This is going to be a very belated post with not much meat or point to the details. So much for being a chatty asshole.

With Artest's deparature, and Singletary/Ewing Jr along with Bill, you're looking at 8.3 million in less salary before you add the future obligations of Jackson and Greene. Or what you really have, or there abouts anyway, is nearly 62.7 in committed salary before you add Jackson and Greene.

Let's say that Amick is wrong on the salary, or he's not, and let's just say that for our purposes here today, in the sake of being belated, that B-Jax's salary is around 6.9 million. (NOt saying it is, but for today I am for the fact that I'm very limited in time.) Let's say that Jackson's salary is nearly 6.98 million, and that Greene's will be a shade under 972 K. That will be roughly 7,872,000 or so in committed salary assuming the figures are correct. Since you're looking at nearly 500K less in salary, and that's a chunk of change if you're talking about having to spend a dollar for dollar tax, rather than get a tax payment, and the question remains: Why wasn't Singletary kept? I don't think training camp would have cost the Kings that much overall, and certainly not the difference of inviting several players for roughly 50 or 60 K combined would be a big deal. After all, it is training camp, and we're talkin about a team with a likelihood of a 70 Million payroll. So the real question I think about the Artest deal in the aftermath, while some are speculating Udrih's worth, or how many points Kmart will score opening night vs the Wolves is, is what did Singletary do to not end up with a possible shot at this team in training camp?

And that, like most things I suspect, is the only real devil, if there are any, in this deal. If dealing Singletary was a financial motive, and it seems like it was on the surface, then it makes sense to deal him. But if it wasn't, and I doubt it will end up that way, then why deal him? That's the answer I would like more than why the Kings traded Artest. Because that's the part of the trade that will probably ending up haunting them more than any other.

Left a good job in the city, Workin for the man evry night and day, And I never lost one minute of sleepin, Worryin bout the way things might have been. Big wheel keep on turnin, Proud mary keep on burnin, Rollin, rollin, rollin on the river.......

I think it's fairly clear that pretty much everyone who thought Houston was a trade partner at this stage of the game to be zero. I know I thought Houston had given up on their acquisitions end because they were limited in what they could do. Maybe, I just simply took Daryl Morey at face value. My mistake. I always knew the Rockets had the best possible outcome, but I just had given up on them after Morey's statement saying they were going to take limited and measured steps. Apparently, and the price they paid suggests this, is that acquiring Artest is in fact a measured step. So, without further ado, and if you thought this was a long opening paragraph, you haven't read anything I've written before. I suggest grabbing 3 or so beers. Just a suggestion. Do what you want.

4 months and 9 days ago I called Geoff Petrie Don Quixote. I meant it then, and I stand by it now. The only difference between Eddie Najera, JR Smith and Denver's 1st round pick (20th overall as it turned out), was that Donte Greene seems to be a true sleeper stud. But that could be argued about JR Smith too. I don't really mind that Petrie passed up Denver, but I do mind that Artest stayed on the team after the deadline. It was a mistake, and now the team had to deal with the consequences. And to quote myself if I may:

I leave with this. If Petrie thinks his options improve over the summer in sign & trades he's obviously mis-reading the market. That's entirely inept to believe Artest's value will raise over the last 30 games because he will play well or whatever. It's also equally faulty logic to assume that Petrie's vision of losing Artest for anything less than premium value is a sound strategy, unless he's absolutely mandated by the Brothers/family, to shed salary in avoiding luxury tax. If you consider re-signing Beno Udrih, a priority for me, then why would you put it at risk by not allowing the team to have certain distance from luxury tax next season by not trading Ron Artest?

The only thing I've flip flopped was on the signing of Beno Udrih, and I flip flopped several times in days leading up to it. I'm satisfied with the signing, but I also was concerned about the money total at the time. I still am actually, but I'm hoping, like Kevin Martin, Beno will play into his contract. That's the only hope any of us have that the contract is worth it after years of so many bloated and unmovable contracts on the roster. And, 4 months and 9 days later, Petrie basically got what he was offered by Denver with a slight edge in the draft pick (that he had the same advantages with in 2008 that he will have in 2009), and JR Smith for Donte Greene. He got nothing better, and his patience didn't bring about anything. I'm curious why the change? Was it Artest? Was it Martin? Who knows, but I'm going to speculate on that further below do trust on that. On to the next point.

We spent days, and days, and days, arguing what type of value and which teams it would come. Hell, just yesterday even, I got into as close as I could get, in a bitter argument with Savage Beast over some fairly minor details. What kind of value Artest should fetch in return. And the like. And you know what? I was right, but just not at the scale any of us were hoping. It was actually lesser value than what we were arguing. I was hoping that the Kings would be able to dump Kenny Thomas (who doesn't around here?), along with Artest and get some cap room for 2009 along with a draft pick. It didn't happen, and as the JA Adande link says above, the Kings are apparently going after the 2010 Free Agent class. Whoopee.

I still think Cleveland, unlike LA, had the best options to aquire Artest. I do think, though, there are only 3 ways they don't acquire him.

1) Mike Brown was unsure how to use Artest offensively 2) Danny Ferry wasn't able to keep a dialogue with Geoff Petrie, or didn't want to, dating back to not being able to acquire Mike Bibby 3) Dan Gilbert overruled the aforementioned 2 because he didn't think spending the extra money would put the Cavaliers over the top 4) LeBron overruled everybody and told the organization that he thought Ron-Ron was a better rapper than him and it offended him

Okay, everything but 4 is serious, but even then, when you consider that everything Gilbert has done was to "satisfy" LeBron, then it's an important point to remember. No matter what Gilbert does, LeBron will always matter more to that Cleveland franchise because there is one of him. There are other owners who would be willing to spend what Gilbert is. Maybe not alot, but there are some.

As far as LA was concerned I think that was fueled by 3 things:

1) The Lakers desire to be a bigger part of the news than the Clippers 2) Management, primarily owner Jerry Buss and Mitch Kupchak, wanted to send a message to Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol that soft play when it counts won't be tolerated 3)That because Jerry Buss is very conscience about paying luxury tax, he didn't want to take the risk of dealing with Artest under that situation

I don't know whether Cleveland or LA ever came into play, but clearly Morey and Adelman took their shot. If I may I'm going to suggest a couple reasons why they feel Artest is all reward and little risk. One is fairly simple. If Greene isn't ready to contribute right away and get minutes on a title contending team when healthy, then it's going to be hard for Adelman to be willing to play him. After all that organization is in "winning a ring mode." Playing Greene is not the likely avenue to winning that ring. Plus, there is also the added bonus of the "Gerald Wallace problem" at some point coming into play. And by that I mean you have him for 4 years, and you're no longer a championship team, and he isn't a superstar, but he wants that type of money, and hasn't really proven much, and has given the team a problem or two about PT and various other small things not known to virtually anyone but the franchise, and it becomes a hassle. These types of things happen in the NBA. That's why Gerald Wallace is in Charlotte right now. (That and they coughed up too much dough to keep him. Kevin Martin or Gerald Wallace is always how I look at. Who would you choose today?)

