Is this the worst Petrie miscalculation that you've ever personally witnessed?

[RookieOfTheDay]

What may have been Petrie's biggest miscalculation was protecting Darius Songalia instead of Gerald Wallace in the expansion draft. It's not as if they didn't know they had a very talent player in Wallace at the time. They did. I didn't understand that move then and I don't understand it now.

 

[jpsls]

What may have been Petrie's biggest miscalculation was protecting Darius Songalia instead of Jerald Wallace in the expansion draft. It's not as if they didn't know they had a very talent player in Wallace at the time. They did. I didn't understand that move then and I don't understand it now.

Wallace showed nothing during his tenure with the Kings to warrant protection from the expansion lottery. All we knew about Wallace in three years was that he could dunk and was very athletic. Furthermore, he did not fit in Adelman's offensive system as he had no jumpshot.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

In WWII the French wanted to use all their resources to dig in defensively along the Maginot Line. The Nazis outflanked the Line and conquered France in days.

That was a miscalculation.

Ah, but the miscalculation you're talking about was that defending the Maginot Line would stop the Germans. The French did in fact fortify the Maginot Line, and made no miscalculation in their ability to do so.

The Kings, by all appearances, were prepared to take Jimmer Fredette over Brandon Knight at #7 were Knight to fall there. They then made the calculation that if they were to trade down to #10, that Jimmer Fredette would still be there to select. They were right. The trade did not affect our ability to draft Jimmer Fredette, so the trade was not a miscalculation. Our front office did what they wanted to - it's just that the fans didn't have the same list of priorities. That's not a miscalculation.

The delicious irony will be if the court at PBP gets stormed from the sidelines by Nazis this year - Nazis that only Brandon Knight and Beno Udrih would have been able to stop.

 

[Kingsguy881]

2. Petrie is good at evaluating talent, but his GM skills seem to stop there. He doesn't seem to understand how to assemble a cohesive, working team. It happened once and hasn't happened since.

Tell that to Portland, circa 1989-1994. Oh wait, I doubt if you were even a fan of hoops back then. Nevermind, continue the ignorance.

 

[Kingsguy881]

Ah, but the miscalculation you're talking about was that defending the Maginot Line would stop the Germans. The French did in fact fortify the Maginot Line, and made no miscalculation in their ability to do so.

The Kings, by all appearances, were prepared to take Jimmer Fredette over Brandon Knight at #7 were Knight to fall there. They then made the calculation that if they were to trade down to #10, that Jimmer Fredette would still be there to select. They were right. The trade did not affect our ability to draft Jimmer Fredette, so the trade was not a miscalculation. Our front office did what they wanted to - it's just that the fans didn't have the same list of priorities. That's not a miscalculation.

The delicious irony will be if the court at PBP gets stormed from the sidelines by Nazis this year - Nazis that only Brandon Knight and Beno Udrih would have been able to stop.

And by drafting Fredette at a lower spot, his rookie contract is actually cheaper. It was a very shrewd move by Petrie, the subtleties of which are missed by the average armchair GM.

 

[Arco Arena]

Ah, but the miscalculation you're talking about was that defending the Maginot Line would stop the Germans. The French did in fact fortify the Maginot Line, and made no miscalculation in their ability to do so.

The Kings, by all appearances, were prepared to take Jimmer Fredette over Brandon Knight at #7 were Knight to fall there. They then made the calculation that if they were to trade down to #10, that Jimmer Fredette would still be there to select. They were right. The trade did not affect our ability to draft Jimmer Fredette, so the trade was not a miscalculation. Our front office did what they wanted to - it's just that the fans didn't have the same list of priorities. That's not a miscalculation.

The delicious irony will be if the court at PBP gets stormed from the sidelines by Nazis this year - Nazis that only Brandon Knight and Beno Udrih would have been able to stop.

Uh yes... the French made a miscalculation that fortifying the Maginot line would hold back the Germans.

Time will tell whether GP miscalculated that Knight will be better than Jimmer and that a ball dominant, old, and expensive Salmons will work on this team.

