It makes more sense to keep the cap room we have and just wait for K9 to expire. That’ll leave us with a bout $16-17 million at the end of the year. We could also see Petrie try to move Beno’s contract and/or trade Nocioni too. The smart thing to do is stand pat and go after a bigger name, either in free agency or before the deadline. Personally, I’d like to see the Kings go after Chris Bosh. A big name player like that will be worth the money because the Maloofs will get a lot of it back in ticket sales

I like him but think he’s overpaid and he and Cisco make one of them redundant even though at times they have both played well together. If not for his contract I think Noc would be an attractive option for some team.

K9’s expiring contract is a plus, Beno’s contract is a negative. You wouldn’t get any value in return. Why would a team want to take on a big long term contract along with an expiring? The only trade scenarios I could think of would be a team trying to get rid of a much bigger, crappier contract (ala Marbury) to save some cap. It wouldn’t be in the Kings’ interest to do that.

1)Let him start and hope he puts up great numbers…then dangle him on the market and see who bites
2)Package him with someone that a team wants like a star like Martin or needs like a missing piece like Noc

For some reason I feel like the team would be more open to discussing trades for Martin (esp w/ Evans now) than trades for Hawes or Thompson. We have a good idea of what Martin’s ceiling is but Hawes and Thompson are probably still going to improve a lot.

Since we have K9 expiring this year I’d be open trying to get another nice expiring and a decent asset.

Anyone up for….
Bobby Simmons (10.5mill expiring) + Yi Jianlian(asset, bright future w/ some added bulk)
for
Kevin Martin + Beno’s (ugly and gets uglier with time) Contract

Don’t yell at me if you hate that one….but that would mean no more Beno and something like 22mil expiring so we can get in on the bidding wars for next summer or the summer after (maybe Dwade/Bosh in ‘10 or Melo in ’11) and the Nets get a player better than anyone they’re probably able to get next summer. I’d like the management to go after a real franchise player…it’s been a while since we had one.

It’s obvious that it was a costly mistake to re-sign Beno. He was the Diogu of a few years ago in that he came on strong with a weak team late in the season. He was unwanted in San Antonio because of his attitude towards team work ethics and I think we learned last season that he has no intention on really working to improve his game.

Petrie rushed into re-signing him not because of his “star” potential, but because of the lack of depth at PG. Like most nba fans know, the Kings were in no shape to make a run at the West last year either and a little patience to use cap room wisely would have really opened up some doors. B Jax and B Brown (at that time) could have held down the pg spot with a little help from Cisco and we could have been in the exact same scenario right now just without an irksome 4-year deal for a sub par player (with a player option!).

The Kings shopped him a lot harder than a lot of people think and there were absolutely no takers. This leaves us with a pg who thinks he is a scorer, has the assist/turnover ratio of a bum, and really struggles against decent pg’s (did anyone really think he could hold his own against the West pg’s: Paul, Nash, Parker, Williams, Kidd, Billups/Iverson?) I mean Tony Parker is no defensive genius and he smashed Beno to a 1-12 with 2 pts and 6 assists mark. We don’t even need to get into his defensive abilities, we all know that they are non-existant.

Start Tyreke and see if we can limit Beno’s playing time to about 15 mins a game so we can damage control his value and get rid of him for anything at all.