• All this talk about Beno Udrih's place among the league's most improved and the league's point guards is nice. For what it's worth, outside observers Empty the Bench place Udrih among their top 7 Most Improved candidates.
• Nate Jones has some good insight on what he saw from the Kings last Sunday, and also asks folks to stop heckling Ron Artest so hard.
• Speaking of possibly-evil-but-nonetheless-friendly Lakers bloggers, a link to Kurt's Forum Blue & Gold postmortem on the game is long overdue. He calls the Lakers defensive ineptitude an aberration, and I'd tend to agree.
• The Play in California has a list of reasons to hope KJ wins the mayorship.
• Great stuff going on at BallHype this week: An essay on the state of sports literature, and an essay from a blogger who quit his job to write books about the Padres.

• How are those Reggie Rules going? The whole 'South Beach flu' thing, I thought, was a joke in this instance. Apparently not: "There was some question before Tuesday's game whether Ron Artest would be ready to play that night, as the Kings small forward had missed the shootaround that morning with what was deemed stomach issues and a headache." Awesome. It really was that at least one and likely more guys cared more about having a good time than getting closer to .500. Completely awesome. Glad the band stayed together.
• A Mike Bibby poem.
• Another thing about the South Beach flu -- who cares? It's not an excuse. The Heat were 5-27 at home before Tuesday. 27 times the opponent had all the trappings of Miami at their fingertips and still managed to beat the worst team in the league. Never mind losing by 20.
• Can you tell I'm a little frustrated? I don't throw Guernica around lightly.
• David Thorpe on Spencer Hawes: "Spencer Hawes continues to impress me with his scoring ability, but he hasn't shown me much else. Without a real commitment to reshaping his body -- and improving his agility -- this offseason, I worry that he won't find a place in the Kings' rotation next season." I tend to disagree a little on whether Hawes will stay in the rotation. For all the lip service paid to defense and energy by Theus, he plays guys who score (Garcia over Salmons lately, Hawes over the Williamses). Hawes can certainly score, and that alone will keep him in Reggie's good graces.

• Newest Blogger MVP rankings.
• Via Amick's blog, Orlando Sentinel Tim Povtak has a good column on the perils of Ron Artest, and Florida Today's John Denton endorses the Reggie Theus era.

Not to offend any fellow travelers of this blog world, but there doesn't seem to be much going on out there.

• It looks like the whole youth movement thing is what kept Kevin Martin on the bench so long last night. I fail to understand how the team is served by having its youngest shooting guard on the bench just because he's a starter. Unless you're going to play Quincy Douby at the two -- which you didn't for one second last night -- there's little need to sit Martin. He is part of your youth movement! Brad Miller? Not so much. (Though I understand why it's valuable to play Spencer Hawes and Miller together a little.)
• Quote of the century from Ron Artest: "They were trying to bargain shop. They were trying to get government cheese, and I'm Kraft." What's worse: Eduaruo Najera as WIC cheese, or that Ron-Ron considers Kraft to be good cheese? We need to get our boy a gift certificate to The Melting Pot.
• Gerald Wallace was unconscious for 13 minutes the other night. He suffered amnesia and will be out a few weeks.
• Kevin Johnson recieved the John R. Wooden Lifetime Achievement Award over the weekend.

• Can Tyronn Lue net a first-round draft pick? We'll see; that's about all Phoenix could offer (and they love giving away picks!), and they apparently want Lue to back up Steve Nash. Would they give up Atlanta's choice, now that it appears it will fall outside the lottery? Phoenix has a bountiful salary exception, so the Kings wouldn't need to take anyone back. Unfortunately, if the Suns won't give up Atlanta's pick and Geoff Petrie won't take a second-rounder, it's not happening: The Suns sent the 2008 and 2010 first-rounders to Seattle in the Kurt Thomas salary dump, and thus can't trade the 2009 pick until after he's picked and signed. If this Bibby trade ends up netting Shelden Williams, the cap space, a 2008 first in the late teens and a 2008 second in the late 40s... that becomes a helluva trade.
• It looks like Shelden (and his friends, I suppose) won't be cleared to play until Wednesday versus... the Hawks.
• Sam Amick linked to this neat profile of Shelden from last week. I'm trying to cobble a scouting report on the young man sometime before his debut.
• SI's Ian Thomsen endorses Denver trading Linas Kleiza for Ron Artest. And he gets bonus points for being the first scribe not named Kelly Dwyer to consider points per possession as a team measure.
• Joe Johnson is loving the Bibby trade.
• My first AOL Sports column -- on what we learned (and can learn) from All-Star weekend -- is up.
• A great post on blogs and blogging from Forum Blue & Gold.

• There's some healthy Nene foreshadowing in Marty McNeal's column, with this Geoff Petrie quote: "We want to maintain flexibility, but I'll be the first to say that's subject to change. We might be willing to take on future money, but if it doesn't lead to improved future performances over a number of years, it doesn't make a lot of sense." HMMMMM. I get the feeling a trade for Nene is going to be like a Ron Artest step-back three. "No no no YES!" We'll curse for a few days, and then we'll get used to the idea.
• Steve Novak has played 87 minutes this season. He has scored 47 points. I'd say those last three on his record were a big deal.
• Good news: Excellent bloggers Henry Abbott, J.E. Skeets and Matt from Hardwood Paroxysm will all be in New Orleans for All-Star Weekend. And I'll be holding down the TV/web fort at FanHouse.