 

[Arco Arena]

And by drafting Fredette at a lower spot, his rookie contract is actually cheaper. It was a very shrewd move by Petrie, the subtleties of which are missed by the average armchair GM.

You act like the only way we could have traded down was with this deal. Nobody is arguing Petrie moving down if he planned on taking Jimmer anyways, it is what he got (or lack thereof).

 

[jpsls]

And by drafting Fredette at a lower spot, his rookie contract is actually cheaper. It was a very shrewd move by Petrie, the subtleties of which are missed by the average armchair GM.

Had the Kings selected Fredette with the 7th pick, his salary would have been $2,885, 520. His salary because he was selected 10th is now $2,308,320. If our GM has to trade down to save the owners approximately 500K, then I think we have more dire things to focus on than the whole Knight vs. Fredette argument.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Uh yes... the French made a miscalculation that fortifying the Maginot line would hold back the Germans.

Time will tell whether GP miscalculated that Knight will be better than Jimmer and that a ball dominant, old, and expensive Salmons will work on this team.

Yes, which is exactly why your analogy fails.

The original question was: "How can you call trading down a miscalculation if we got the player we wanted?" The reasonable answer seems to be "You can't call it a miscalculation. We got the player we wanted to."

Your analogy is dealing with a completely different, potential miscalculation - that Fredette/Salmons will be better for the franchise than Knight/Udrih. You yourself admit that it is yet to be seen how this turns out.

 

[Arco Arena]

Yes, which is exactly why your analogy fails.

The original question was: "How can you call trading down a miscalculation if we got the player we wanted?" The reasonable answer seems to be "You can't call it a miscalculation. We got the player we wanted to."

Your analogy is dealing with a completely different, potential miscalculation - that Fredette/Salmons will be better for the franchise than Knight/Udrih. You yourself admit that it is yet to be seen how this turns out.

Actually the reasonable answer would be:
"You can't call it a miscalculation or not, because the only way to determine this is to see how Fredette/Salmons/Knight/Udrih perform"

Yes, it is only based on opinion that you could consider this move a miscalculation since there are variables that have yet to play out, but the opinion is based on the facts that Salmons is old, overpaid, ball dominant, and has a poor attitude.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Actually the reasonable answer would be:
"You can't call it a miscalculation or not, because the only way to determine this is to see how Fredette/Salmons/Knight/Udrih perform"

Yes, it is only based on opinion that you could consider this move a miscalculation since there are variables that have yet to play out, but the opinion is based on the facts that Salmons is old, overpaid, ball dominant, and has a poor attitude.

I suppose I'm not ever going to figure out how to convey to you that the event that you are calling a "potential miscalculation", and the event the poster you originally responded to called "not a miscalculation" are not the same events.

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

Wallace showed nothing during his tenure with the Kings to warrant protection from the expansion lottery. All we knew about Wallace in three years was that he could dunk and was very athletic. Furthermore, he did not fit in Adelman's offensive system as he had no jumpshot.

And Darius Songaila did?

 

[Arco Arena]

I suppose I'm not ever going to figure out how to convey to you that the event that you are calling a "potential miscalculation", and the event the poster you originally responded to called "not a miscalculation" are not the same events.

okay. Trading down to get Jimmer was not a miscalculation. The trade to trade down was a miscalculation.

 

[mr. moustache]

And Darius Songaila did?

People totally misunderstand this. Darius Songslua was not protected. Why do you think he was protected?

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

People totally misunderstand this. Darius Songslua was not protected. Why do you think he was protected?

I can't remember who the 8th player was. i thought it was Songaila. If it wasn't him then it had to be Peeler or Massenburg.

 

[Bricklayer]

People totally misunderstand this. Darius Songslua was not protected. Why do you think he was protected?

No Songaila was protected. I've gone through this a couple of times in the past, but it happened a long time ago, so memories fade.

