he didn’t try? Nobody really knows that he might have offered things to teams and we just don’t really have a lot of assets.

Who other than Kmart would you possibly want from the Kings?

I do not envy his job what so ever right now. Maybe he will surprise us all with his grand 2010 plans. Maybe he won’t who knows anymore.

I don’t think that not moving up or down in the draft is an offense worth firing Petrie over, considering that he has consistenly gotten value from the picks that he has kept.

It’s been said in many posts here on StR already, but so much of our reaction to the JT pick and the rest of the draft was the frustration of, for the 2nd year in a row, just barely missing out on a talent that we coveted as fans. Beyond that, we’re upset because Petrie does not conform to the opinions of Chad Ford and Jay Bilas?

Who you gonna bring in instead? Musselman? Getting rid of Adelman was a maloof thing. If you could fire anybody i’d fire the maloofs instead. Im glad the maloofs have stepped off Petrie and let him do his thing, because i know for sure Thompson is a Petrie decision.

Was there someone (within our reach) that was worth trading up or down for? While Bayless looks to be a good player, he is far from the true PG this team needs. What would you have been willing to give up to get Bayless? I don’t think Augustine was within our reach, but assuming he was, again how much would you be willing to give up for a PG that many thought would drop to us because of his size? (Again remembering that you have to give up something that other teams want. No saying, “I’d have packaged the 12 with our two seconds.” Nobody takes that.) Would you have mortgaged next year’s number 1? Would you have given up somebody like Garcia that is a known commodity?

As far as trading down, many people feel GS would have taken Thompson with the 14. So you trade down from 12 to 13? What does that get you? I don’t think we’d have been offered anything. And if this was the King’s consensus pick, why take the chance of losing him at 14? What could you have gotten for dropping to 17? 18? that would be worth the risk.

As far as our second round picks, we took a point guard who according to the Bee article today is

“the only player in ACC history to total at least 2,000 points, 500 assists, 400 rebounds and 200 steals. “

“a relentless defender and explosive athlete”

I’m not saying that I’m dancing and singing over these picks either, but considering where we are and where (and when) we need to get, I don’t think this draft is even remotely something that you would consider firing a guy who has historically proven to be one of the best GMs in the game.

It’s easy to get caught up in the media hype, but remember a lot of these are the same pundits who said the A’s wouldn’t compete for five years of BB made his off season trades. I’m interested to see what happens.

...a draft full of career back-ups outside of Rose and Beasley. What is the point in moving up 2 spots to get a different 8th man?

Petrie is doing a great job. Rebuilding takes time.. at least 3-5 years. It basically depends on the assets and here lies our problem. Our roster is bad both skill-wise and contract-wise.

- We have one good player (Martin) who ideally should be the 2nd best player on a team.
- We have a bunch of nice marginal starters (Miller, Cisco, Salmons, Moore).
- We have two players with questionable potential but worth keeping (Hawes, Thompson).
- We have two more that shouldn’t even play in the NBA (Douby, Shelden).
- We have Reef and K9 (woof!) who are bad and without expiring contracts (app. 14-15 mil per year wasted till 2010).
- And yes we still have Artest who I don’t even consider him to be a player. No loyalty, totally unpredictable.

I think Petrie’s target is the summer of 2010. Our goal till then should be to make a real star out of Martin, develop Hawes and Thompson, try to fix a good deep roster and manage to have enough cap room to sign a star in a couple of years.

Until then I don’t have any ambitions unless McHale decides to take Reef, K9 and Moore for Al Jeff.

A nice mover and shaker so far but lets wait for the playoff victories before we anoint him a genius. Portland lucked into the #1 pick last year, neither Roy or Aldridge were Pritchards’ picks so lets wait to see how all of this moving up and down and sideways bullshit works out.

Some of this whole mess of a roster is in tribute to try winning while re-tooling. That was the Maloof’s decision too. If you want to fire Petrie you might as well dump them also. If you want to talk about bad contracts, they approved them. If you want to talk about how terrible Quincy Douby is fine. You want to start lining up every GM in the league under the microscope over every mistake made? If you want to spend the day criticizing Petrie go ahead. In fact I will add my 2 cents to that end of the conversation.

