This is the first in a three part series in which I analyze the 2012 NBA Draft by position. As a source I used DraftExpress's mock draft and for statistics I used both DraftExpress and Sports-Reference. All statistics used are for the prior college basketball season. Because of the lack of advanced statistic information, difference in playstyle and the dearth of quality foreign players in this year's draft, I have only included NCAA players in this analysis. For information such as player position, school, height, etc. please click on the player's name and it will take you to their DraftExpress page with all that information.

The draft has been both a boon and a curse to Kings fans over the years. Despite their poor records over the last few years, Sacramento has routinely fallen down in the draft. For the most part though, the Kings have still managed to find some quality players regardless of where they have drafted. Considering the lack of Free Agent options available to the Kings and their stingy owners, the draft is the most surefire way to improve the team.

Currently, the Kings have a lot of potential in their backcourt. Their four main rotation players there are all young and still have upside while also demonstrating NBA worthy talent at times. Last year had the Kings draft two guards in Jimmer Fredette (10th) and Isaiah Thomas (60th). While Jimmer Fredette struggled at times (okay, most of the time), Isaiah Thomas blossomed and eventually became the Kings starting Point Guard. Because of Thomas' emergence and the lack of good quality wing options on the team, the Kings resorted to playing a lot of three guard lineups with Marcus Thornton at the two and Tyreke Evans at the three.

At first glance it might look like the Kings don't need to draft another guard considering the depth they already have at the position. Still, a team that has done as poorly as the Kings the last few years can't afford to overlook talent for need, and there are definitely some good guard talents in this draft, if not the smorgasbord of the last few years.

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You'll remember that a bunch of local business leaders hastily put together a letter denouncing the Maloofs as NBA owners just before the family went to New York to destroy the Sacramento arena plan. That letter really upset the Maloofs -- they like setting relationships on fire themselves, not to watch someone else handle it.

Well, in the long aftermath of the deal's decomposition, the Maloofs apparently caught wind that not all of those 21 business owners actually signed that letter, so they hired a former FBI investigator to look into it. For what reason? At what end? Great question! But, obviously, some of the business owners took umbrage at a Maloof P.I. prying, and CBS Sacramento did a story on the issue over the weekend. Now The Bee is covering it, as the business owner who led the charge on the letter admits that not everyone could make the signing, so a few names are forged.

The Maloofs' mouthpiece Eric Rose, who does not have time to compose responses to letters from fan groups, had time to rip the business owners and say that Think Big Sacramento, the mayor's superlative arena task force, should be called Think Big Fraud.

You know what this is? A massive distraction from the fact that the most powerful business owners in the city want to see the Maloofs lose the Kings. Whether 16 or 19 or 21 business owners signed that particular letter, rest assured that dozens want them out. Thousands of fans want them gone. No amount of B.S. teapot politics will change that.

The Maloof family is not wanted here. Now please leave the team where you found out.

When teams decide whether or not to replace their head coach, there are two distinct threads of inquiry.

1. Is my coach worth keeping?

2. Is there a better option?

When the answer to Question 1 is cut and dry, the answer to Question 2 is an automatic yes or no. For instance, Kenny Natt was clearly overmatched as an NBA head coach. He was not worth keeping in that role. So whether there was a better option was basically moot; there had to be a better option, even if you couldn't quite put a finger on who exactly it would be.

For Keith Smart, the answer to Question 1 is clear ... but in the other direction. It's clear that even in a small way, he's worth keeping. You look at DeMarcus Cousins under Smart, and you consider how important Cousins' growth is to the future of the roster, and you're sort of forced to take a long look at keeping Smart. He's not a disaster in other areas, though he's never shown an ability to put together even an average defense.

When there's legitimate debate to be had about whether the coach is worth keeping, Question 2 comes into play. By total coincidence, I've written up a ranked list of the best coaching candidates available or soon to be available. All indications are that the Kings will retain Smart -- it's not even up for consideration, apparently. Personally, I'm OK with that. But if there's a change of heart, these are the candidates we'll be arguing about.

Small Market, Big Heart, the documentary on the history and future of the Sacramento Kings by our friends Blake Ellington, James Ham and Tobin Halsey, will be released online on Tuesday morning. There had been only two public showings since its release: at the Crest and a single showing on Fox 40. Now, it'll be available to everyone with an internet connection.