Last night listening to Jim Kozimor's show he had the Radio Voice of the Rockets on, Craig Ackerman (I think that's his name), and he said the Rockets gave up nothing to get a top tier player. Well, in a sense I agree with him. The Rockets didn't have to give up any of their more prized veteran talent to get Artest. After all, how was Shane Battier going to help the Kings next season? The Kings, after all, did okay with the return for what they get. In the end, if nothing else, they didn't take a uni-lateral step back as a franchise just to deal Artest away. In a sense when Indiana delt Artest in 2006, they did in the following summer after jumping through many hoops to return Al Harrington to the franchise. I think the Kings got the better end of the deal, and Donnie Walsh and Larry Bird aren't "el stupido if" you get the drift. They just were screwed far worse in the wake of Artest's antic's and the brawl in Detroit still fresh in most people's minds by that time.

Seems like a very long time since Ron got arrested about 17 months ago. (Note: this was actually a post before Ron got arrested that day. That crapola thread existed later at some point. It's in the archives on March 5 2007 if you wanna chase it down. I don't. But here is a great post, and a great comment by Louis MG--hope you're still lurking dude--about how Artest's arrest over-shadowed Kevin Martin's winning Player of the Week.) It's been even longer since I first posted on TZ's old blog: Sac Kings Blog. (I shudder at the memory of how poorly written that stuff was. And I'm talking about my comments not Tz's writing.) StR has been on SBN for so long now it's hard to remember that old thing. I was bored the other day, so I tried to look it up, and now it's even disappeared. It's okay, but I wish I had archived some of my comments about Bibby, Peja, Adelman and other things. Oh well. The long and the short of this is that after 3 years, and then some, the Kings are at the same place they were after the Webber trade. They've treaded water since, not a total surprise, and now they've started the blow it up phase now that Artest is no longer on the roster. So where do they go?

That is the ultimate question I suppose isn't it? Where do the Kings go now that Artest is gone? Who do they trade? What kind of value are they looking for? I suppose that's a matter of opinion, but here's mine.

First, whatever you do, you don't take on longer contracts unless it's a superior player, and a fairly superior one at that, in the next several years. You do your best to keep your cap flexibility for 2010. Whether that culminates in the signing of a Free Agent (a very overrated action IMO), or a Marcus Camby type deal where a trade exception is created for the team giving up the player, or the Kings simply creating more cap room for the amount of mass talent they've decided to stand pat with. Cap Room is not about signing the LeBron's of the world. Let's not kid ourselves. LeBron is not coming to play in Sacramento. So let's not worry about it.

Second, and this is a fairly important second, you don't get over-eager because Tracy McGrady becomes available. Or an older player such as that, and you don't let your Vegas boy, 6 thou wine drinkers at that, make decisions. It's not decisions they make well. Joe and Gavin are not George. Joe and Gavin are figureheads. George is running the biggest part of their operation in Las Vegas. There is a far greater difference. It's one reason the family makes decisions. Joe and Gavin aren't trusted to make them. Families don't make decisions because they want to get together and play dominoes while getting shit faced. They do it to protect themselves against poor decisions by inner-factions against their knowledge. Have you ever listened to Joe Maloof after Rick Adelman got fired? (There are mp3 files that an older poster Pyro posted while she still posted here. She has since stopped posting too. Ugh, is all I'm going to say. If you want some of the mp3 files they are halfway down the comments to scroll down. Big up's again to her for posting them and recording them. They are a goldmine and a ton of insight to the Maloof's, Rick Adelman, Grant Napear and Mike Lamb to an extent, and even Elston Turner. It's worth hearing if you never have. But, to be fair, at this point it's mostly for historical content.) The bottom line is that ownership is there to ask questions of their basketball employee's, and create fiscal discipline. They're not there to create trades, and if they do they better have basketball background similar to Al Davis when he became owner of the Raiders, and now Al has lost his touch so it doesn't make a difference, or sit in the background and cheer like fan's. Otherwise, they're not much good in this whole rigmarole. But, after all, they cut the checks and it's hard to tell someone paying you to go fuck themselves. That's the bottom line in pro sports. Ownership that let's their people do what they need to, and have an open and honest relationship, which I think Geoff and the Maloof family have, which tends to help things work out for the better most of the time.

Geoff Petrie is an enigma wrapped in a mystery in a tomb in ancient Egypt. Nobody really knows what the guy is thinking, and when he says things like "we've had talks with them yes", especially when a trade is finished on "principle", then his crypticness tends to be a tell. After all his not saying anything about the Lakers gave a strong indication nothing was brewing there. The reason I know? Because he doesn't respond to rumors. This is years of watchng the guy work from afar. No other teams were bandied about except Detroit, and I'm sure those talks died quickly because they didn't have the package Houston did. Petrie's strength's are rather obvious. He's patient, and he drafts well. He's killed a ton of teams in this league on trades, although Geoff has given up talent, and the mix of players he put together was the actual success of the players he traded for, and that's not necessarily anything another team can do about. But team's also like to spin PR as positive as they can to get fans to buy tickets, jersey's and the like. If fans believe, accurately or not, that Geoff Petrie raped your team, it might make ownership or your management reluctant to deal with him. That's what I've seen written about Billy Beane (This is bullshit but that's just something I know to be true--want an example? The A's trade Nick Swisher to the White Sox for some of their better prospect. Okay that's a good deal, except the A's have done a terrible job drafting. So when you trade your major league players to re-stock your farm system, you're doing one thing to cover another where you've failed. In Geoff's case it's not that simple, but you get the idea.) but I don't believe it. Never have and never will. Actually I'm fairly thrilled most A's fans believe Billy is still the GM because I'm not sure how many of them would be stoked on the news that Forst is the actual GM, and has been since 2006. Oh well, not the place here for that. I'm just making an analogy. And the point about Petrie is simple. He makes excellent trades for the most part, Bibby is the best example, and Artest to a lesser extent, but he also has criticism's too. Those criticism's can't be ignored.

Anyone who has ever witnessed an argument between me and Otis goes something like this:

Me: The Maloof's have done more damage with their negotiating skills.

Otis: How can you blame the Maloof's for that? Not everything is their fault you know. Petrie's job is to negotiate contract's and if they're poor contracts, that's on Petrie.

