THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT

Lots of topics to get to on the Kings


Grant Napear aka Peaches (Sactown Royalty) got his wish basically. It can be said that K-Mart was pretty much all but traded since Tyreke Evans was drafted as people that were on the national scene (who do not follow the team regularly and in my opinion basically look at statistics to make determinations) felt that they couldn't play together. Then it just snowballed into plain fact amongst the national media. Then Grant Napear decided to use this and add it to his constant "rip Kevin Martin on the radio" days whenever the Kings lost after his return from injury. As David Thorpe mentioned in this piece, the Kings had lost a bunch of games just before Kevin came back, however everyone wanted to make him the scapegoat for their problems. Is it Kevin Martin's fault that nearly everyone on the team was young and not ready to be winners and complete players? Is it Kevin Martin's fault that the entire team didn't play defense? Is it Kevin Martin's fault that no player outside of Tyreke Evans and Beno Udrih would show some type of consistency? No. Don't get me wrong, Kevin Martin is not a in your face guy and not a vocal leader obviously and maybe that was his downfall, but he deserved a little bit better than to be the scapegoat. To call a guy "soft" when he gets to the free throw line 8-10 times a game is ridiculous in my opinion. Sure, yes it gets on my nerves that everytime he drove to the lane, he was trying to get fouled but more often than not, it freaking worked. But whatever, this chapter of the Kings is over, and now Martin is on his way to a much brighter situation at this time. The Houston Rockets are going to be better when they get Yao back. A starting line up of Brooks, Martin, Ariza, Scola and Yao is loaded and they also have a very good 3-4 man rotation off the bench. I wouldn't be surprised if this team is a 4 seed next year in the West.


As much as I hate to see Martin go, the trade is a solid decision by the Kings in terms of what they received with Carl Landry who is quite a bargain right now and will be next year when the Kings pick up his $3.o million option. The guy is capable of averaging a double double and give the Kings a legitimate low-post scorer that they have not had since Ron-Ron was here.


Another important story, Sam Amick of the Sacramento Bee, the beat writer for the Sacramento Kings, is leaving the newspaper for Fanhouse. This is a sad indictment on the newspaper business, whose death is being pushed more forward than originally predicted due to the economy. Sam Amick was a great writer for the Bee and showed excellent talent in bringing the most accurate news to his readers with his columns and blogs on the Kings. No one can deny his skills as he was able to make excellent frank assessments of the team without overly criticizing its players if not justified. He will be truly missed as now we’re stuck with a Laker fan as the new main guy (Jason Jones) and Ailene Voisin, who in my opinion has fallen out of touch with the Kings.

I see us finishing decently somewhere around 30 wins and possibly being able to add a big man in the draft this offseason. Beno Udrih has really turned his outlook around and has become worth his contract this season. I don't know what happened but I think Tyreke has had a major positive impact on Beno's game. Beno plays very well when the Kings offense involves a lot of movement off the initial pick and rolls that he has with Spence. When Beno gets to that midrange spot, he is just money from that area. Kudos to Westphal for realizing what makes Beno successful. Finally definitely gotta say I love JT's energy coming off the bench where he does not have to worry about foul trouble. Hawes has definitely shown a lot of fire lately and is a very talented passer along with his excellent outside shooting. Learning from Landry's low post technique will be huge for JT and Spence for the development of the Kings.

Last thought: Tyreke Evans is the rookie of the year, PERIOD. If you don't think that's true, then you probably don't know how hard 20, 5 and 5 is to maintain almost for an entire season. No one can stop this guy from getting to the basket even though they all now gameplan to pack the lane, knowing he can't shoot. The man has nearly had 3 triple doubles in the last 4 games. He is the FRANCHISE now and its on him to make his teammates accountable for their performances over the next few years if the Kings want to get back to the playoffs (the way Kobe did with the Lakers between '05-'09 and continues to do).

More to come later...