The filmmakers have an epilogue from Kevin Johnson that's been added.

The doc will be available at www.smallmarketbigheart.com at 9 a.m. Pacific on Tuesday. I highly, highly encourage a viewing or three.

An NBA spokesman told Sactown Royalty on Saturday that there is no meeting between commissioner David Stern and Filipino tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan scheduled. A report out of Manila this week said that Stern and MVP would meet to discuss a deal to buy the Kings, a team that is not for sale.

MVP has been tied to the Kings via reports and rumors for a while now, and was said to be involved in the Chris Webber group that popped up last year. In an excellent podcast on Cowbell Kingdom, Rafe Bartholomew, author of Pacific Rims, explained MVP's interest in NBA ownership and the Philippines' love affair with basketball.

One note of particular interest from Bartholomew's chat with Jon Santiago and Jameser Ham is that Tyreke Evans was apparently added to the roster for last summer's Manila All-Star event because MVP wanted to see the King play in person. It remains unclear why Hassan Whiteside wasn't also added.

But dreams of new owners will apparently remain just that. MVP seems like a solid No. 2 in the Dream Owner Power Rankings, behind Ron Burkle.

DeMarcus Cousins came onto the NBA scene a couple years ago and surprised many of us with his versatility. Coming out of Kentucky, John Calipari had used DeMarcus almost exclusively in the low post, and for good reason. Cousins was a monster down there in college. He was too big, too skilled and had a great set-up man in John Wall feeding him the ball. He scored 15.1 points on 55.8% from the field in just 23.5 minutes per game.

When DeMarcus came to the NBA however, he was allowed a lot more freedom, and immediately used it to show that he was much more than a low post guy. In particular, he began to shoot more jumpers. A LOT more. Mid-range jumpers, long jumpers, spin-and-fade jumpers, DeMarcus shot them all and then some. When he did park down low and attack the basket, he met with much less success than he did in college, as NBA defenders are much bigger, stronger and experienced. The end of year results were not pretty from an efficiency standpoint, as DeMarcus shot just 43.0% from the field with a True Shooting Percentage of .484.

DeMarcus also liked to show off his passing and playmaking skills, and while they were impressive, it also led to a very high turnover rate. Combined with his inefficiency from the floor and team-high usage rate, DeMarcus would do something bad just about as often as something good.

Things got a bit better in his Sophomore year despite a rough start. DeMarcus was able to increase his Field Goal Percentage to 44.8%, a nice improvement but still poor for a big man. He got better as the year progressed though, and in 14 games in April he scored 19.8 points per game on 47.3% from the field. Despite playing just 30 minutes a game, he still managed to average 11 rebounds on the year. New big man coach Clifford Ray seemed to have a real impact on the way DeMarcus played, and his improved conditioning also helped. We saw glimpses of the DeMarcus Cousins that could not just be one of the best big men in the NBA, but one of the best players.

But can DeMarcus get there if he continues to be inefficient from the field? Is there historical evidence of other big men who began inefficiently and then became successes? How did they do it?

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Carmichael Dave has been canned by KHTK 1140 AM, as we learned yesterday. Don Geronimo, the station's program director and the host of the successful comedy morning show on which Dave was the sidekick until this week, explained what he could on this morning's show. The decision came from above Geronimo, and it's been framed by the company as a contract issue. Dave said on Twitter and here in the StR comments on Wednesday that he didn't ask for more money.

Dave is and has been the only personality on KHTK in years that was a Sacramento Kings fan first and foremost. He began as a caller years ago, back during the Kings' heyday. He wriggled his way all the way up the ladder because he's an exceedingly hard-working, talented and decent person. I know many of us remember his late night show (which I was lucky enough to be invited on a number of times) and his afternoon show replacing Jim Kozimor (ditto on the appearances). He also had guest host spots when other hosts were on vacation -- listening to Dave slog through The Rise Guys' time slot half-asleep would never have led one to believe he could be so successful in permanent morning slot.

Dave had a lot of other interests, of course: MMA, the most detestable soccer club in the world not named Tottenham, the Niners and Giants, etc. But he has always been a shining beacon of Kings fandom, the perfect media manifestation of this city's crazy love affair with the NBA. One could never reasonably make the absurd Couzensian claim that KHTK doesn't care about the Kings so long as Carmichael Dave was a prominent voice on the station.