Meh, Otis has a point, and one that shouldn't be ignored. Petrie does the bulk of the negotiating, as he should, but ultimately he's the guy who signed the bulk of the contracts. Unfortunately though, and I'm not alone as Ron-Ron's email hysteria on the eve of Baron Davis arriving back home to Anaheim North suggests, he really believed that the Maloof's would negotiate a fair contract extension if he didn't opt out. I, and am not the only one who noticed this, when Joe Maloof goes on the air and insinuates, your millionaire's club pays attention. You don't have to own a PhD to understand that if you don't terminate your contract early, the team MUST negotiate a contract extension with you. And Ron honestly believed that. And what Ron didn't get, and I'm not exactly sure why, is that wasn't Joe's call to make. That was Geoff Petrie's. He made the call, and Ron got mad because he knew was screwed. (Artest shouldn't be that mad. He's making more money that he could have gotten via either a sign or trade or an open market deal. Josh Smith couldn't get paid, and it took Luol Deng and Emeka Okafor to get their deals after several weeks of tough negotiating to get deals they were at least interested in, or felt worth with, to sign. What's the odds in that environment that Artest gets a deal he thinks he's worth? Then again, that's another problem with Artest. I think we've gone over that enough.) Now that Artest is in Houston, and making 1.5 million more than any MLE deal he would have most likely had to accept, then one can say his moving to Houston is a positive career move. Petrie isn't taking his lumps for this deal either. Ron has worn his welcome out, and has for roughly a year and half. Nobody was gonna cry the day he was traded, and the day is come, and guess what, nobody is crying. Geoff Petrie had nowhere to go but up with a deal like this because there was no way he was going to win a Ron Artest sweepstakes. He knew it, and every league GM knew it. So Geoff did what he does best. He assess's damage and works quickly as possible to alleviate the pain. That's really what he is. He's the battlefield medic of NBA GM's. When he came to the Kings they had Mitch Richmond, Spud Webb, Walt "the Wizard" Williams--he of the one left to right crossover my now 89 year old grandmother could have guarded-- and the 8th pick in the draft that ended up being Brian Grant. (It was either Grant, Vin Baker or Eddie Jones. Had BG stayed healthy I take him in a heartbeat. But it's really a flip of a coin and Eddie Jones had the longer career. I'm just making a point.) There are more options today. For one thing Kevin Martin doesn't have the time in Mitch Richmond did. For another Kevin is better paid with better representation. (One of the most underrated things in Sacramento era history is how Mitch's contract status over the 6 years spent in the EC ended up hurting and helping the team in the short and long run.) For another Petrie's acquired all the players on the current Kings team. He isn't dealing with the messy leftovers that Jerry Reynolds left him that he inheritated from Dick "I've got a championship ring how many do you got?" Motta. (Coach, I've got two. Maybe they should listen to me. God Bless that smartass Danny Ainge.) And that is of course the point. Yesterday effects today which effects tomorrow which effects 2 days from now. It's always inter-connected, and no matter how many arguments ensue, it's always important to remember the past to be able to gauge the future with a better feel.

Are the KIngs better off than they were in 1994? Yeah, for alot of reasons. Jim Thomas isn't the owner anymore is probably the 2nd biggest reason. There's a stronger salary cap preventing the Kings from losing any young stud in free agency provided they aren't the dum dumb's aka Atlanta Hawks, and negotiate properly with their young talent. You have Geoff Petrie who has a firm handle on where he wants to take this franchise. If it's let the young talent grow with the older "young" talent like Garcia, Martin, Salmons and Udrih, than I say so be it. That's a better plan than Minnesota has, and they've got a pretty good starting point in Al Jefferson and Kevin Love potentially. In the salary cap age, foresight is the most incredible thing to have. But, and this is a rather big butt, it's also important to get luck. Every championship team has had it. Every single one. The Celtic's of the 50's and 60's. Anybody here know how the C's got Bob Cousy? They got the short end (or so they thought at the time) of a dispersal draft because they thought he was some New York swingin dick showboat who couldn't lead a team after watching him play 4 years at Holy Cross. Guess Red Auerbach ain't perfect huh? The point is that when the Celtic's got him their franchise's fortunes changed, and having made that type of mistake, it taught Auerbach to think out of the box. 17 championship's later, and one motherfucking famous parque, it's safe to say the Boston Celtic's have done as much as anything basketball "team" to shape the history of basketball in the world. That's important to remember. It's almost important to remember that Auerbach worked at it too. Petrie still has touch to run this team. Sure, people like Carl were frustrated. Shit, so was I. I stopped watching the Kings after the trade deadline because I got tired of Ron Artest on the floor. I wanted him gone, and it was practically impossible to stomach watching him game in & game out as the Kings wound down the season towards a high lottery pick that was slated to not make the impact that a top 5 or 7 pick probably would have. But, and this is a rather big but, one way would define luck is to have a player who drafted at 12th overall ends up being a superstar and the best player drafted in several years. That would be one definition of luck, yes? Am I saying Jason Thompson will be Karl Malone. Hell no minions don't be Corky from "Life goes On." At the same time it's always possible. With young players you just don't know. And who knows about Greene? He showed some promise in Summer League too. (Or Bobby Brown. Didn't he show that at least when you combine his feats in Berlin?) It may be that Reggie Theus turns out to be a better coach of young players than he is of bitchy, enigmatic, mercurial veterans. Luck, intelligence, foresight, keeping in touch with history, and paying attention are how teams win rings. It's quite possible the Kings could be back at some point. It's sure as hell better to contemplate the future now that Neutral has left the building isn't it?

The bottom line for me is this. If you move Reef (or have his salary taken off with a medical retirement), then you've lost his salary starting next season. That's a good thing. If you can trade away Kenny Thomas with either John Salmons or Bobby Jackson that's a good thing. Especially if you cut that salary in half with a quality player coming in return. With options Geoff Petrie can make things happen. He can decide to negotiate an extension with Francisco Garcia rather than letting Garcia decide he wants to go the Josh Childress route. (This should be a concern for the Kings. Cisco speaks Spanish. He goes to the Spanish League and makes big bucks, that's a problem for the KIngs if they want to get tough with negotiations with him. That's not a road I'm interested in seeing the Kings take.) I have said that the 2 biggest priorities are trading Ron Artest and signing Cisco to an extension. Well, the first priority happened, and it's time to work on the Second. Trades with Geoff happen in a 24 hour span, but negotiations can take weeks. So why not start the process now? Or at least in mid-August. It's safe to say, though, that if Cisco isn't extended by training camp, unless he wants to be in Restricted-Free Agency (RFA) next off-season, it's a failure on the Kings part to keep their young core together, a trade with Artest that certainly helps move the team in that direction, when trading Artest was one purpose of reaching that goal. It's one thing to want a guy gone like I've said many times. It's another to do so with a purpose, and I believe it's very possible the Kings have done that. Sure, it's not perfect or anything, but that's the real world. The NBA can be tough to trade certain types of players, and if you're trading Dwight Howard, is there a big equal of his talent? If he's the big man in the world who is going to match him? (How many big man do you think it would take to combine Dwight Howard? Mental exercise to keep you sharp. So keep up people.) Hence, why trading Artest was so difficult. Not only was he difficult to trade from a personality standpoint, he was also so underpaid that it made a limited select market on who was going to acquire him. Either you acquire Artest and receive an overpaid crap-pile like Kenny Thomas, or you trade a mid levelish player like Bobby Jackson with a young player and draft picks. Petrie doesn't have a lot of options with Artest unless he was making more money. And unfortunately, that's what made Artest so appealing to begin with. He is underpaid.

