I agree that many recent deals have the feel of more Maloof influence than Petrie but if it was all Maloof I think Whiz'd be the Kings' coach right now. Showing that he still has influence. And I'd bet it wasn't Joe and Gavin's idea to draft Martin.
I think the Maloofs need Petrie more than they and many others think.
Yeah Petrie is good and the lack of any player movement is not totally his doing. He has been trying hard to move Bibby and Artest, and also Thomas...but the players we'd get for them just weren't good enough to pull the trigger on. He has been trying to get Wilcox here which would have been a nice young big PF that I'd be happy to see, also tried to get Prizbilla, but he resigned with Portland and Wilcox went to the Super Sonics.
Webber trade: I really hated the Webber trade and still do. I do like that Corliss has been a nice surprise this year and wish we would have kept Skinner instead of getting nothing in return besides Monia who went back to Russia and Potapenko who is on the team, but really isn't...at least Pot contributes $3.6M coming off the books after this season.
Besides trading Webber, we also traded Barnes who is turning into quite the player, he is right up there in the league with Kmart as the most improved player this year. He is also a local "Sacramento's Finest" so it hurts a little more still. At least he gets to play down the street (West on 80 in Oakland).
. He and Cisco would have really terrorized the other team with their energy off the bench and good length at 6' 7".
Draft: As far as the draft, GP did great nabbing KMart, easily the best player after the obvious 1st few selections in a unbelievably deep draft. Cisco was good too. Douby I'm not so sure about, it's still very early and he hasn't played much...until recently though he was on the depth chart ahead of Price at combo guard off the bench. I really wish we would have gotten Rodriquez, Rondo, or especially Boone (good young Forward).