Preview Sort Of Thing: Sacramento Kings

As an aspiring GM with no qualifications or career prospects to speak of, and whose sole outreach into the world of the NBA is this distinctly amateur and unattractive site full of mild slander, I enjoy certain advantages. One of those is the ability to do what I want, to a half-arsed standard, and then to abandon it prematurely, due to a savage concoction of apathy and boredom. This explains what happened with last year's "30 teams in 30 or so days" series of predictions, where I started well, fell behind early, and then gave up roughly half way through. Get in.

This year, we're going to do it again. There will be predictions, and by the power of Greyskull, they're going to be woeful. Even better than that, it's October 19th, and the season starts in just over a week, yet there are 30 teams to cover. So don't be surprised if I only do about......oooh, five? ShamSports.com - run by an amateur.

The few posts that will be made are to be undertaken in a completely random order, with no semblance of logic or reasoning. And with that in mind, we begin with the Sacramento Kings.

Sacramento Kings

The Kings glory era ended a while ago. The days of the Adelman-era Kings, with Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Hedo Turkoglu, Peja Stojakovic, Doug Christie and friends, are over. Webber's knee stopped working, Turkoglu surprised us all by actually getting good, Christie's now the white Dame Dash, and Divac now works for the Serbian government. Other than the incumbent Brad Miller, the final player from those days - Mike Bibby - was pawned off to Atlanta earlier this year for a rather generous return. And that was that.

So, with a end of an old era should come the start of a new one. "The King Is Dead", and all that. But it didn't. For three years, the Kings have done little but tread water. A 44 win season in 2006 has been followed up with 33 and 38 wins respectively, which put the Kings in that most dissatisfying of places - too good to lose without trying, not good enough to compete.

In that time, though, the Kings have had the right approach. Despite a couple of novelty oversized contracts to short term veterans (thank you, Bonzi Wells's former agent!), the Kings have used this time to clean out the old guard, save some Robert De Niro, and to bring in some decent young pieces. This trend continued this year, as the Ron Artest trade brought back Bobby Jackson (big expiring contract), Donte Greene (decent young piece) and a draft pick (a draft pick). Furthermore, they defied ESPN's fan grade of "F" when they drafted Jason Thompson at number 12, to everyone's surprise and widespread condemnation, but a move which (very) early on looks to have been savvy. They signed Bobby Brown out of the German league, thereby shitting once again on my already tenuous theory that ever nobody goes to Germany and later gets back to the NBA. (Thanks to all those who already pointed out that Casey Jacobsen did exactly that last year. Dammit, I was being facetiousness. This is the price you pay when you feel a moral compulsion to try and be funny - you're often wrong, as well as not funny.)

What the Kings have fashioned themselves is a roster full of decent young pieces. With the exception of Kenny Thomas - whose days as a viable NBA player are behind him - the Kings roster is filled with decent pieces, most of them young. Francisco Garcia is a nice piece. John Salmons is a nice piece. Kevin Martin is a very nice piece. Beno Udrih, Bobby Brown, Quincy Douby, Spencer Hawes and Donte Greene are all nice pieces, even if Greene is the most pathetically selfish player that I've ever seen. (And I've seen Tyrone Nesby.) The much maligned Shelden Williams is also a nice piece, who'll never justify his draft position, but who can help an NBA team. And even Bobby Jackson will be a nice piece for a few months, before being bought out in February and signing with the Hornets. (You heard it here first.)

Additionally, the Kings have an identity on the court. With Brown, Udrih and Douby, the Kings have guards who excel in the open floor, and with wing players like Salmons and Garcia along with big men Thompson and Mikki Moore to run with them, the Kings should have free reign to push the ball as often as they can. Based on preseason, they will. The new Kings are a young, athletic and talented bunch, who should entertain, even when they lose.

Financially, the Kings have overspent a few times in recent years. Brad Miller is no longer worthy of his eight figure contract, as the age and weed are catching up with him. Mikki Moore is paid like a starting power forward, but a starting power forward he is not, even if he is. (Did that make sense?) The same poorly phrased sentence can be used to describe Beno Udrih's new salary as a starting point guard. Francisco Garcia's new extension necessitates future improvements in his game to justify the salary and the number of years, or else it's excessive. And Kenny Thomas's contract is nothing more than dead weight. Yet, the Kings' cap situation isn't a problem, despite these small mishaps. Miller's big salary comes off the books in 2010, as does that of Kenny Thomas. Shareef Abdur-Rahim's contract will magically disappear soon due to the injury-enduced retirement rule thing, and even if it doesn't, that expires in 2010 too. As things stand - Francisco Garcia's extension excluded - the Kings figure to have $25 to $30 million in cap space in the big name 2010 offseason, with all of their significant players signed. That figure will no doubt decrease slightly over time, but it nevertheless represents a plan. A lot of teams already have, or will soon develop, plans for cap space in the summer of 2010 offseason, but the Kings are ahead of the game and already have one. And they'll have some decent youth to add to that.

There are drawbacks, though. $25 million of cap space in 2010 should get anyone's juices flowing, but it's currently nothing more than speculative. In contrast, the facts of the current situation show that Kevin Martin is the Kings best player. Martin is a fine player, someone whom every team would want, but who also shouldn't be your best player. If he is, you either need to be in the Eastern Conference and with an almost perfect replication of the Pistons' championship winning team from 2004, or you're not going to get very far. Sadly for Kings fans, it's the latter. Additionally, for all of their strengths when pushing the ball, the Kings will often bog down in the halfcourt. With little creativity or playmaking from the point guard spot, and with not a great deal of consistent outside shooting in the rotation, a lot of the Kings halfcourt offense will depend on Martin, and the high post/low post passing of Miller and Hawes. When armed with comparatively few options, it becomes rather easy for the opposition to take the Kings out of whatever they want to do, and Sacramento has little individual creativity to overcome this.

