They need a SG; he plays that. They need a guy who could play in tandem with Westbrook, and he gives them that. Joe Smith for Salmons & a 2010 late 1st rounder. I’d do that in a heartbeat. (Something about 1990 makes me not want a 2009 1st rounder with Houston’s already coming.)

Getting an expiring contract for Miller & Thomas in Marion is a blessing. Do it. Don’t worry about talent in return. If you’ve got draft picks coming from Houston (and say OKC), you don’t worry about draft picks coming from Miami. Plus, Marion could play well, and the Kings could show signs of life. That would really help too.

Mikki Moore to Jerzey for Swift, and if you include Douby for Ager, I like those deals. Douby gets that fresh start, and Swift is that expiring contract the Kings could save money on. And New Jersey can always decide whether keeping Moore for that extra season is really worth it.

I wouldn’t hestiate to do Beno for Stack, but on the flip side, i wouldn’t hesitate to send Beno to Orlando for JJ Redick and Brian Cook as I discussed extensively on 3QC. On one hand. On the other, Beno isn’t a bad option long term if you drafted a PG like Ricky Rubio so you could ease him in. I don’t have a problem trading Beno; I don’t have a problem keeping Beno. But if you trade Beno, I don’t really want a player like Matt Carroll back either.

Maybe the Kings could add a mix with Dallas, and get Douby for JJ Barea. He’s cheap, and only signed for the next 2 seasons. Between him & Brown, you could have an open competition for the backup PG spot behind whoever you draft in 09 (again hopefully Rubio).

Is that without games being played, it’s easier to trade a guy to another team, and focus solely on that. Perhaps management feels that it’s time for Donte to get his chance, and Salmons is only blocking that. That’s something to think about it too. How can the Kings help Donte Greene develop if he can’t get any minutes?

I think Joe Smith would be a wonderful team addition in the sense he’ll rotate, play a little defense, rebound some, and in general, just do whatever Kenny Natt asks of him. He’s a good soldier, and the Kings need some of that after the season they’ve had.

Last but not least, this is something the fans need. I don’t think any of us could underestimate the effect it’s had on the players, and Natt to a degree, that it’s wearing them down. If their isn’t a fresh transplant soon, this season, and trading Artest, will go for naught, and public opinion will sink the kIngs at every turn. That’s unfortunate, but Petrie needs to do something to get people off how terrible the Kings are. With this group, there is no future. With trade Salmons, Miller, Thomas, and Udrih, there is some.

The Ron Artest trade with Houston decimated this team from a competitive standpoint. For all of Artest’s misgivings, his fiery ways sometimes served as a dysfunctional leadership for a team that now lacks leaders. What’s more, the Kings’ defense without him has plummeted to league-low depths while the significant rebuilding piece acquired in return – rookie small forward Donté Greene – rarely plays.

I really disagree with this. The Kings ability to compete with Ron was limited; to how well he was feeling on any given day. If you’re highest ceiling was 45 wins, then you aren’t going anywhere anyway.

I also disagree with this:

There is added pressure as the Kings’ trades thus far in this rebuilding era have yielded little in return. The Mike Bibby trade last February was largely seen as a positive, with the Kings not only absolving themselves of Bibby’s $15.2 million salary for this season but making way for the breakout of Beno Udrih. But a year later, Udrih’s five-year, $32 million contract signed during the summer has become another albatross on the team’s salary cap, and he is among those being discussed in a flurry of trade talks.

Those 2 things he mentions (The Bibby trade) and the Udrih signing are 2 different things. 2 different completely things. The team had a messy salary cap regardless of re-signing Udrih, and were on the hook to pay luxury tax if they hadn’t dealt Bibby. In otherwords, Petrie had been trying to not dump Bibby for just a salary dump, but ultimately, had to anyway. It made sense. And he probably got more than what was offered previously. The problem with this is that the Kings made 2 separate decisions, but perhaps with the goal in mind that improving the Kings PG position was the greater goal here. That makes sense. Udrih I don’t think fits here like they thought, and his contract, is now seen generally everywhere as an albatross. But those are 2 different things, and even though they are connected, I just hate the whole frame of the argument that the Kings are worse off this season because they haven’t been as competitive as management had hoped. I just hate that whole frame of argument. It’s the reason Kevin Martin has been thrown under the bus for a season he’s only competed on the court half the time. (In which many of the wins were recorded with him.)