Welp.

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One of a couple of excuses peddled to explain the Sacramento Kings' relative lack of progress this season has been injury troubles. But data from the Sixers' stats person published by SB Nation brother site NetsDaily shows that by the raw numbers the Kings were actually pretty fortunate on the injury front.

At least 10 Kings missed time due to injury, but most of the absences were brief. According to the data, Sacramento only lost 73 player-games to injury, the sixth-lowest figure in the league. The most: the Nets lost 248 player-games to injury, just about 3-1/2 times than Sacramento did.

Of course, context is missing from the equation here; injuries to, say, LeBron James and DeShawn Stevenson aren't remotely the same on the court. Using this data, they are the same on paper. The Kings' biggest injuries were to Chuck Hayes (who wasn't great when on the court), Marcus Thornton (who was one of the team's better players) and John Salmons (who had a good run once moved to the bench, where he was injured). So the raw numbers may underrate the actual impact injuries had on the Kings.

In more sad news for the citizens of Sacramento, local radio personality Carmichael Dave today announced that he is no longer with CBS Radio/KHTK.

As if today I am no longer a part of CBS Radio. I'll expand later. To each and every person that has put up with my voice, I love you. I'm not trying to be vague, everything is going at 300mph. Yes I'm fine, no I'm not leaving for something better. KHTK is my home.

Whatever the reason for Dave's departure, he will be missed. Dave was a huge part of the grassroots movement to keep the Kings here, and his "Here We Build" campaign helped kick the fan movement into overdrive. From working with Dave in the grassroots movement, none of his efforts were in any shape or form motivated by a need for personal glory or attention, but instead out of his passion for the Sacramento Kings and the city of Sacramento.

I know Dave reads this site, so I'd like to use this post to wish Dave the best of luck with whatever might come next for him. I'd also like to again personally thank him for all he's done with the grassroots movements. Without Dave, we wouldn't have been nearly as successful as we were.

Thank You.

In today's Sacramento Bee, Ailene Voisin dug deeper into the group behind the plan to renovate Power Balance Pavilion. This group, led by some of the original planners/designers/builders of ARCO I and II, believe they can renovate the building to last for about another decade at the cost of somewhere around $100 million.

As many of you will remember, the subject of renovating Power Balance Pavilion was broached at the notorious George Maloof Press Conference in which the Maloofs and their economist systematically killed the downtown arena deal. In George Maloof's own words:

"Why don’t we look at redoing Power Balance?" he asked. "It’s less money, less pressure on everybody. We already have the infrastructure, the parking. It’s all there, and the cost to the city would be a lot less."

For many, this came as a huge surprise, because it was the Maloofs themselves who for years had said renovation was not an option, that a new arena was the way forward. But when it came time to pay up for the new arena, the Maloofs backtracked, calling it a bad deal.

Why the change of heart? The main issue seems to lie with the fact that in a new arena, the Maloofs would be a tenant, earning less revenue than in their current situation at Power Balance Pavilion, where they retain all revenue from all events and parking. Considering the fact that the Kings are their only money making enterprise at the moment, that kind of makes sense, from the Maloof side of things.

What does not make sense is if the Maloofs expect the city to still chip in for the majority of such a renovation. In fact, the city should not spend a dime on renovating a building they do not own and will not see any of the revenue from. Mayor Kevin Johnson has come out strongly against spending city money on such a plan, and I urge him to stick to his guns there.

The new arena made sense for the city to contribute a huge share. The city would have owned the facility, would have seen huge job creation and economic development in the surrounding area, and would have received cuts of the revenue. The new arena would have also essentially guaranteed that the Sacramento Kings would stay for at least 30 more years (a number that the Maloofs wanted cut down to 15). A new arena still makes sense for the city, even without the Kings, so it's no wonder that the Mayor and the city are still looking to build one, just without the Maloofs. This would be the Sprint Center model, which has been a financial success for Kansas City and arena operator AEG even without an anchor tenant.

Again from today's Bee article:

"A new arena is in the future, but give us seven, eight years at Power Balance Pavilion." - Joe Maloof

If the Maloof family wants to renovate Power Balance Pavilion, that's fine by me. But they should do so with their own money since they're the ones receiving all the benefits. I think we all know what the chances of that happening are.