On nights when it clicks, when the Kings make shots and run on all misses, it'll look glorious. The young and athletic roster will tempt the fans, and hint at a good looking future. But on other nights, the Kings will look like what they are.

Average.

The Kings have the right idea, and they are halfway to the right roster. But, for now, they're several yards behind.


Short term future: Too good to suck, not good enough to compete.
Long term future: It could be beautiful. Or it could be anti-climactic.

Things We Should Totally Petition For, number 1

The Sacramento Kings are cultivating an annual tradition of frittering away their MLE. Since John Salmons, it's all gone Pete Tong. After last year using it to sign Mikki Moore for what will probably only be for two years - a move which will keep them entirely uncompetitive for that time - they've one-upped themsleves by throwing a full 5 year deal to last year's point guard starter, Beno Udrih. Last year was Beno's fourth in the NBA, and unlike the first three that he spent with the San Antonio Spurs, he didn't suck in it. So that helps to justify matters, ever so slightly.

(Readers note: If you can't see why it isn't necessarily a good idea to be committing 5 years of big salary to a guy who has only played one good year in his career, a good year that coincidentally happened to be the year that the money was about to dry up, then you weren't watching the Darius Miles experience particularly intently. But then again, maybe Beno really did genuinely break out, as he sure as hell looked a lot better last year. Then again, now that he's earning $33 million, he'll have to.)

Hopefully, though, this isn't the end of the Kings point guard search. After drafting Sean Singletary in the second round, the Kings now have two actual point guards, even if they aren't very good. They can also pretend, sort of, that wing players Salmons, Francisco Garcia and Q-Doub are able to play point guard in an emergency.

But I think we would all rather see them bring back Jason Williams. Wouldn't you?

The Adelman era Kings of the early part of this decade are gone. Those awesome teams, full of depth, running, passing and choking, are no more. Vlade Divac is long gone. Doug Christie is short gone. So is Chris Webber. Mike Bibby now plays for Atlanta, and doesn't do so very well. Bobby Jackson keeps the Rockets bench warm, Keon Clark has a new favourite kind of court, and Peja Stojakovic is on the Hornets, being paid way, way, way too much. The only players to still be any good are Brad Miller - who is also the only remaining Kings player - and Hedo Turkoglu, who just surprised the hell out of us all by winning the MIP award.

Signing White Chocolate isn't going to bring back the glory days, partly because everyone else has left, and partly because Jason Williams isn't very good any more. And yet...you know what? Maybe there's a second wind in there somewhere. Hobbled as he appeared to be in Miami, Williams also looked somewhat bored and misused, being primarily used as a defender and spot-up shooter, two things he was never much good at. The knees also don't look good, and Williams is also about to turn 33. But even if they lose the ability to do much with it, it's very far-fetched for a player to just entirely lose their understanding of passing angles, and despite Williams' steady career-long metamorphosis into a controlled, sensible point guard, he could still push the ball if he had people to run with him. (Note: that last point is entirely speculative.)

The Kings can offer this. Kevin Martin can run. Salmons can run. Mikki Moore can really run. Udrih doesn't milk shot clocks too much. Garcia did a surprisingly successful Stojakovic impression last year. Patrick Ewing Jr thrives when running, so I'm told. Same with Jason Thompson, apparently. Brad Miller doesn't move too good, but his quality passing skills can help out. Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Kenny Thomas will be about as much use as a chocolate teapot, but then, aren't they anyway?

Let's make it happen. They have a Bi Annual Exception - use it on Jason Williams. The Kings are pencilled in for another season of mediocrity, looking likely to win about 35 games once again. They probably won't make the playoffs, and if they do, they won't get anywhere. They're also too good to accidentally lose, and it would take a decimation of their rotation to make them try and do it on purpose.

So why not have a little fun with it?

Transactions explained

For those wondering how or why two of today's transactions took place, I'll explain a bit:


Number 1:

   New Orleans trades David Wesley to New Jersey for Bernard Robinson, Mile Ilic and cash considerations. New Orleans then promptly waives
them both.

Wesley's contract is for one year at $1,750,000, but only $250,000 of it is guaranteed, which is why it's been passed around twice in the coming months. New Jersey traded two meaningless players on guaranteed contracts for Wesley's unguaranteed one in a bid to cut payroll, which will happen when they cut Wesley. They haven't done it immediately because there's no reason to - with the $250,000 guarantee, Wesley is essentially costing them for a short time, so they can keep him to explore trade possibilities. As for why New Orleans did it, we can only assume that New Jersey gave them enough money to make it worth their while, but it really does cement once and for all the fact that they flat old sold Cedric Simmons. And that deal still remains odd.


Number 2:

   San Antonio trades Beno Udrih to Minnesota for a protected 2008 second round pick and cash. Minnesota waives Udrih immediately.

Same sort of thing - San Antonio needed to shave some off their cap figure, so they dealt Udrih to Minnesota (Minnesota used part of a trade exception to absorb his salary), and gave the Timberwolves enough money to cut him for no cost, plus a little bit more on top for their troubles. The pick Minnesota gave up is havily protected, and so they probably won't lose it.


Updated salaries to be upped shortly.