hm. bit of an unceremonious end to this whole thing, innit? what a waste of a top-10 pick...
that said, i feel for jimmer. he got leapfrogged by a 60th pick during his rookie season, and now he's been bought out in his third year, presumably to make room for a 36th pick to get more minutes. that's not exactly a helpful resume-building experience, i have to imagine. this is the best thing for jimmer, of course, because he was going to rot on the bench otherwise. but it's yet another signal that the tank is on, despite a two-game winning streak. why give court time to an improving jimmer when you can "develop" a raw rookie in the occasional stretch when coach malone decides to park isaiah thomas for a few?
i dunno... i was
never jimmer's biggest fan, but malone certainly didn't do the front office any favors by refusing to give jimmer consistent minutes off the bench after greivis vasquez was traded and the kings had no PG rotation to speak of. in that situation, i think PDA has to step in and tell coach to give jimmer a solid 15 minutes per game in advance of the trade deadline. clearly, he has improved. he has some value, however minor, around the league, but because jimmer was left in no-man's-land, the kings couldn't even get a second-rounder out of him...
they're buying him out as a "favor" because they mismanaged their opportunity to trade him or package him as part of a larger deal. it's not a noteworthy error by any stretch of the imagination, and it won't matter in the grand scheme of things, but, after the carl landry signing, i remain suspicious of the new regime's ability to properly manage its assets. as kings fans, we've put up with our fair share of mismanagement in the last half-decade or more. i'd hate to see new patterns develop along those lines...
edit:
Cowbell Kingdom had a rumor that the Heat offered a second rounder and PDA turned them down. If it's true, that was a mistake by the front office. Now they get the privilege of paying money to see him play elsewhere.
if that's true, it adds a bit more weight to my concerns...