. Because noone else on the Kings is nearly as well known in the national media as Artest is. Because the Kings are a team with fans worldwide from Korea and China to Florida New York City and everywhere in between. In a place where no college team diverts any attention, where the nearest big college and pro teams are 80 miles down the road, including teams many of us root for, where many consider it such a 2nd rate town because of the low tourism it attracts, and partly because it's too close to San Francisco to considered to be a major metropolis, and because the amount of jealousy that other fans in pro sports have of Sacramento because the fans go there to scream their asses's off, it matters because Kevin Martin in Sacramento matters like Kobe Bryant in LA. And that's why, no matter what anyone says, kinda like knowing an open secret more people should get in the internet age, the Artest trade, despite the downside it brings in the exposure it will bring of players like Martin, Garcia, and Salmons, is the best thing that has happened to this franchise since signing Vlade Divac. Because, and only because, this type of thing matters more here, it will end up being something that surprises everyone. People will care more, and not less, because now the team doesn't have a guy who jumped into the stands, had fights with his wife, forgot to feed his dog, asked time off for a rap album with his prior team, sent multiple email's in disappointment because the team he was on wouldn't negotiate an extension he thought he was due, and because his ego forced every aspecct of the organization to revolve around him, this forces a new direction, a welcome direction, in the new era of the Kings. It's about time, and even better, it's fun again.

 

There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
Theres too much confusion
I cant get no relief
Businessman they drink my wine
Plow men dig my earth
None will level on the line
Nobody of it is worth
Hey hey

No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke but uh
But you and I weve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hours getting late
Hey

Hey

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Bare-foot servants to, but huh
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approachin
And the wind began to howl
Hey
Oh
All along the watchtower
Hear you sing around the watch
Gotta beware gotta beware I will
Yeah
Ooh baby
All along the watchtower

I've seen some mention (mostly from posters on StR) that the Kings were paying luxury tax. But according to everything I could find, from ShamSports, or the ESPN trade checker (go to espn nba page and go to more--that's where you'll find the trade checker--linking it does no good), what may see written is that the Kings were over the luxury tax. Hmmm, this was not so in my calculations, but then again let's test this theory out. With and Departed Ron or WR/DR.

W(ith)R(on): Brad Miller: 11,375,000

Kevin Martin: 8,760,335

Kenny Thomas: 8,562,500

Ron Artest: 7,400,000

Shareef Abdur Rahim: 6,200,000

Mikki Moore: 5,784,480

Beno Udrih: 5,585,000

John Salmons: 5,104,000

Shelden Williams: 3,395,760

Spencer Hawes: 2,180,760

Francisco Garcia: 1,983,453

Jason Thompson: 1,893,840

Quincy Douby: 1,427,040

Sean Singletary: 442,114

Patrick Ewing Jr: 442,114

Bobby Brown: 442,114

Now what does this all add up to besides bibbity bobbity boo? According to my calculations the actual salary is something like this: 70,978,510 (I might be 15 K off so don't sue me, but at worse that's like that's something like 70,995,000). So what's the point? The actual luxury tax threshold is 71,115,000 this season. Or it's something like that. The Kings are in all likelihood 20K away from the threshold.

The Rockets in the meantime, pre-Ron, according to Sham, has nearly 70 million dollars in committed salary (it's actually like 69.96 million or something like that, and that's even farther away from the luxury tax threshold than the Kings are--I'm also going to spare you the long list of Rockets with their individual salary) before the Ron trade. So, keep in mind that the Kings are probably around 70.98 million dollars in luxury tax salary, or 157 thousand under the actual threshold, and the Rockets are approximately 1.2 million dollars under threshold.

So what happened with the actual deal? Well, Let's take Ron out of the equation, and add Bobby Jackson and Donte Green to it:

D(eparted)R(on): Brad Miller: 11,375,000

Kevin Martin: 8,760,335

Kenny Thomas: 8,562,500

Bobby Jackson: 6,987,888

Shareef Abdur Rahim: 6,200,000

Mikki Moore: 5,784,480

Beno Udrih: 5,585,000

John Salmons: 5,104,000

Shelden Williams: 3,395,760

Spencer Hawes: 2,180,760

Francisco Garcia: 1,983,453

Jason Thompson: 1,893,840

Quincy Douby: 1,427,040

Donte Greene: 971,160

Sean Singletary: 442,114

Patrick Ewing Jr: 442,114

Bobby Brown: 442,114

So what's the actual salary assuming that noone off this list gets traded? 71,537,558, which is approximately 420K over the actual luxury tax limit which would cost the Kings 420 something in luxury tax (or 840K total combined salary and dollar for dollar tax), and of course there is the tax payment they would miss by doing this deal assuming they keep all the players on the roster. So? Are they going to do that? If it was you, and you didn't think Ewing, or Singletary were high contributors would you cut either or include one in a trade? Yes, you probably would. So that's really where the speculation (as many of us bandied about in several threads last night) is with the rest of the trade. If the Kings are to send a player in this deal, it's more likely to be either Singletary or Ewing Jr, as opposed to Bobby Brown. That would put the Kings under the luxury tax threshold by including one, or the other, in a trade.