• Not trading Artest at the deadline regardless of what Denver was offering is a gigantic mistake
• Allowing the Maloof’s to dictate contract negotiations, a quiet Petrie strength, with regards to Bibby and Webber, eventually dictated what amounted to a necessary firesale of both players
• Firing Rick Adelman, and not taking the time to interview candidates in an open field for their taking, with no-one else even looking for a coach!!!, and not making the Maloof’s realize that moving on from Adelman is fine, but not in the way they did so, is a dumb way to hire a coach
• If Petrie can’t tell the Family to go fuck themselves more often than not he will no longer be successful—It is true that GM’s work for the owners, but they need a certain amount of basketball autonomy to do their job, and the Maloofs, despite the lip service they do give on this topic, haven’t really given it in the most important of ways
• Petrie hasn’t failed in the draft, but he hasn’t been at the forerunner of taking a franchise into a turnaround to the approval of fans

Now, some of those fair, and some of that’s just the way it is. Every day I wish I could tell my boss to go fuck himself, but I need my job more than I need to mouth off. Petrie, while financially much better off than I, doesn’t need their crap to do his job well, but he’s also a strong part of this organization when he goes well. If anything his greatest mistakes wasn’t trading Bibby quickly, but then again the market for Bibby maybe wasn’t there. It’s possible there were worse options out there than Atlanta’s which is why he wouldn’t make the deal. Ron Artest is a different story. Of course that was a mistake. Sure Artest is a top tier talent, but he’s a top tier headcase. He’s unpredictable on the court, and isn’t relied upon to do things that consistently help the team excel. He doesn’t make the team better in area’s where they are weaker by attrition. Did Petrie even push to trade Artest despite the lower stakes that Denver offered? Nobody knows, but if he didn’t, that is a mistake. Not trading Artest remains the greatest single personnel mistake he’s made.

Sometimes staying pat is smart. The truth be told is that he wanted Thompson, and he probably felt that the Warriors would take him. If I were the Warriors, and I’m not, I would have wanted him too. The thing is that when you have a player you really want, and you had little options to move up and grab a player higher on the board you sought, then the reality of the situation is that you’re stuck. Every team wouldn’t deal with the guy because he’s a hard case. Does his ego get him in trouble? Absolutely it has. Did it keep him from making a draft day trade? Nope, I doubt it. The thing is that Petrie could have traded a future choice to get a lower 1st round pick like Charlotte did, but was it really worth it for him to do so?

I believe Petrie doesn’t want to put more than 2 rookies on a team any given year. He wants a chance to build a core with a group of young players, but he doesn’t want to put 5 of them on the team at one time. That’s not rebuilding; that’s mostly desperation. Just ask Dick Motta. I say Petrie did a wise thing trying to rebuilding this group a few pieces at a time. So if you’re filling this group with mostly young players what does that leave? If nothing else Kenny Thomas taking up space means some other scrub isn’t doing it. That’s fine with me in the interim. He isn’t taking anybody’s job even if his contract is hurting the team financially.

The bottom line is that Petrie isn’t perfect and has more than a few errors to his credit. I didn’t call the man Don Quixote cuz I thought I was being funny. Sometimes I feel he chases windmills. Sometimes I feel that chase makes sense. These past few years I haven’t felt the justification made sense.

I’m a Kings fan and for better or worse it is what it is. Paul Allen isn’t the owner, but guess what, the Maloof’s aren’t on welfare either. The bottom line is that Petrie has chosen to stay in this job. This job is tough, and there are no easy answers. Should he be fired for not moving up or down in the draft? That’s difficult to stay. Activity is nice, but sometimes moving to move accomplishes nothing and you lose something more important down the road. That’s where I’m at with not making a draft day trade.

As far as the total state of this roster is concerned that’s a work in progress too. When you’re stuck in neutral, and want to take a stop back you totally stop. Do the Kings want to have 3 years of step back progress like Portland? If you want to make that comparison, and there are those who may, but you might want to recognize how awful those years, and how little “casual” fans cared about the Blazers during those times as well. The real fans never left, but real fans never do. I venture to say that the bad times didn’t just kill the team there, but mostly the accumulation of poor attitude on both the franchise, and the players, led to what was, in general, an aberration for most Blazers fans. That being said the Kings are in a tough spot, but it’s not impossible. If the Kings don’t trade Artest, and they have nothing to lose except a few games and some opinions on what kind of value was available for him, what they have done is move the franchise in another direction, again, because the direction was necessary. If I had to choose one thing I would like to change, it would be that the team stop making so making changes on the fly. That’s the strangest part about this. For a team with such a deliberate and plodding leader, this team sure has changed directions during the season too many times the last few seasons. That would be a welcome change from my view.