The deal was that teams could protect up to 8 guys, but every team, no matter how many guys it protected, HAD to expose at least 1 guy. And you could only protect guys who were under contract to you -- i.e. not free agents. Several things happened then that cost us Gerald.

-- Vlade was a free agent that summer (and left for the Lakers). So we could not expose him.
-- Anthony Peeler had an opt OUT clause -- so he was under contract unless he chose to opt out and cancel the final year, in which case he became a free agent
-- Darius Songaila had a surprisingly effective rookie season

I believe we had 9 guys under contract for that summer, including Peeler. It may have only been 8. But either way by rule we HAD to expose somebody -- everybody had to expose 1 player. Even if you only had 4 guys under contract, you had to expose 1 of the 4. And Peeler was the obvious guy to expose for us. But then just before free agency/the expansion draft began, Peeler suddenly opted out. So bam, he became a free agent, and we could not expose him any longer. But by rule we still had to expose SOMEBODY. So with Peeler out of the mix, we opted to expose Gerald rather than Darius. So the big big mistake was giving Peeler that opt out clause when you knew the expansion draft was coming up. The secondary mistake was valuing Darius bleeping Songaila over Gerald Wallace. Overall just a poor, unnecessary sequence.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I can't remember who the 8th player was. i thought it was Songaila. If it wasn't him then it had to be Peeler or Massenburg.

I believe we did protect Songaila. It's actually very hard to find information on this, so we kind of have to make inferences.

We know for certain we protected the following six players:
Webber
Miller
Bibby
Christie
Stojakovic
Jackson

We know that the following players were not eligible to be protected because they were free agents:
Divac
Massenburg
Jabari Smith

That leaves three players with more complicated circumstances. Gerald Wallace had a team option for the '04-'05 season, but unless the rules were different then, it would have already have been picked up. At any rate he was clearly eligible for protection, because he was selected. Darius Songaila had a team option for '04-'05 which might have been up in the air at the time of the expansion draft. This option may have affected his protectability. However, since restricted free agents could be protected (and selected) he was likely eligible. Anthony Peeler had a player option for '04-'05, which meant that he could not be protected (because he was ineligible for selection due to the potential that he could become a free agent without the team's will).

So assuming the above is correct, we had a total of 8 players eligible for selection in the expansion draft - the 6 we know we protected, Wallace, and Songaila. Teams were allowed to protect up to 8 players, but had to leave at least one eligible player unprotected. It would appear that we protected Songaila as the 7th and allowed Wallace to go unprotected. However, if Songaila was somehow not eligible for selection, we had (basically) no choice but to leave Wallace available (though this could have been rectified the prior summer by signing Songaila to a two-year contract instead of a one+option).

 

[Sptsjunkie]

Actually the reasonable answer would be:
"You can't call it a miscalculation or not, because the only way to determine this is to see how Fredette/Salmons/Knight/Udrih perform"

Yes, it is only based on opinion that you could consider this move a miscalculation since there are variables that have yet to play out, but the opinion is based on the facts that Salmons is old, overpaid, ball dominant, and has a poor attitude.

I think the point that CF is trying to make is that this is not a "miscalculation," but rather a "judgment call."

When you say Petrie miscalculated, you make is sound as if he really wanted Knight instead of Jimmer. He traded down. And then miraculously Knight was available and Petrie regretted not having the 7th pick.

What Petrie made was a judgement call. There had been more than enough rumors Knight might slip, that I believe Petrie was more than aware of the possibility. He simply made the decision, he would rather have Jimmer. Or at the very least he would rather have Jimmer + Salmons instead of Knight + Udrih.

These boards exist for the debating of fact and opinion. So feel free to argue with Petrie's judgement call. It won't be the first or the last time someone does that to their GM on a message board. However, I think CF and I would agree that what Petrie did was very intentional and it was not a miscalculation.