Bottom line is that Section nailed it last night. "Kevin Martin, line 1 holding for you. Your destiny is calling". Absolutely nailed it. TZ nailed the whole full circle thing too. Actually he pretty much nailed all of it, right down with the picture and Shakespeare-esque (if not him some classic writer I'm sure I've never read) writing. Now the Kings can dump a Mikki Moore for cap room. Now moving Bobby Jackson and trying to attach Kenny Thomas to any deal may be easier particularly at the deadline or sometime during the season. There are alot of things that are possible when teams are openly and actively seeking deals. The closer it gets to 2009 is the closer Kenny Thomas has some (as much as a crap-pile can have) to trade value. I'm game for that. In fact who isn't so we can beat the living crap out of you know. (I would venture to say there isn't many community enforced rules, but disliking Kenny Thomas is definitely near or top of the list.) Finding out about Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson would be nice. Do they have all-star talent? Are they consistent contributors to a title team? Do we have these answers on July 30th. No, of course not. Why would we expect to? But I know one thing if I know nothing else. There is no way the Kings can find out answers about their young talent and future spending every day catering to the whims of a Queensbridge madman on the loose in the Evil Cowtown. You can't do it. Reggie Theus had to spend time, and massaging his own ego simultaneously, defending Ron Artest publicly. He did such a poor job that it ended up turning the whole franchise's head. What Reggie ended up doing was waking up the ownership to just how difficult a PR cover up job Ron Artest really is for a team in transistion mode like the Kings are. Frankly, and I don't think TZ has gotten enough credit for this, but in SpringTime 07 he did an interview with Bill Bradley, then an editor, and still may be today, about the type of web coverage the Bee did. Ever since TZ leveled fair and honest criticism's it has gotten better.

For those who don't think people in the Kings organization read this blog you're wrong. They most certainly and definitely do. It's one forum, a fairly unusually intelligent forum, and compendium of opinions that pretty much hit every Kings issue under the sun. When you have a community that does that, and doesn't enforce specifically and spectacuraly one sided idea's that only partially reach the point that the enforcment is looking to seek, than the point of having an opinion is lost. Did StR force Artest to be traded? No, again, of course not. Did StR help the Bee re-think it's web coverage? It almost certainly did. Newspapers are struggling with income from every angle, and they're losing readership by the day because the Internet has been such a broad and complete source of everything from anorexia to zylophones. It's kinda hard to top that if you print a headline "Bush read's a newspaper without making a fart joke while sniffing Cocaine." People get tired of that crap, and the Bee has found a way to make coverage of a tired one horse media town somewhat worthwhile. And it didn't start exactly with TZ's criticism, but it helped get the ball rolling. Sam Amick is a terrific beat writer whom the Bee and KIngs fans are equally lucky to have. He doesn't take anybody's crap, and he's the best source of Kings information I've seen fans have since Mark Kreidler. (For whatever reason I'm into political analogies today. I saw a political caption over a column from a Seattle Times editorialist with a caption of T-Rex representing the US debt with W as the master of T-Rex pulling him around on a chain while McCain and Obama watched. Extremely amusing. I'd link to it, but I doubt the Seattle Times website has it. If it was in the Bee I hope you saw it. For whatever it's worth I enjoy reading the Editorial's more than I enjoy reading anything else. Like the 20 cent plastic bag tax that's taking effect in 2009. It's stupid, and will end up hurting the environment more in the long run with more plastic being expended. But that's unfortunately the society we live in today. We don't quite seem to get cause and effect the way we should. And it's not just politics. It's sports too.) I'm from Sacramento. Graduated from Sac High until it sunk into the depths of KJ's hands. And it's sunk further. Not a great shock, but whatever. The school had sucked for years. The problem with Sac is that it's a company town. Always has been when I lived there, and probably always will be. People aren't going against the grain much there. (And this is not just Sacramento either to be fair. But in a city that's unusual, too many people don't seem to think outside the box like they should. It's a shame. Great city, nice people, fairly good climate, and a kickass place to go anywhere when the local watering hole gets old. We all leave where we live.) Talk radio is contrived for chrissake. Talk Radio is about opponent's anger screaming at each other. And even that's boring because it's so predictable. Sacramento is unfortunately a low corporate town due to the huge presence the bureaucracy the State of California takes up. Everywhere between 3rd and Alhambra do you find State buildings that do this, that, or the other. What isn't there tends to be city oriented type stuff, and the County of Sacramento has quite a bit of office's too. In otherwords it's a company town. And as a favorite book character of mine said," Bureaucracy clogs the imagination." Actually, I don't think it's all that it does, but I definitely think the power to think critically of the Kings is almost generally absent in most area's of Kings talk. Actually, and I don't think is a total critcism of just KIngs fans, but sports talk in general. (Or Americans if you want to take a broader scope.) It comes down to this, or it comes down to that. It's one reason I'm not a "Scoop" fan. He's covered the Lakers, and all that junk, but for every piece of good information he provides, he provides his opinion. Some of that is necessary, I mean shit, he does report on the NBA, but some of that is overboard. (He is also a Lakers fan, even though he won't publicly admit it.) We don't live in an era where information is publicly and willing shared, but in an era where information is withheld with a grudge by TV, Radio and some Newspaper sources. That's why, among other things, is why StR and other blogs like it, provide such a recourse. So, in one sense the interest of 1140 to make certain types of news on the Kings sound better than it is, and on the other hand you have the Bee which doesn't have a full leg to stand on. It has to report news straight on, and not hold forth against opinions because the exist. The full disclosure of informatino that most cities just doesn't happen in Sacramento. That isn't an accident. It works well, but not like it did. With blogs such as this, or even Kingsfans.com to an extent, Kings fans now have a recourse to say what they want, or up to a point, for the most part how they want. You can't do that on 1140. I can't criticize the Maloof's for poor posturing in negotiating on Grant's show. I can here. There is no guarantee anyone anywhere will agree, but that opinion can be heard. Ron Artest is the greatest proof of this.

Coming as completely full circle, you have why Artest was traded, and the reason's other teams may not have gotten involved. You have the timing and the difficult of trading a player and low monetary value such as Artest. You have some glimpse at the future and what it may bring. You have the value of free information in a fairly tightly clustered media information area like the Evil Cowtown. What hasn't been discussed, and needs to, is how this team will miss Artest. And make no mistake, and I say this knowing full well I wanted the guy gone, and knowing the team will be better eventually, this team will suffer a bit without Ron Artest. So the question is how?

