As Muff209 pointed out in another thread, various sources are reporting the Knicks have asked permission to interview Kings assistant Chuck Person. From Newsday's Alan Hahn :

The wish list that Donnie Walsh is compiling will include Chuck Person, a Walsh protégé who is currently an assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings. An NBA executive told Newsday yesterday that Walsh is expected to contact Kings president Geoff Petrie for permission to interview Person, who spent six of his 13 seasons as a player with the Indiana Pacers. [...]

Person will interview for the head coach position, but a person with knowledge of the situation said the 43-year-old would also be open to joining the Knicks as an assistant coach. He and Jackson have a good relationship and Person's loyalties to Walsh are even stronger.

This is a double-edged sword. Person seemed almost like Head Coach 1(b) during games than a top assistant: he yelled out defensive schemes and directed quite a bit in the huddle, from my vantage point. I've heard a few times that he was the better coach in the locker room, too.

Of course, the defense sucked. The Kings gave up too many open threes and couldn't stop guard penetration on the perimeter.

It depends on your perspective. If Person was the guy responsible for some of the peaks this season, and was holding the ropes together for Theus, losing him would be bad. If Person was a bit too "sous-chef gunning for a top job" in his work with the Kings, and he made bad calls running the defense, then this could be a good thing. And hell, if it's the first scenario -- he was holding this thing together for Theus -- it's probably better we find out now, before Theus gets an extension, loses Person, and we're back at Square One.

I tend to be in the camp which thinks Person's a good coach, so again, it worries me. Of course, plenty of defensive-minded assistants should be available this summer (Larry Drew's one; Theus tried to hire him last summer). We'll see.

Sam Amick will be on 1140 AM with Jim Crandell at 11:20 a.m. I'm busy Cavs-vs-'Zardsing. Hopefully someone can tune in.

Reggie Theus is supposed to be on KHTK today at 5:35 PM. For those of you out of town, they do have live streaming on their website (KHTK 1140).

From Sam Amick's Bee notes column:

According to numerous team sources, Artest – who has been battling a left thumb injury – asked to play and was rebuffed by Kings coach Reggie Theus. ... He said recently that he had wanted to sit down for the rest of the season weeks ago, but Theus asked him to keep playing.

"I told coach … asked him if he wanted me to sacrifice some of my time for the young guys," he said. "He said no."

Was it a matter of Theus wanting to allow extra minutes for Francisco Garcia and Quincy Douby? Or was it a last stand by Theus in opposition of Artest's infamous practice of deciding his readiness right before games? Judging by Artest's attitude on the bench, I'd guess the former.

A depressing note from the column: Kenny Thomas won't be opting out to chase his championship dreams elsewhere.

After that awful episode last year with his Great Dane, Socks, Ron Artest has seemingly reformed completely. He did a stint with the Placer SPCA earlier this season, and now he's appearing in an ad campaign for PETA. (You can see the ad after the jump.)

There's also an interview here, where Ron-Ron speaks out against dog-fighting and encourages folks to volunteer with local pet rescues. (You could also help by donating to the K-9 Fund Drive, which aims to raise $999 for the Sacramento SPCA by the 2008-09 season opener. We're 11% there, and actually 16% there when you include the funds raised by the short-lived but everlasting Peaches shirt.)

Great work, Ron.

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So how about that? Grant "Not Peaches" Napear and his pal Mike Lamb, making friends. Or not.

The pair questioned Ron Artest's absence on Tuesday afternoon (due to injury and/or fatigue; his daughter's cancer has recurred). Ron-Ron caught word and responded Wednesday in the paper. Beno Udrih also responded to the charges, through part of an interview with The Bee's Sam Amick, which ended up on Sam's blog.

Brad Miller's resurgent comeback season has ended. Stress fracture in the leg, bone chips in the elbow. Post-mortem tomorrow. Game thread below.

Sam Amick has the injury update.

So much for the spoiler alert: Sam Amick reports on his blog that Kevin Martin, Ron Artest and Brad Miller might all sit tonight with various afflictions. Beno Udrih is also expected to be out until Tuesday.

(Hopefully these guys are taking a breather to get right for Sunday's visit to Mordor.)

(I often listen to Reggie Theus's postgame comments, which are posted on the Kings website. It occurs to me most people might not, so it might be worth it to post up any noteworthy items [as pointed out by coolcat in the game thread], yes? Feel free to do this in the diaries after subsequent games.)

• Quincy Douby strained his back in the first half; Theus said that combined with the close winnable game led him to hold QD out of the second half.
• He said he doesn't believe Shelden Williams is "in the best shape." Sitting for 60 games tends to do that (which isn't an indictment of Theus; Williams got even less burn in Atlanta). I think it'd be a little too much to ask Shelden to play himself into shape between now and April 16, so we might have to wait until October to see the guy up to Theus's conditioning standards.