 

[Anthony1]

The Kings, by all appearances, were prepared to take Jimmer Fredette over Brandon Knight at #7 were Knight to fall there. They then made the calculation that if they were to trade down to #10, that Jimmer Fredette would still be there to select. They were right. The trade did not affect our ability to draft Jimmer Fredette, so the trade was not a miscalculation. Our front office did what they wanted to - it's just that the fans didn't have the same list of priorities. That's not a miscalculation.

You're just buying the spin. You honestly believe that Geoff Petrie had Fredette rated higher than Knight? Petrie knows his ish... for the most part. There is no way in hell he had Fredette rated higher than Knight. He might not have thought that Knight was dramatically better than Fredette, but I can guarantee you that he had Knight ranked higher. Of course, because of the miscalculation (not having an escape clause in the unlikely scenario where Knight would fall to 7), you're never going to hear anyone in the Kings organization talk about how they were caught off guard by the Knight situation, and that they would have preferred Knight, but were already locked in the trade.

You honestly expect any organization to admit something like that?

The Kings brass tried to get really cute with the whole trading down thing, and they got ROYALLY burned because of it.


1. Missed out on a Top 5 talent in this draft.
2. No longer have Beno as a nice option off the bench, or a starter while Knight got comfortable
3. Added extra payroll on our salary cap, and an extra year of that extra payroll
4. Got a malcontent, who's a potential locker room cancer. He's also a ball-hog older player who's valued skills have diminished, and will continue to diminish over the life of his ridiculous contract. Not to mention the fact that we now have about 8 small forwards, give or take.

 

[mac]

You're just buying the spin. You honestly believe that Geoff Petrie had Fredette rated higher than Knight? Petrie knows his ish... for the most part. There is no way in hell he had Fredette rated higher than Knight. He might not have thought that Knight was dramatically better than Fredette, but I can guarantee you that he had Knight ranked higher. Of course, because of the miscalculation (not having an escape clause in the unlikely scenario where Knight would fall to 7), you're never going to hear anyone in the Kings organization talk about how they were caught off guard by the Knight situation, and that they would have preferred Knight, but were already locked in the trade.

You honestly expect any organization to admit something like that?

The Kings brass tried to get really cute with the whole trading down thing, and they got ROYALLY burned because of it.


1. Missed out on a Top 5 talent in this draft.
2. No longer have Beno as a nice option off the bench, or a starter while Knight got comfortable
3. Added extra payroll on our salary cap, and an extra year of that extra payroll
4. Got a malcontent, who's a potential locker room cancer. He's also a ball-hog older player who's valued skills have diminished, and will continue to diminish over the life of his ridiculous contract. Not to mention the fact that we now have about 8 small forwards, give or take.

Lol yeah just keep telling yourself that bro. Keep telling yourself that.

I just love it when people go all "I know the truth and you don't" on the world. And the evidence is ....................... because they think so.

 

[rainmaker]

You're just buying the spin. You honestly believe that Geoff Petrie had Fredette rated higher than Knight? Petrie knows his ish... for the most part. There is no way in hell he had Fredette rated higher than Knight. He might not have thought that Knight was dramatically better than Fredette, but I can guarantee you that he had Knight ranked higher. Of course, because of the miscalculation (not having an escape clause in the unlikely scenario where Knight would fall to 7), you're never going to hear anyone in the Kings organization talk about how they were caught off guard by the Knight situation, and that they would have preferred Knight, but were already locked in the trade.

You honestly expect any organization to admit something like that?

The Kings brass tried to get really cute with the whole trading down thing, and they got ROYALLY burned because of it.


1. Missed out on a Top 5 talent in this draft.
2. No longer have Beno as a nice option off the bench, or a starter while Knight got comfortable
3. Added extra payroll on our salary cap, and an extra year of that extra payroll
4. Got a malcontent, who's a potential locker room cancer. He's also a ball-hog older player who's valued skills have diminished, and will continue to diminish over the life of his ridiculous contract. Not to mention the fact that we now have about 8 small forwards, give or take.

So now you're going to go as far as to personally guarantee Petries thought process heading into the draft? I disagree with the target of the trade, but the thought process makes complete sense. They wanted Jimmer, and knew he'd be there at 10, and saw an opportunity to make a deal with a team most likely drafting between 8-11(utak had 12) for a vet sf, and good defender.