We all hated watching Ron dribble for 10 seconds and jack up an off balance slightly to the left from 20 feet away from the hoop. We all screamed about why he wasn't on the block, or how was it he so naturally and effortessly killed ball movement on contact. But that was also, in a sense, sort of like Chris Webber before him with his superstar complex, a benefit too. You want a guy on your team willing to take bad shots and trying to take the game over. Most NBA teams, outside of maybe Detroit, seem to want that. Reggie Theus certainly played that angle up, even though it was far more subtle than it was loud as day, unlike his mouth. Kevin Martin was spared this. His efficiency is one of his greatest attributes, but the greater question is that without Ron Artest will he be willing to take those bad shots, or that subtle criticism of how he gets shots off, to help the KIngs? Ron Artest took that within stride. He wanted to be the "Man", so he did those off balance bad shot clock shots. Did he contribute to the poor convolution of those possessions? Absolutely, and that's what most of us reacted to I suspect. But, and this is rather strong but, Kevin Martin has relied heavily on Brad Miller's passing skills to get 10-20 points a night off easy layup's and FT attempts. If Kevin can't take guys one on one consistently every night, while beating double teams in the process, is going to be the true measure of Kevin's next step. Only time will tell on this. A greater problem perhaps, or maybe this is my imagination going with a monster fanpost that keeps taking off and then some, is how will Kevin deals with the media and his time being more of demand? After all, when Ron went into a city he was generally the first player interviewed. More teams were interested in his thoughts on just about everything from gardening to whether organic chicken is the ticket. Martin will now get those questinos. He won't be ignored. He will have his face on gameday programs, and on the Kings season guide. All those massive responsibilities, that Webber and Artest did, are now on Martin. Do I think this is a great problem? As I've already mentioned about how little footprints the media in the EC make, it's not going to create many problems for K-Mart. He already has Sam Amick's ear, and as April's little tussle proved, he's getting his way. His comment about wanting more leadership in Ailene's column had as much subtlety as "Ron go the fuck away" would. He was saying, as plainly as he could, that the team was his to take over. It was his time,"It's our time...It's our tyyyyymmmmmeeee!" (Warning: Complimentary Goonies quote now over.) And it is now. It's his time. But the day it goes bad for him, the day he misses the Jump shot when it was all on the line and the Kings are hung in the process, how does he handle that? Does he have that ultimate alpha male ego that Artest has on the court? We don't know any of these answers for certain, but that's the beauty of trading Artest now. Martin asked for it, and he got it. It's put up or shutup time kid. You may think your game, but only April holds that answer.

In the end the Kings are kinda like that top tier college team. People debate the worthiness of just about everything from the mascot to the Head Coach playing enough guys. We obsess about the team to the point where it makes us seem crazy. (Portland and Utah has similar fan bases to this extent. I believe this is in part due to the fact that both Utah and Portland have college programs making strong impacts in tough conferences.) What is Sacramento's excuse? Sac State, the next dynasty? I'm going to stay silent, and snicker at the "Go Hornets" chant. It's a commuter school. Unless you get an all-world talent that every single school recruiter missed, the Hornets will never be an upper echelon team with the resources they have. It's the way the cookie crumbles. So if there isn't this mass hysteria over a local college (And I don't consider Pacific a local college because it's in Stockton), and I don't remember ever listening to 1140 with tons of college calls about Cal and Stanford, then what is it? It's a bit hard to describe, but it's like the terrible parent being angry at their kid being taken away. I may not love it, but you ain't taking it away from me either. And that's the closest analogy I can come to how a team in the middle of cow country to the south, wine country and the bay area to the west, casino's to the east, and so much agriculture around it that it make's your teeth hurt come farmer market's time. Why does this have anything to do with Ron Artest? Because he's a media whore. Because noone else on the Kings is nearly as well known in the national media as Artest is. Because the Kings are a team with fans worldwide from Korea and China to Florida New York City and everywhere in between. In a place where no college team diverts any attention, where the nearest big college and pro teams are 80 miles down the road, including teams many of us root for, where many consider it such a 2nd rate town because of the low tourism it attracts, and partly because it's too close to San Francisco to considered to be a major metropolis, and because the amount of jealousy that other fans in pro sports have of Sacramento because the fans go there to scream their asses's off, it matters because Kevin Martin in Sacramento matters like Kobe Bryant in LA. And that's why, no matter what anyone says, kinda like knowing an open secret more people should get in the internet age, the Artest trade, despite the downside it brings in the exposure it will bring of players like Martin, Garcia, and Salmons, is the best thing that has happened to this franchise since signing Vlade Divac. Because, and only because, this type of thing matters more here, it will end up being something that surprises everyone. People will care more, and not less, because now the team doesn't have a guy who jumped into the stands, had fights with his wife, forgot to feed his dog, asked time off for a rap album with his prior team, sent multiple email's in disappointment because the team he was on wouldn't negotiate an extension he thought he was due, and because his ego forced every aspecct of the organization to revolve around him, this forces a new direction, a welcome direction, in the new era of the Kings. It's about time, and even better, it's fun again.

 

There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
Theres too much confusion
I cant get no relief
Businessman they drink my wine
Plow men dig my earth
None will level on the line
Nobody of it is worth
Hey hey

No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke but uh
But you and I weve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hours getting late
Hey

Hey

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Bare-foot servants to, but huh
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approachin
And the wind began to howl
Hey
Oh
All along the watchtower
Hear you sing around the watch
Gotta beware gotta beware I will
Yeah
Ooh baby
All along the watchtower

I've seen some mention (mostly from posters on StR) that the Kings were paying luxury tax. But according to everything I could find, from ShamSports, or the ESPN trade checker (go to espn nba page and go to more--that's where you'll find the trade checker--linking it does no good), what may see written is that the Kings were over the luxury tax. Hmmm, this was not so in my calculations, but then again let's test this theory out. With and Departed Ron or WR/DR.

W(ith)R(on): Brad Miller: 11,375,000

Kevin Martin: 8,760,335

Kenny Thomas: 8,562,500

Ron Artest: 7,400,000

Shareef Abdur Rahim: 6,200,000

Mikki Moore: 5,784,480

Beno Udrih: 5,585,000

John Salmons: 5,104,000

Shelden Williams: 3,395,760

Spencer Hawes: 2,180,760

Francisco Garcia: 1,983,453

Jason Thompson: 1,893,840

Quincy Douby: 1,427,040

Sean Singletary: 442,114

Patrick Ewing Jr: 442,114

Bobby Brown: 442,114

Now what does this all add up to besides bibbity bobbity boo? According to my calculations the actual salary is something like this: 70,978,510 (I might be 15 K off so don't sue me, but at worse that's like that's something like 70,995,000). So what's the point? The actual luxury tax threshold is 71,115,000 this season. Or it's something like that. The Kings are in all likelihood 20K away from the threshold.

The Rockets in the meantime, pre-Ron, according to Sham, has nearly 70 million dollars in committed salary (it's actually like 69.96 million or something like that, and that's even farther away from the luxury tax threshold than the Kings are--I'm also going to spare you the long list of Rockets with their individual salary) before the Ron trade. So, keep in mind that the Kings are probably around 70.98 million dollars in luxury tax salary, or 157 thousand under the actual threshold, and the Rockets are approximately 1.2 million dollars under threshold.

