well, it's become as clear as crystal that the maloofs' priorities are in cutting operating costs and pushing behind the scenes to relocate the kings in hopes of a bailout from another city. i'm sure they wish they weren't broke and were able to put a competitive product out on the court, but such is not the state of this franchise or its owners. that said, the maloofs are as ego-battered as it gets in professional sports, and they're trying far too hard to keep up appearances in a hypermedia age that caught onto their act years ago. things are bad and everyone knows it. but the maloofs won't sign off on the moves necessary to fix it. that would require admitting that they've been wrong, that their course of action has been deeply flawed. so, i'd expect the tires to keep on spinning while this deflated excuse for a team sits on blocks. we may see player trades occur, but expect them to be lateral moves at best, rather than moves that might make the team more competitive either now or in the future...