You do know your whole stance and rediculous rant is based on an assumption you have, right? It's an assumption unless you provide proof that Knight was higher on Petries draft board the day of the draft. I think he might of been higher on Knight at one point, but the workouts changed that. But given you've convinced yourself Petrie ranked Knight above Jimmer on draft day, which would be the only way trading down was a mistake, I'd like to see the evidence which shows what you portray as fact.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

You're just buying the spin. You honestly believe that Geoff Petrie had Fredette rated higher than Knight?

No, I'm not "buying the spin". Yes, I do honestly believe that our front office had Fredette rated higher than Knight. In fact, I have very good reason to believe it, but that's all I'm going to say. Feel free to believe I'm blowing smoke if you wish.

The Kings brass tried to get really cute with the whole trading down thing, and they got ROYALLY burned because of it.

1. Missed out on a Top 5 talent in this draft.
2. No longer have Beno as a nice option off the bench, or a starter while Knight got comfortable
3. Added extra payroll on our salary cap, and an extra year of that extra payroll
4. Got a malcontent, who's a potential locker room cancer. He's also a ball-hog older player who's valued skills have diminished, and will continue to diminish over the life of his ridiculous contract. Not to mention the fact that we now have about 8 small forwards, give or take.

It really sounds as if if you think that our front office traded a player they wanted (Beno) for a player they didn't want (Salmons) as the price of moving down in the draft. If so, you should reconsider. It's perfectly understandable that you might prefer Beno to Salmons. In fact, given the salaries involved I too prefer Beno to Salmons, though I reserve the right to change my opinion if Salmons plays good D and doesn't stall the offense like he did towards the end of his previous stint here. However, our front office clearly disagrees with that opinion. They prefer Salmons to Beno, even considering the contracts. There was no "getting cute" involved - they traded for a player they wanted.

 

[Anthony1]

You do know your whole stance and rediculous rant is based on an assumption you have, right?.

Yeah, it's an assumption that is very similar to your assumption that Jimmer was his man all along. Bottom line, nobody apart from maybe 5 or 6 people really know the truth in regards to this. Any comments we hear from Petrie, the Maloofs, Westphall or anybody else "in the know", can neither be believed or totally disregarded. Nobody is going to admit that they made a tremendous blunder. So, assuming the Kings management knows deep down inside that they F'd this up, nobody in the organization will ever admit to it, and they will do everything in their power to convince us of the exact opposite, so your assumption is no more logical than mine.

Except that your assumption is that Petrie legitimately had Jimmer ranked higher than Knight, which quite honestly, seems much more far-fetched than my assumption of a gamble that was taken, where things went real bad in terms of a missed opportunity. I mean, I think if we polled the other 29 GM's in the league, and asked them who they had rated higher on their boards, Knight or Fredette, you'd be likely to get about 24 of those GM's rating Knight higher, with maybe 5 of them being really high on Jimmer. The odds would say that Petrie is more likely to be among the 24 than the 5. Of course, that is an assumption as well, but based on just about every mock draft in existence, it's likely within reason.

There was no "getting cute" involved - they traded for a player they wanted.

The getting cute part, is the fact that they "assumed" that they had zero chance at Knight (which I must say, I assumed as much as well), so they felt that they would be fine at 10, because they didn't have a chance at Knight anyways, and they were perfectly content to take Fredette or Walker, whichever one was still available at 10, which they had a good inkling that one of those two guys would still be there.

 

[rainmaker]

Yeah, it's an assumption that is very similar to your assumption that Jimmer was his man all along. Bottom line, nobody apart from maybe 5 or 6 people really know the truth in regards to this. Any comments we hear from Petrie, the Maloofs, Westphall or anybody else "in the know", can neither be believed or totally disregarded. Nobody is going to admit that they made a tremendous blunder. So, assuming the Kings management knows deep down inside that they F'd this up, nobody in the organization will ever admit to it, and they will do everything in their power to convince us of the exact opposite, so your assumption is no more logical than mine.