So what happened with the actual deal? Well, Let's take Ron out of the equation, and add Bobby Jackson and Donte Green to it:

D(eparted)R(on): Brad Miller: 11,375,000

Kevin Martin: 8,760,335

Kenny Thomas: 8,562,500

Bobby Jackson: 6,987,888

Shareef Abdur Rahim: 6,200,000

Mikki Moore: 5,784,480

Beno Udrih: 5,585,000

John Salmons: 5,104,000

Shelden Williams: 3,395,760

Spencer Hawes: 2,180,760

Francisco Garcia: 1,983,453

Jason Thompson: 1,893,840

Quincy Douby: 1,427,040

Donte Greene: 971,160

Sean Singletary: 442,114

Patrick Ewing Jr: 442,114

Bobby Brown: 442,114

So what's the actual salary assuming that noone off this list gets traded? 71,537,558, which is approximately 420K over the actual luxury tax limit which would cost the Kings 420 something in luxury tax (or 840K total combined salary and dollar for dollar tax), and of course there is the tax payment they would miss by doing this deal assuming they keep all the players on the roster. So? Are they going to do that? If it was you, and you didn't think Ewing, or Singletary were high contributors would you cut either or include one in a trade? Yes, you probably would. So that's really where the speculation (as many of us bandied about in several threads last night) is with the rest of the trade. If the Kings are to send a player in this deal, it's more likely to be either Singletary or Ewing Jr, as opposed to Bobby Brown. That would put the Kings under the luxury tax threshold by including one, or the other, in a trade.

So, while I've seen that the Kings are paying luxury tax this season, what I'm actually seeing is that most pundits who don't know what they're talking about are projecting based on knowing little about what committed team salary the Kings actually have. I'm a Kings fan, and I'm following this daily as it's an important story. If I'm not quite sure of what the actual nature of the contracts that Singletary, Ewing Jr, and Brown signed, how can any pundit certainly know anything 100?

What's my opinion on this? Either the Kings send Singletary or Ewing Jr to the Rockets as part of the swap, or they don't. They cut one, or both, before training camp to save as much money as possible. They could cut all three, but I don't see that being a strong possibility since the franchise went out of the way to sign Bobby Brown (I think they knew about him before Summer League, but that is a hunch).

In the end, I just wanted to give everyone a head's up, that yes, the Kings, if they didn't cut Singletary or Ewing Jr, would in fact pay luxury tax for the upcoming season. I would also like to point out that they only pay the tax at the end of the season, and not before, so they could always cut salary making sure they're well under the threshold before then. That is a likely possibility too if A) they can get somebody to take the crap-pile that is Kenny Thomas, B) if they can either trade Shareef or take his salary off the books due to medical retirement, and C) how creative they are with whom they invite to camp and what they pay them. Everything that a team pays for a player that includes bonus's, training camp invitee's, players you waive during the season, and all those types of things factor into team salary. My summation is that, while I'm not exactly sure what moves are out there for Sacramento to accomplish at this point, it's fairly certain they'll do everything within their power to get some breathing room from the tax in order to collect the luxury tax payment they get for being under the threshold.

We already have 2 fans shots, 2 fan posts, and who knows what else is coming from Section and TZ. Please everyone, don't keep making new fan posts when there is no reason to make them. As soon as the new fan posts stop coming in I'm deleting this so nobody has to ever read it. So don't post anything more on this subject and post shorter thoughts on the subject in the multiple threads already up. Trust me. There is ample space to discuss this. This is major news. Thank You. There now I've met the 75 word count.

I like Henry. I'm going to say that now. I love True Hoop because it provides a level of understand for basketball I never had before without it. Without True Hoop being on ESPN that site would be almost entirely worthless unless breaking news happened, and even then they basically beat everybody else by 30 minutes. That being said I think Henry, who I agreed with some stuff he said earlier (great post by Clipper Steve of Clips Nation) last week about Childress signing with Olympikos in the Greek League, that he's missing the boat on the overall tenor of what's happening with negotiating.

Essentially, what I've seen with Henry, like today's post, is that there is a flaw in the current CBA that leaves team's vulnerable to players who want to walk over to Europe because they no longer have an upper hand in negotiating! Good! That's not a bad thing. There should be a give & take in the CBA, and I think this balances that. Smith and Deng are upset that they aren't getting their money, and their blaming their Restricted Free Agency status for it. That, last I checked, was the case when they came into the league. But now they've crossed the "can't turn back" stage they're both pouting a bit because they've showed glimpses of super-stardom and nothing that consistently displays it. The Bulls and Hawks, up to a point, are correct to be stingy on not "over"paying Deng or Smith. But, at the same time, if Deng and Smith don't want to take a reduced value, and that's their right, the CBA gives them a course to take a one year offer and play out the rest of their rookie contract. That's their recourse.

So my question what is wrong with that? Why does Josh Smith have to get his money if no team is willing to give it to him? Is it his fault he went into RFA at a bad time? No, it's not. Is it the NBA's? No, it's not. I say that people need to get over the fact that Smith and Igoudala aren't getting big contracts as a sign more & more owners are getting the need to be picky with whom they pay. I think some fiscal discipline on the owner's part helps keep the league affordable for fans. (Although, that's not really it either. Owners do whatever they can to put money in their own pocket. That's a fallacy but I'm going to print it anyway like I really mean it.) I think the whole idea that the league is suffering because Josh Smith and Luol Deng aren't getting the contracts they want is a crock. In fact, I don't think it shows a flaw within the system at all. I think it shows a flaw in Deng and Smith's opinion of themselves, and in Childress' case, shows the poor marketing position that the Hawks put themselves in by not extending Childress or Smith last summer. (The Bulls do get a pat on the back for trying it. Deng and Gordon just did stupid things.

What's the solution? Well, I say keep this system the way it is. Give the players and the owners recourse. That's what collective bargaining is for. It shouldn't be one sided, and it was. It takes time and effort to smooth out inequities, and quite frankly, if the league chooses to re-write the CBA because Josh Childress chose to go to Europe at a time where the Euro is outpacing the Dollar by nearly 2 to 1, well then so what? Childress wasn't any major player, but merely a role player who had offers from other teams. Yes he had offers, but those teams knew he was restricted. They didn't want to tie any money up giving him an offer sheet so the Hawks could just match. That's what the Hawks wanted. Childress called the Hawks bluff and went oversea's. Why not end it with that? Why not focus on the fact that the crappy American economy has to do with poor choices, education, and a poor overall outlook at how things are created/effected by overall actions? Nooooooooooo, there's some problem with the CBA because Josh Childress signed with Olympikos. Well with all due respect to Henry Abbott, every Hawks fan angry at management (as they should be), Tom Ziller and ever other person who thinks the CBA is flawed beyond the allowable limit this is my response: You're wrong.