• Somewhat obscure holidays, yeah!
• The biweekly Blogger MVP rankings are up at Hardwood Paroxysm (which a tremendous gamut-running blog). I gave Chris Paul the nod over LeBron.
• Sam Amick talks to equipment manager Rob Pimental.  There is a lot of equipment to deal with.
• Amick rips the Denver TV station which has been covering the Ron Artest rumors and subsequently trying to poke holes in Amick's recent reports.
• A post on some ESPN rumors forthcoming.

• Francisco Garcia, out for the week at least.
• Scott Howard-Cooper talks Ron Artest trade possibilities. Meanwhile Sam Amick talks to folks inside the team, who indicate they've made up their mind on whether to trade or not. I think we can assume which way that decision's gone.
• On his blog, Amick mentions two women were... getting familiar during the segment where radio guy (Jim Kozimor, in this case) talks to TV guys. I missed it (three fast-forward arrows when Peaches invades my picture). Anyone see it?
• Same link, vastly more important: 'Typically, Koz and Grant - who some say haven't spoken unless they absolutely had to in eight years - bend over backwards to avoid conversing during the segment. This time, though, Koz asked Grant a question directly, with Grant remaining silent while Jerry quickly picked up the chatter and the answer after the brief awkward moment. Koz, who broke out laughing as the awkward meter kept rising, ended the segment with a generic parting comment. When he switched back to the radio side, he said, "I'd like to thank Jerry Reynolds for the Crosstalk tonight."' First, Koz verifies the 'Peaches' nickname. Now we find out there's a cold war going on? I need to listen to Koz's show more often.
• It's hard for outsiders to really have a solid grasp of the state of a franchise. (I know those from writing about other franchises.) But this piece on the quasi-rebuild by Brian Spencer at Empty the Bench is spot-freaking-on. The Brad Miller stuff is particularly cogent, especially this line: "Can the Kings make the necessary roster tweaks to become legitimate contenders before Miller's inevitable decline? And if not, should they give thought to also trading him while his value is probably as high as it'll ever be?" Tough decision by the front office, only made tougher by the lack of options behind Miller. (Free 3-Wil?)
• One Rocky Mountain News columnist isn't sold on Ron Artest as an answer for the Nuggets.
• John Krolik has the latest entry in BallHype's Bibliotech series. It's on that seminal 90s hoops book The Last Shot by Darcy Frey.
• (Kelly Dwyer is back. And he is insulting lazy baristas.)

• Brad Miller will play tonight.
• More Joe Kleine, via TrueHoop. Apparently Portland used the unofficially retired Kleine to make a trade work in 2000. Kleine got $1.2 million for doing nothing. Of course, he made about $2.1 million from the Kings over four years... for doing nothing. As a thank you, Kleine sent the Blazers a bunch of ribs and rib products from his restaurant. Which means the Blazers definitely got more bang for the buck than the Kings ever did. (Come on, does he have one more Kleine joke in him? No.)
• Interesting discussion in pookey's diary, if you've missed it. I'll remind everyone to avoid name-calling, of course. Unless you're calling Grant Napear or Kenny Thomas names.
• Jermaine O'Neal says Indiana has ongoing trade talks... going on. I still think he's a candidate for 'tarnished superstar Geoff Petrie wants to save'. He'd be, as an often elite defender, a good counterbalance to both Brad Miller and Spencer Hawes, and I think Mike Bibby'd be a good fit (cap-wise and as a player) for Indiana.
• Kevin Johnson seems to be fixing the problems with his foundation's properties in Oak Park. In other Maloof-friends-in-public-office news, Darrell Steinberg will be the next state Senate President Pro-Tem, and if you've met or followed Steinberg, you smiled when you read that.

• Kevin Martin's got a new set of Nikes out there, pictured above. Thanks to The Blowtorch for the heads up.
• Speaking of Martin: Prior to last night, he'd never taken at least 10 FGAs and hit less than two. Actually, only two other times had he ever taken at least 10 FGAs and scored less than 10 points: a 2-10, 9-point game against Minnesota last March, and 2-10, 6-point performance against Seattle in 2006. Kobe Bryant has 11 such games in his career, including one this week.
• Hey look, it's Indiana native Jerry Reynolds rapping Bob Knight on the knuckles! ""I think Bob Knight was a bully to a lot of little people, the office workers, the lesser players." Coach Reynolds was about the exact opposite of Knight.
• Will Brinson tipped me off to USA Today's assessment of the greatest players in franchise history. Worth noting: The Big O narrowly beats Tiny Archibald among the reader vote, and Reynolds' top five omits Oscar Robertson and Mitch Richmond for... Wayne Embry (who was great, but not Big O/Rock great). Peja Stojakovic doesn't even make the ballot. Richmond, Chris Webber and Wayman Tisdale are the only Sacramento-era players on the ballot; Webber was a unanimous first-team all-Kings pick.
• Skeets got to interview Ernie Johnson. Good stuff. Also, Marv Albert will be with TNT through 2016. That's a long-term contract I can get behind.
• No decision on a Kevin Johnson mayoral run as of yet.