So, while I've seen that the Kings are paying luxury tax this season, what I'm actually seeing is that most pundits who don't know what they're talking about are projecting based on knowing little about what committed team salary the Kings actually have. I'm a Kings fan, and I'm following this daily as it's an important story. If I'm not quite sure of what the actual nature of the contracts that Singletary, Ewing Jr, and Brown signed, how can any pundit certainly know anything 100?

What's my opinion on this? Either the Kings send Singletary or Ewing Jr to the Rockets as part of the swap, or they don't. They cut one, or both, before training camp to save as much money as possible. They could cut all three, but I don't see that being a strong possibility since the franchise went out of the way to sign Bobby Brown (I think they knew about him before Summer League, but that is a hunch).

In the end, I just wanted to give everyone a head's up, that yes, the Kings, if they didn't cut Singletary or Ewing Jr, would in fact pay luxury tax for the upcoming season. I would also like to point out that they only pay the tax at the end of the season, and not before, so they could always cut salary making sure they're well under the threshold before then. That is a likely possibility too if A) they can get somebody to take the crap-pile that is Kenny Thomas, B) if they can either trade Shareef or take his salary off the books due to medical retirement, and C) how creative they are with whom they invite to camp and what they pay them. Everything that a team pays for a player that includes bonus's, training camp invitee's, players you waive during the season, and all those types of things factor into team salary. My summation is that, while I'm not exactly sure what moves are out there for Sacramento to accomplish at this point, it's fairly certain they'll do everything within their power to get some breathing room from the tax in order to collect the luxury tax payment they get for being under the threshold.

We already have 2 fans shots, 2 fan posts, and who knows what else is coming from Section and TZ. Please everyone, don't keep making new fan posts when there is no reason to make them. As soon as the new fan posts stop coming in I'm deleting this so nobody has to ever read it. So don't post anything more on this subject and post shorter thoughts on the subject in the multiple threads already up. Trust me. There is ample space to discuss this. This is major news. Thank You. There now I've met the 75 word count.

I like Henry. I'm going to say that now. I love True Hoop because it provides a level of understand for basketball I never had before without it. Without True Hoop being on ESPN that site would be almost entirely worthless unless breaking news happened, and even then they basically beat everybody else by 30 minutes. That being said I think Henry, who I agreed with some stuff he said earlier (great post by Clipper Steve of Clips Nation) last week about Childress signing with Olympikos in the Greek League, that he's missing the boat on the overall tenor of what's happening with negotiating.

Essentially, what I've seen with Henry, like today's post, is that there is a flaw in the current CBA that leaves team's vulnerable to players who want to walk over to Europe because they no longer have an upper hand in negotiating! Good! That's not a bad thing. There should be a give & take in the CBA, and I think this balances that. Smith and Deng are upset that they aren't getting their money, and their blaming their Restricted Free Agency status for it. That, last I checked, was the case when they came into the league. But now they've crossed the "can't turn back" stage they're both pouting a bit because they've showed glimpses of super-stardom and nothing that consistently displays it. The Bulls and Hawks, up to a point, are correct to be stingy on not "over"paying Deng or Smith. But, at the same time, if Deng and Smith don't want to take a reduced value, and that's their right, the CBA gives them a course to take a one year offer and play out the rest of their rookie contract. That's their recourse.

So my question what is wrong with that? Why does Josh Smith have to get his money if no team is willing to give it to him? Is it his fault he went into RFA at a bad time? No, it's not. Is it the NBA's? No, it's not. I say that people need to get over the fact that Smith and Igoudala aren't getting big contracts as a sign more & more owners are getting the need to be picky with whom they pay. I think some fiscal discipline on the owner's part helps keep the league affordable for fans. (Although, that's not really it either. Owners do whatever they can to put money in their own pocket. That's a fallacy but I'm going to print it anyway like I really mean it.) I think the whole idea that the league is suffering because Josh Smith and Luol Deng aren't getting the contracts they want is a crock. In fact, I don't think it shows a flaw within the system at all. I think it shows a flaw in Deng and Smith's opinion of themselves, and in Childress' case, shows the poor marketing position that the Hawks put themselves in by not extending Childress or Smith last summer. (The Bulls do get a pat on the back for trying it. Deng and Gordon just did stupid things.