I personally think is a great thing for the NBA as Henry originally stated (or implied that it could be down the road is what he really said). I don't think it's a flaw on the NBA's part, but a flaw in how player's and teams view value. Everyone decried the Warriors opportunity to not be able to re-sign Gilbert Arenas in 2004, but the Spurs had the same problem and set the cap space aside to do so. Nobody threw fits because Detroit lost Mehmet Okur to Utah because they didn't have the cap space to re-sign him. Personally, and I say this because I believe it, Childress walking to Greece says 2 things. One, it shows he's interested in seeing how playing in Greece can change his value after playing in the NBA, and Two, it can make re-entry possible for players in the European League's who may have come to the NBA and returned to Europe, to return back to the NBA. For all the talk of a global NBA, most American's seem pretty xenophobic about it from my view. It's okay to talk about it because it sounds nice & good as long as those players are coming over here to the good ole US of VA. But when an American player openly spurns us to go over there there's a crack in the armor? Nope, sorry, but I just don't think so. Childress' decision could work for him, against him, or end up being a push. I say we wait a couple years, and see how this works for the NBA and FIBA. Does it change how NBA teams draft European's in league's over there, or does it change anything at all? Does it become an overall trend, which I don't think anything has come close to that btw, or does it become a personal decision that was simply out of the box. The truth is Josh Childress is a different cat. He was shown partying in Greece. He wasn't in the US announcing this. He was in Greece partying and having a good time in Athens. He seemed open to a new culture and it's way of presenting itself over there. If nothing else, and I say this, it could be a great way for athletes to come out of their athlete shell of being superhuman. Being human might just start being possible. It's one thing to be superhuman on the court doing things that only a handful of people in the world can do, but off the court it gets a tad old. And athletes, of all people, are more aware of this than anyone.

I like the idea of Childress in Europe, and I like the idea of giving teams every opportunity to re-sign their rookies if they choose. I like the idea that smart teams who handle their players appropriately (anybody around here glad the Kings extended Kevin Martin before he went on the market?) and with respectful fashion get more out of them. This isn't just about money with Childress; after all the guy is already a millionaire before heading to Greece as the 6th overall pick in 2005. What I find irritating is that crybaby millionaires are crying poor because they don't get their way, and because only 4 teams had any real money to spend, and 2 of them the Warriors and Clippers because they had major talent opt out of their contracts unexpectedly to almost everyone, created a totally different market that allowed them to play against everyone else. It created an unlevel playing field because noone expected it. Philly, unlike Memphis who isn't jumping in this aspect of anything, jumped into the Brand sweepstakes because they could. You don't think Chicago would have loved to jump in that boat? What about Detroit? You don't think Seattle Oklahoma City would have loved to have a shot with Brand? What about Atlanta? There just weren't any teams with cap room, and that pretty much screwed Smith and Deng. That's the way the cookie crumbles with free agency. It's about opportunity, and you know what, there's always next year anyway. I think, if anything, that the Childress signing teaches us is that if players are willing to do extraordinary things and change the landscape, or the view of that said landscape even, then as fans and observers we are far better off being aware of that said opportunity rather than acting like it's some overall detriment to the game we love to watch and observe. And that, kiddies, is the only real lesson I've taken from this whole scenario. I would also like to mention now that when 2009 rolls around, how many teams will be lining up to give Childress mega bucks? Or even Mid-Level bucks if Atlanta doesn't renounce Childress admist all this?

As always, and if nothing else, there are actions and equal and opposite reaction's for everything. Some stringy static filled hair guy said that once. He ended up being on a t-shirt for intellectuals. Or as it was put eloquently put it in the movie IQ:

Boris Podolsky: James! How's the rat business?

James Moreland: Well, actually it's mostly students I'm experimenting on now.

Kurt Godel: My God, the mazes must be enormous."

Yeah, that works for me (not the Einstein quote from IQ I wanted but it will do). Good Day suckaz!

One of the beautiful things about Summer, if you can say that in Sacramento this time of year, I maintain you can't, but one thing is the longer days. The Weather to spend outside (snicker now for those living in 100 degree heat and non breathable air), or the time to take vacations in cooler climates where the temperatures are a bit more tolerable. Right? Well, in the NBA it's money time. And money time has proven to be a bit tricky this go around.

Josh Smith and Luol Deng are in tricky spots that will see them almost certainly take the qualifying offer's. Andre Igoudala may end up taking the 50 million from Philly now the grass seems better with that 50 mill promise hanging around. None of those guys ever believed they would get that little. They all believe they're superstars. In their own mind anyway. The truth is that negotiation's are tricky with any Free-Agent let alone a 22-24 year old one who has been in the league for 4 seasons. I said at the time, and it's my opinion, that the Kings overpayed Kevin Martin. After seeing what Monta Ellis got, and with perhaps his total upside having been tapped with a potentially crippling position change looming for Ellis, it could make Martin's money to be of the large savings variety. Like, say, on a Steve Nash level. (That's assuming alot. I won't cross that threshold till it comes. Still, it's a barometer I would like to use in this argument for the future.) That's something only time can tell. Again, and I say again, those who have criticized Petrie's giving out of deals perhaps forget that Martin got what every other young talent out there got. (Or was rumored to have been offered. The lone exceptions are the studs like Wade, James, Stoudemire and Howard. I don't think anybody here thinks K-Mart is on that level.) And he's happy about it. He wants to be a leader. He wants to be the "man". Those are all things that interest him, but he hasn't gone about in a derisive way. I say be thankful. These developments loom large as the Atlanta dipshits, I mean Hawks, continue to reel from Childress departure to Olympikos, and the poor negotiating posture with Josh Smith.

With Artest having been bandied about so much, and with pretty much every position under the sun having been taken around here (with maybe the notable exception of throwing Artest to the Wolves; and I don't mean a lifetime punishement of being banned to play in a Wolves uni), I'm going to attempt to clarify why I think the Cavs are in a strong position to make a run for Artest if they choose.

First, and I say foremost, they have the expiring contracts to get a deal done with the Kings principals (Artest and Thomas) in Snow and Szczerbiak. But let's adding something else to the deal so that the Kings and Cavs have a reason to do a deal. So, let me propose this. The Kings send Artest, Thomas and Mikki Moore to Cleveland for Wally Szczerbiak, Eric Snow and a future 1st round draft choice. The Kings move Thomas and Mikki Moore for an expiring contract and a 1st round choice, and the Cavs don't take on a greater luxury tax burden for this season and beyond by only doing a Wally/Artest k9 swap. They get a chance to try out Artest and Moore, and perhaps dangle Thomas to a team looking to clear cap space for 2010. (I doubt it, but I keep seeing all kinds of wierd theories popping up on what the Kings could do with this and that. This is mine.) I would do this deal in a heartbeat even at the risk of sounding folksy & downhome. I'll risk it. But that's me.

I think there are unknown factors for this too. I think the deal with Artest could prove to be fruitful for all his abilities to combine with LeBron's. Neither guy is a single postition player which makes pairing them not so difficult as say, Shaquille O'Neal and Chris Kaman. That would make for a more difficult pairing says I. But I think the bigger factor here is Gilbert's willingness to help improve the Cavs. And maybe more accurately, to do anything he can to keep LeBron in the fold in Cleveland. I'm fairly sure Gilbert would hire hookers to give LeBron handjob's on the bench when he's resting or something, assuming LeBron asked for it.