Except that your assumption is that Petrie legitimately had Jimmer ranked higher than Knight, which quite honestly, seems much more far-fetched than my assumption of a gamble that was taken, where things went real bad in terms of a missed opportunity. I mean, I think if we polled the other 29 GM's in the league, and asked them who they had rated higher on their boards, Knight or Fredette, you'd be likely to get about 24 of those GM's rating Knight higher, with maybe 5 of them being really high on Jimmer. The odds would say that Petrie is more likely to be among the 24 than the 5. Of course, that is an assumption as well, but based on just about every mock draft in existence, it's likely within reason.

There were multiple reports after Jimmers workout saying the coaching staff was extremely impressed, and one said they were in love with him. I saw no such report after Knight visited. Did you? Jimmer apparently had a very good workout, and impressed on defense as much as he did on offense. Did Knight? No, he wouldn't workout for against anyone.

Jimmer was publicly calling out Knight and Walker to workout against them. He beat out Walker in a Utah workout. Knight was the one backing out, not Jimmer. You act like Knight would have been at the top of every draft board outside the top 2, where some mocks had him going 3, yet 7 teams passed on him. It appears a few team weren't impressed, not only Petrie, doesn't it?

There is more evidence to suggest Jimmer was higher on the draft board, and that's wht it's not an assumption. We're all still waiting to see where you heard Knight was ranked higher. Jimmer was the one who had better predraft workouts, a better workout for the Kings, didn't slide in the draft, and reports stating how impressed the coaching staff was. What did Knight have that doesn't make your stance as assumption?

 

[mac]

Yeah, it's an assumption that is very similar to your assumption that Jimmer was his man all along. Bottom line, nobody apart from maybe 5 or 6 people really know the truth in regards to this. Any comments we hear from Petrie, the Maloofs, Westphall or anybody else "in the know", can neither be believed or totally disregarded. Nobody is going to admit that they made a tremendous blunder. So, assuming the Kings management knows deep down inside that they F'd this up, nobody in the organization will ever admit to it, and they will do everything in their power to convince us of the exact opposite, so your assumption is no more logical than mine.

Except that your assumption is that Petrie legitimately had Jimmer ranked higher than Knight, which quite honestly, seems much more far-fetched than my assumption of a gamble that was taken, where things went real bad in terms of a missed opportunity. I mean, I think if we polled the other 29 GM's in the league, and asked them who they had rated higher on their boards, Knight or Fredette, you'd be likely to get about 24 of those GM's rating Knight higher, with maybe 5 of them being really high on Jimmer. The odds would say that Petrie is more likely to be among the 24 than the 5. Of course, that is an assumption as well, but based on just about every mock draft in existence, it's likely within reason.




The getting cute part, is the fact that they "assumed" that they had zero chance at Knight (which I must say, I assumed as much as well), so they felt that they would be fine at 10, because they didn't have a chance at Knight anyways, and they were perfectly content to take Fredette or Walker, whichever one was still available at 10, which they had a good inkling that one of those two guys would still be there.

Except that ... our assumption is based on the exact words of the Kings organization and not random "close sources". If you're going to go on saying that no, the Kings didn't prefer Fredette over Knight regardless of what they said before and after the draft then there really isn't any grounds for any argument is there? How do you possibly argue with such "intelligent" stands?

You can't prove that most GMs would say Knight was better than Jimmer. And even if they did, it doesn't matter, because Petrie isn't saying that Jimmer was Detroit's guy, or Cleveland's guy. GP is saying that Jimmer was OUR guy, you know, the Sacramento Kings? The one in need of shooting and that already has a guy that gets to the rim in Tyreke? If it turns out that Knight would have been a better fit than Jimmer then you can feel free to criticize the FO's scouting and choice in picking Jimmer. Other than that, you have no evidence or grounds to criticize them on trading down to pick Jimmer.