What's the solution? Well, I say keep this system the way it is. Give the players and the owners recourse. That's what collective bargaining is for. It shouldn't be one sided, and it was. It takes time and effort to smooth out inequities, and quite frankly, if the league chooses to re-write the CBA because Josh Childress chose to go to Europe at a time where the Euro is outpacing the Dollar by nearly 2 to 1, well then so what? Childress wasn't any major player, but merely a role player who had offers from other teams. Yes he had offers, but those teams knew he was restricted. They didn't want to tie any money up giving him an offer sheet so the Hawks could just match. That's what the Hawks wanted. Childress called the Hawks bluff and went oversea's. Why not end it with that? Why not focus on the fact that the crappy American economy has to do with poor choices, education, and a poor overall outlook at how things are created/effected by overall actions? Nooooooooooo, there's some problem with the CBA because Josh Childress signed with Olympikos. Well with all due respect to Henry Abbott, every Hawks fan angry at management (as they should be), Tom Ziller and ever other person who thinks the CBA is flawed beyond the allowable limit this is my response: You're wrong.

I personally think is a great thing for the NBA as Henry originally stated (or implied that it could be down the road is what he really said). I don't think it's a flaw on the NBA's part, but a flaw in how player's and teams view value. Everyone decried the Warriors opportunity to not be able to re-sign Gilbert Arenas in 2004, but the Spurs had the same problem and set the cap space aside to do so. Nobody threw fits because Detroit lost Mehmet Okur to Utah because they didn't have the cap space to re-sign him. Personally, and I say this because I believe it, Childress walking to Greece says 2 things. One, it shows he's interested in seeing how playing in Greece can change his value after playing in the NBA, and Two, it can make re-entry possible for players in the European League's who may have come to the NBA and returned to Europe, to return back to the NBA. For all the talk of a global NBA, most American's seem pretty xenophobic about it from my view. It's okay to talk about it because it sounds nice & good as long as those players are coming over here to the good ole US of VA. But when an American player openly spurns us to go over there there's a crack in the armor? Nope, sorry, but I just don't think so. Childress' decision could work for him, against him, or end up being a push. I say we wait a couple years, and see how this works for the NBA and FIBA. Does it change how NBA teams draft European's in league's over there, or does it change anything at all? Does it become an overall trend, which I don't think anything has come close to that btw, or does it become a personal decision that was simply out of the box. The truth is Josh Childress is a different cat. He was shown partying in Greece. He wasn't in the US announcing this. He was in Greece partying and having a good time in Athens. He seemed open to a new culture and it's way of presenting itself over there. If nothing else, and I say this, it could be a great way for athletes to come out of their athlete shell of being superhuman. Being human might just start being possible. It's one thing to be superhuman on the court doing things that only a handful of people in the world can do, but off the court it gets a tad old. And athletes, of all people, are more aware of this than anyone.

I like the idea of Childress in Europe, and I like the idea of giving teams every opportunity to re-sign their rookies if they choose. I like the idea that smart teams who handle their players appropriately (anybody around here glad the Kings extended Kevin Martin before he went on the market?) and with respectful fashion get more out of them. This isn't just about money with Childress; after all the guy is already a millionaire before heading to Greece as the 6th overall pick in 2005. What I find irritating is that crybaby millionaires are crying poor because they don't get their way, and because only 4 teams had any real money to spend, and 2 of them the Warriors and Clippers because they had major talent opt out of their contracts unexpectedly to almost everyone, created a totally different market that allowed them to play against everyone else. It created an unlevel playing field because noone expected it. Philly, unlike Memphis who isn't jumping in this aspect of anything, jumped into the Brand sweepstakes because they could. You don't think Chicago would have loved to jump in that boat? What about Detroit? You don't think Seattle Oklahoma City would have loved to have a shot with Brand? What about Atlanta? There just weren't any teams with cap room, and that pretty much screwed Smith and Deng. That's the way the cookie crumbles with free agency. It's about opportunity, and you know what, there's always next year anyway. I think, if anything, that the Childress signing teaches us is that if players are willing to do extraordinary things and change the landscape, or the view of that said landscape even, then as fans and observers we are far better off being aware of that said opportunity rather than acting like it's some overall detriment to the game we love to watch and observe. And that, kiddies, is the only real lesson I've taken from this whole scenario. I would also like to mention now that when 2009 rolls around, how many teams will be lining up to give Childress mega bucks? Or even Mid-Level bucks if Atlanta doesn't renounce Childress admist all this?

As always, and if nothing else, there are actions and equal and opposite reaction's for everything. Some stringy static filled hair guy said that once. He ended up being on a t-shirt for intellectuals. Or as it was put eloquently put it in the movie IQ:

Boris Podolsky: James! How's the rat business?

James Moreland: Well, actually it's mostly students I'm experimenting on now.

Kurt Godel: My God, the mazes must be enormous."

Yeah, that works for me (not the Einstein quote from IQ I wanted but it will do). Good Day suckaz!