I think the 2 biggest reasons Cleveland would enter the sweepstakes is because they A) have asset's like Snow and Szcerbiak to offer, and B) Mike Brown has had past history with Artest. He knows what he's getting. He knows the problems with Artest in the locker room in Indiana. He knows because he was there. Firsthand experience far outweights any secondhand history around the L. That makes a huge difference. (That's the only reason Dallas became a destination for Artest in the eyes of many was solely of Carlisle saying he still liked Artest. Why can't Mike Brown enter this arena too?) Before Brown was hired by the Cavs, he was Rick Carlisle's Assistant Head Coach in Indiana, for those who aren't aware. That helps the Cavs figure out if he's worth it. (It's also worth noting Brown was there during Artest's best season in 2003-04 when he won defensive player of the year.) Via Wiki:

In 2000, Brown was hired by Gregg Popovich as an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs. While with the Spurs, Brown’s teams won at least 58 games each season. He also was the head coach for the Spurs’ summer league teams in Boston and Salt Lake City. After winning a championship with San Antonio in 2003, Brown was hired as associated head coach to Rick Carlisle with the Indiana Pacers. He helped lead Indiana to consecutive playoff appearances including a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2004.

The pedigree is there with Brown, but one can reasonably argue he needs the horses. He now has more of them I believe. The only real problem with the trade scenario for the Cavs is they have too many bigs on the roster with Zydrunas Iglauskas, Ben Wallace, Joe Smith and Anderson Varejao already. Adding Moore and (albeit likely worthless) Thomas to that list could make the Cavs be hesitant given JJ Hickson's presence. This could leave Daniel Gibson, Sasha Pavlovic, Delonte West and Damon Jones as the only guys who would play in the Cleveland backcourt. Again, and I say again, but this could play into Cleveland's thinking and try to get something else along with Artest in the mix there. (I think that would be a stupid play, but sometimes GM's like Ferry get greedy.)

Do I think this deal works for both sides? Well, yes I do actually. I think it works better than anything out there for the Kings, and it gives the Cavs incentive, as well as the Kings, a chance to shed salary and gain a good player. That I think is why the Kings should look at the Cavs as the best option. It might not be preferable to trade Moore this season, but then again, is it beneficial in keeping him? I don't think so, and especially if it entices the Cavs to complete a deal such as this.

I would much rather be in the Kings position trading Artest, than the Bulls/Hawks are with Deng and Smith. I would much rather trade asset's a little too early then trade them in a sign & trade. And here's why (capologist note: big up's to Ford for recognizing that S&T's do make a player become BYC):

Only one team -- the Grizzlies -- has any real cap room. But it appears that the team isn't going to use it to pry away a restricted free agent. So … restricted free agents have three options: 1. They can take the one-year qualifying offer and become unrestricted free agents next summer. 2. They can sign for a "market value" deal that is probably far less money than they think they're worth. 3. They can push for a sign-and-trade to another team. All three options are pretty unappealing at this point. Option 1 puts a lot of pressure and risk on the free agent. Option 2 would mean that players like Andre Iguodala, Luol Deng and Emeka Okafor sign for less money than the extensions they turned down last summer. Option 3 is tricky because of league trade rules that make most restricted free agents base-year compensation players (meaning their salaries are very difficult to trade).

(Sorry for the long quote. It was necessary to make the point.) Via Larry Coon on Sign & Trades:

One complication with sign-and-trade deals is that the signed player can immediately become a BYC player (see question number 73 for more information on BYC), so the player's BYC value must be used when determining whether the trade is allowed.

For those who don't understand what BYC is here you go:

Base year compensation (BYC) prevents another salary cap loophole. Without BYC, a team over the salary cap that wants to trade a player, but can't because of the Traded Player exception (which says teams can't take back more than 125% of the salary they trade away), could just sign the player to a new contract that fits within the desired range, then do the trade.

BYC says "if you re-sign a player and give him a big raise, then for a period of time his trade value will be lower than his actual salary." BYC defines the salary that's used to compare players for compliance under the Traded Player exception (see question number 68 for more information about the Traded Player exception). Usually the salary used for comparison is the player's actual salary. But under either of the following circumstances, a different salary is used when comparing salaries for trading purposes: The team is over the salary cap, used the Larry Bird or Early Bird exception to re-sign the player, and the player received a raise greater than 20% (unless it's the minimum salary). The team is over the salary cap, it extended the player's rookie scale contract, and the player received a raise greater than 20%.

So you see, and for those who don't quite get it, it's going to take a team with alot of cap room to do a sign & trade for Ron Artest. And I ask this now, is it worth getting a large trade exception like Seattle got? After all what they got was a ton of draft picks, and since when does having a ton of draft picks mean anything? Kevin Pritchard has made lots of deals, but then again, he's also made alot of trades involving filling various holes on the team. Frankly, and I say this for a reason, those trades haven't been cheap for the Blazers. They've just been heralded from an intellectual basis. Only time, like pretty much everything, is pretty much the basis of what will work. I think the Kings can pull off a sign & trade of a player like Artest, or Garcia if it comes to that, and let's hope it doesn't, or something along that realm. But doing so, and knowing now that a player immediately becomes BYC, it's essentially a team with cap room giving a player more money. The Sonics had a ton of draft picks result of that trade exception (getting Kurt Thomas and 2 1st round picks for taking on his salary from the Suns and then trading Thomas to the Spurs for another 1st round pick) they received from doing the Rashard Lewis S&T, but then again, you have to find a team like Orlando stupid enough to bid against itself for Artest. Good luck with that.

So I submit this. You trade Artest for cap room, and a draft pick from Cleveland. You move Moore and Thomas along with him creating pure cap room for all 3 guys in the form of 21 million dollars. With Miller, Martin, Udrih, Salmons, Hawes, Thompson, Brown, Singletary, Ewing Jr, Douby and with Garcia's/William's cap number changing what you could be looking a team with 50 million dollars like JJHam has been saying for awhile now. This is of course noting that Abdur-Rahim won't be on the roster next season one way or another. That could be worth doing if only because a team with cap room can make things happen (like an uneven money trade),  Personally I think you do this deal, and you create a possibility by carving up more cap room by waiving Shelden Williams and Quincy Douby and going after that Carlos Boozer. (I don't think it's possible, but what the hell since everyone else is doing it, and calling me crazy for saying it isn't likely, it's summer--who gives a flying flip?) So, even if the Lakers come calling with Lamar Odom I say screw him. Only Cleveland can offer cap space for 3 players on the Kings roster starting in 2009, and maybe throw a draft pick in too, and that's only something Cleveland has with expendable talent. That IS why I think this deal makes sense. Because of Ferry's need to pacify and ultimately satisfy LeBron, because the Cavalier's don't take a huge money hit by doing this deal (they're taking a hit already why not go for the gusto?0, and because they can afford to give up that 2009 1st rounder without a hint of a problem. Because of Mike Brown's past history with Artest. Because the Kings need to start rebuilding, and the only way they can do that is with cap room. Because the Kings, if they don't trade Artest, aren't winning the championship next year, and sticking themselves in the Bulls or Hawks shoes where they are good enough to get themselves in sticky posturing and poor negotiating level's in the process, need to commit to blowing this up now, get a draft pick or two, watch the young kids play, while allowing for natural growth no less, and let the Kings develop a new identity that allows the fan to root for an underdog. Or maybe the 70 degree heat and quality air has mindfucked my brain. You decide.