 

[Warhawk]

Yeah, it's an assumption that is very similar to your assumption that Jimmer was his man all along. Bottom line, nobody apart from maybe 5 or 6 people really know the truth in regards to this. Any comments we hear from Petrie, the Maloofs, Westphall or anybody else "in the know", can neither be believed or totally disregarded. Nobody is going to admit that they made a tremendous blunder.

The fact is that we have it on good authority well BEFORE the draft that Jimmer was the target they were shooting for. I can't say more, but you can choose to believe it or not. I'm done trying to shoot down these stupid conspiracy/assumption ideas that get thrown around. All you do is make yourself look silly.

 

[SacKings7]

I believe we did protect Songaila. It's actually very hard to find information on this, so we kind of have to make inferences.

We know for certain we protected the following six players:
Webber
Miller
Bibby
Christie
Stojakovic
Jackson

We know that the following players were not eligible to be protected because they were free agents:
Divac
Massenburg
Jabari Smith

That leaves three players with more complicated circumstances. Gerald Wallace had a team option for the '04-'05 season, but unless the rules were different then, it would have already have been picked up. At any rate he was clearly eligible for protection, because he was selected. Darius Songaila had a team option for '04-'05 which might have been up in the air at the time of the expansion draft. This option may have affected his protectability. However, since restricted free agents could be protected (and selected) he was likely eligible. Anthony Peeler had a player option for '04-'05, which meant that he could not be protected (because he was ineligible for selection due to the potential that he could become a free agent without the team's will).

So assuming the above is correct, we had a total of 8 players eligible for selection in the expansion draft - the 6 we know we protected, Wallace, and Songaila. Teams were allowed to protect up to 8 players, but had to leave at least one eligible player unprotected. It would appear that we protected Songaila as the 7th and allowed Wallace to go unprotected. However, if Songaila was somehow not eligible for selection, we had (basically) no choice but to leave Wallace available (though this could have been rectified the prior summer by signing Songaila to a two-year contract instead of a one+option).

The thing is though, we could have kept Wallace simply by not protecting Webber. His contract was huge and he was past his prime, so there's no way an expansion team would have selected him. From a pure basketball standpoint, this would have been the correct move. I guess there was a chance that Webber would have been insulted by this, so Petrie chose to be loyal rather than smart. Of course this is all hindsight since nobody knew Gerald would be the player he is today.

 

[Heuge]

The thing is though, we could have kept Wallace simply by not protecting Webber. His contract was huge and he was past his prime, so there's no way an expansion team would have selected him. From a pure basketball standpoint, this would have been the correct move. I guess there was a chance that Webber would have been insulted by this, so Petrie chose to be loyal rather than smart. Of course this is all hindsight since nobody knew Gerald would be the player he is today.

Not protecting Webber would have been pure lunacy. Contract or not, he was a highly sought after player and the key to any hopes we had of a championship.

 

[Sptsjunkie]

The thing is though, we could have kept Wallace simply by not protecting Webber. His contract was huge and he was past his prime, so there's no way an expansion team would have selected him. From a pure basketball standpoint, this would have been the correct move. I guess there was a chance that Webber would have been insulted by this, so Petrie chose to be loyal rather than smart. Of course this is all hindsight since nobody knew Gerald would be the player he is today.

Maybe. This would have been a very dangerous move. We were still contenders and Webber was still a franchise player.

Expansion teams cannot use the whole salary cap, so they may not have wanted to grab Webber. However, one could have picked him either to sell tickets or to trade him to a contender.

Petrie faces some backlash for letting a SF go who wasn't ready to contribute meaningfully until after our window was closed. Can you imagine the backlash if he had left Webber unprotected and the Bobcats had picked him and flipped him to the Spurs as soon as it was allowed? That would have been career suicide for Petrie.

 

[jpsls]

People need to stop with the Gerald Wallace love. He was a scrub during his tenure with the Kings and showed nothing besides his ability to jump high and dunk. The NBA is filled with athletic players who can't shoot.