Friday Mail Sac: Training camp, prized possessions, books and videos

The Mail Sac's light for a Friday, but we do have a question from fccpw: "Besides McLemore and McCallum, who in the summer league roster has a shot for training camp?"

If I recall, training camp rosters usually start at around 18 in number. The Kings now have 14 players under contract, including 5 bigs (Cousins, Thompson, Landry, Patterson and Hayes), 6 guards (Thomas, Vasquez, McCallum, Thornton, McLemore and Fredette), and 3 "wings" (Mbah a Moute, Salmons and Outlaw). So maybe another big, a couple of wings, and then a wild card?

The question is, will these additional invitees come from the Kings summer league team? The two leading scorers in Vegas are Andrew Goudelock and Jermaine Taylor, and neither of them are currently under NBA contract. Now, given the makeup of the Kings current roster, I would guess that they would get more attractive camp invites than Sacramento. After all, the Kings really have no current roster spots available for summer league fodder. But let's remember that the Kings front office and coaching staff have been watching many of the games in Vegas, and they are certainly tracking the progress of many more players than those on the Kings VSL roster. Perhaps some of these camp invitees could ultimately land in Reno.

Among the Kings roster, I liked Trent Lockett, C.J. Aiken and Drew Gordon the most, and I wouldn't mind seeing any/all of those guys eventually getting their tickets punched for the Bighorns.

From anonymous: "What is your most prized piece of sports memorabilia? Mine is an autographed Jerry Rice football."

In 1968 mom and dad packed all four kids into the station wagon and took us down to Oakland for camera day. This was a day where the players would make the rounds around the field and let people take pictures of them from the stands. My dad snapped a few pictures, among them a photo of coach Joe DiMaggio. It was one of many photos that remained in slide form for years and years. In 1984, mom and a friend of hers were eating at the Nut Tree in Vacaville, and who happened to be there but the Yankee Clipper. Mom got his autograph on a scrap of paper - "To Rob: Best Wishes, Joe DiMaggio" - and brought it home to me. I took the old slide and had it blown up into an 8x10 and framed it along with the autograph. Photo by dad, autograph from mom. It's my favorite, even more valuable to me than my autographed Willie Mays baseball.

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Pick & Droll #1 courtesy the office supply-infatuated sixthwoman: "I've seen the occasional tangent about books, and a few people mentioned writing today among their dream career choices. I'd like to know what book (or series, I guess) members have read recently that really stands out to them, for any reason - good, bad, or ugly."

As I've mentioned around here before, I don't read a lot of books because it makes my mouth tired. But when I do read, it is almost always sports or humor-related. And I can't feign book snobbery here. "Naked Pictures of Famous People" by Jon Stewart is among my more recent reads. "Nice Guys Finish Last" by Leo Durocher was my first "grown up" book. I do a ton of reading at Sactown Royalty and around SBNation, so it seems that I don't have a lot of ambition left to read after I sign off.

In listing your books, be sure to also note your preference as it performs to format. Are you a book-on-tape person? Do you Kindle, or is part of the experience leafing through the pages of an actual book?

Pick & Droll #2 comes from Andrew: "It's high time for a ‘Viral Video' discussion where we contribute a link to our new favorite ‘Potential Viral Video' that hasn't been discovered by the masses yet; after all, that's what we surf the internet for, right? I would argue that the video should be of good taste and free of any offensive material. That being said, what's your new favorite ‘Viral Video'? My submission is somewhat biased, as it is my six year old son's wrestling video, but here goes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g4MUikV6wg ."

I'll have to defer this one to the thread. I'm more of a gif man myself.

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Send your questions and topic ideas to asksactownroyalty@gmail.com. Jack the thread (and only this thread) at your convenience and pleasure. And have a great weekend.