The bottom line, at the end of the day, is that the lack of competitiveness is bothering management, and it should, but it was to be expected if Udrih and Miller haven’t had the same impact, and when you factor the Kings injuries in, it just has led to some bad losses. Yes, this Phoenix loss was really bad, but there have been about 10 just as awful. Sure, it’s no fun, but guess what, I’d rather be where the Kings are at now, rather than where they were at last year. This is the beginning of the rebuilding process. And, folks, it really can’t get worse. It just can’t. Maybe the silver lining is that the young players get time on the court, and the Kings find some talent in the draft with a couple lower picks, and find some core talent with their own picks. (Let’s not forget that the Kings will likely have a top 3 or 4 2nd round draft pick too which should also yield a quality player at some point.)

Because I’d rather deal with Portland and get S-Rod. But could we get someone with the SA or DEN pick that’s better? Perhaps. There’s also the possibility of trading the HOU pick as well as the SA or DEN pick we get from the Sonics Thunder for a slightly higher pick (where, at least now, the Lawsons and the Collisons reside). I guess I’d consider voting yes if I thought this was a reasonable possibility, but Petrie’s record of draft day dealing doesn’t inspire much optimisim. I’d like to take a chance on Kyle Weaver, too, if we’re dealing with OKC. Would Salmons for DEN pick+Smith+Weaver work under the cap?

I think we can get better for John.

I’m still really interested to see if we can send him over to Portland, maybe snagging Bayless (unlikely) or Rodriguez (more likely) and LaFrentz’s expiring contract.

But we seriously need some trade to happen, and damn soon as well. I’m thinking Petrie will wait till a few days before the deadline before anything happens as more teams get desperate. Orlando and New Orleans might get desperate for a PG now, LA, Chicago, and Miami might get desperate for a C, there’s just so many options.

And John and Brad are our best tradeable options. I don’t want to see John go for next to nothing.

Should the KIngs deal with Detroit to help them get under the luxury tax if they could get an extra 1st round pick? I’d thought I’d throw that out there, because as far as I can tell, Detroit is still over the luxury tax line.

If the Heat choose to deal with the Kings and take Miller/Thomas, that opens up all the other deals.

There’s no sense in trading Salmons for an expiring unless there will actually be free agent room this offseason. Just clearing Salmons isn’t going to get you under the cap. However, once you free up the Miller/Thomas room, then every dollar saved is a dollar you can spend in free agency. Then you really do consider trading him for an expiring and a 1st and work your tail off to clear Beno as well.

So I think the holdup is waiting for Pat Riley to make up his mind. Once that happens it will dictate the direction of the offseason.

Salmons is extremely valuable.

He’s averaging 20 ppg and he could easily average 13-3-3 in a playoff team. He’s only paid 5 millions per year and he’s not that old. I’m sure he will be able to maintain this level of performance throughout his contract. His performance/salary ratio is one of the best in the NBA (excluding rookie contracts).

No point trading Salmons. We have plenty of players to give up (Miller, Moore, K9, Beno etc).

You could trade Antonio Daniels for Beno Straight up. Perhaps to do that, you also trade Douby for Julian Wright who has underwhelmed New Orleans so far. That is a sleeper deal I would absolutely kill for.

Ok, so don’t trade all of them. Keep a core of Martin, Garcia, JT, Hawes and possibly Greené. Why deal everyone? Because this team has no fire at all. If Martin and JT are the old guys on a roster, they might be able to take the bull by the horns and change the culture. I really don’t care what the Kings get in return, I just want the freedom to start from the beginning, a clean slate of sorts.

we be clearing all this cap space (hopefully) ….. who do we go after? Boozer? Amare?

Hello, I’m new here. I come from a Sharks hockey background so my basketball CBA knowledge is limited. But what about the proposed trade above with OKC granting Sac the right to swap 1st round picks. I know it happens in hockey, if you want an example look back a few years to the Sharks acquiring Bryan Marchmant. As it is, I feel along the lines of some of the previous posters that Salmons is worth a little more than a low 1st rounder and an expiring contract. Well just my $.02 anyway. I don’t know if that’s even allowed, but it evens out the deal in my mind. Feel free to mock my ignorance, say hello, or perform some archaic initiation ritual as needed.

in Salmons and half of the Kings roster for Amare?

( i mentioned this somewhere else but)

How would you like to have a ‘Franchise guy’ like Bosh and only have 7 more wins than the Kings? With Jose Calderon….

This will give the option of dumping salary next year, add some defense, some 3 pt shooting and also give a fresh look for the remainder of this season.

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/traderesult?players=55684924483040199830242426510&teams=1414191323232323&te=&cash=