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http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/12538093p-13393431c.html
Mark Kreidler: Kings still contenders? Don't be surprised
No white flags in front office
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, March 10, 2005
And now, direct from Pretzel Logic Productions: The Kings - these Kings, the ones with no Webber, no Christie and still no Bobby Jackson - as a serious conference-title contender.
Don't look at me; I'm just telling you what they're talking about in the team's front office. Which is, of course, the one place you'd expect to know better.
Just when the fan base was getting used to a comfortably diminished expectation for this season, the franchise's movers and shakers have quietly begun to go the other way. As people publicly discuss the Kings getting a decent opponent and maybe pulling a first-round surprise, the folks behind the recent in-season roster overhaul are, very privately, thinking bigger.
But not always so privately. When I asked player personnel director Jerry Reynolds on Wednesday what constituted a fair hope for this new-look team, Reynolds answered immediately, and with what I take to be a straight face, "They'll be one of the five or six teams with a chance to win the conference, and one of maybe seven or eight with a chance to win it all."
Wait, win it all? This is the team with Brian Skinner where Chris Webber used to be, right?
"Hopefully, we'll get healthier and get 17 or 18 games where we have everybody available," said Geoff Petrie, the architect of the new look. "If we do, I think we can do some damage."
Coming from Petrie, the team's president of basketball operations, that's giddy drunken glee. It's also the kind of talk that feels spectacularly out of step with the prevailing sentiment.
All of which, really, makes this pretty much another in the Petrie series of guessing-game moves.
It's an interesting set of emotional cat and mouse going on between the Kings fans and the front office.
A year ago at this time, the followers of the team were mostly thrilled with its direction in the absence of the injured Webber and couldn't see the reason for making any change. Petrie, coach Rick Adelman and most of the rest of the front office, meanwhile, had long since concluded that no matter how pretty the Kings looked in slicing through their regular-season schedule, they had no shot at a deep playoff push unless Webber came back, and strongly.
As it developed, Webber's late-season return was wildly problematic and the team played .500 ball down the stretch - yet it blew out Dallas in the first round and was perhaps an Anthony Peeler punch removed from beating Minnesota and reaching the Western Conference finals.
And so the fans, or at least a significant lot of them, entered this season thinking that even with a short bench, the Kings of (a better) Webber, Peja Stojakovic, Doug Christie, Mike Bibby and Brad Miller were still a serious contender. Oh, there were questions, the Webber-Stojakovic relationship chief among them, but neither talent nor playoff experience were issues.
Again, though, the front office went the other way, dealing Christie and Webber after basically concluding that this bunch was done as a major player in the West. (Even more interesting: No one believed, in the end, that the Webber-Stojakovic rift turned out to be a significant thing; rather, Webber simply had lost his efficiency in gathering his nightly numbers, and he couldn't get it back.)
Petrie says now that he wasn't sure what he had at the start of this season, but it is clear that he pretty quickly realized it wasn't enough for championship aspiration. The strange part is that, now that the fan base has come to grips with that reality - and Webber's brutal indoctrination in Philadelphia probably plays a revisionist role here - the executive finds himself rather optimistic. Strange.
Reynolds remains fascinated by the number of national media types who tore into the Webber trade without, "so far as I can tell, actually ever watching a game." What he's getting at is the propensity for those outside the club circle, fairly naturally, to draw conclusions based on who Webber has been, as opposed to the player he actually is.
Same goes for Skinner, Kenny Thomas and Corliss Williamson, in whom Petrie found much more value than did the national press. The media saw a splintering of salaries, and that is undeniably appealing (more parts to be played with in the summer). But Petrie also saw players whose skills could be valuable to the Kings and Adelman in incredibly specific ways.
I have a feeling, by the way, that we're about to find out Adelman got more out of Chris Webber than most coaches could ever dream of getting. Most likely, that news will be received in Philly as evidence Webber has quit, rather than that he's being used wrong. In the meantime, the Kings move on, their fans finally coming to grips with the fact that this team won't be a contender this spring. Just in time for the front office to begin dreaming all over again.
Mark Kreidler: Kings still contenders? Don't be surprised
No white flags in front office
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, March 10, 2005
And now, direct from Pretzel Logic Productions: The Kings - these Kings, the ones with no Webber, no Christie and still no Bobby Jackson - as a serious conference-title contender.
Don't look at me; I'm just telling you what they're talking about in the team's front office. Which is, of course, the one place you'd expect to know better.
Just when the fan base was getting used to a comfortably diminished expectation for this season, the franchise's movers and shakers have quietly begun to go the other way. As people publicly discuss the Kings getting a decent opponent and maybe pulling a first-round surprise, the folks behind the recent in-season roster overhaul are, very privately, thinking bigger.
But not always so privately. When I asked player personnel director Jerry Reynolds on Wednesday what constituted a fair hope for this new-look team, Reynolds answered immediately, and with what I take to be a straight face, "They'll be one of the five or six teams with a chance to win the conference, and one of maybe seven or eight with a chance to win it all."
Wait, win it all? This is the team with Brian Skinner where Chris Webber used to be, right?
"Hopefully, we'll get healthier and get 17 or 18 games where we have everybody available," said Geoff Petrie, the architect of the new look. "If we do, I think we can do some damage."
Coming from Petrie, the team's president of basketball operations, that's giddy drunken glee. It's also the kind of talk that feels spectacularly out of step with the prevailing sentiment.
All of which, really, makes this pretty much another in the Petrie series of guessing-game moves.
It's an interesting set of emotional cat and mouse going on between the Kings fans and the front office.
A year ago at this time, the followers of the team were mostly thrilled with its direction in the absence of the injured Webber and couldn't see the reason for making any change. Petrie, coach Rick Adelman and most of the rest of the front office, meanwhile, had long since concluded that no matter how pretty the Kings looked in slicing through their regular-season schedule, they had no shot at a deep playoff push unless Webber came back, and strongly.
As it developed, Webber's late-season return was wildly problematic and the team played .500 ball down the stretch - yet it blew out Dallas in the first round and was perhaps an Anthony Peeler punch removed from beating Minnesota and reaching the Western Conference finals.
And so the fans, or at least a significant lot of them, entered this season thinking that even with a short bench, the Kings of (a better) Webber, Peja Stojakovic, Doug Christie, Mike Bibby and Brad Miller were still a serious contender. Oh, there were questions, the Webber-Stojakovic relationship chief among them, but neither talent nor playoff experience were issues.
Again, though, the front office went the other way, dealing Christie and Webber after basically concluding that this bunch was done as a major player in the West. (Even more interesting: No one believed, in the end, that the Webber-Stojakovic rift turned out to be a significant thing; rather, Webber simply had lost his efficiency in gathering his nightly numbers, and he couldn't get it back.)
Petrie says now that he wasn't sure what he had at the start of this season, but it is clear that he pretty quickly realized it wasn't enough for championship aspiration. The strange part is that, now that the fan base has come to grips with that reality - and Webber's brutal indoctrination in Philadelphia probably plays a revisionist role here - the executive finds himself rather optimistic. Strange.
Reynolds remains fascinated by the number of national media types who tore into the Webber trade without, "so far as I can tell, actually ever watching a game." What he's getting at is the propensity for those outside the club circle, fairly naturally, to draw conclusions based on who Webber has been, as opposed to the player he actually is.
Same goes for Skinner, Kenny Thomas and Corliss Williamson, in whom Petrie found much more value than did the national press. The media saw a splintering of salaries, and that is undeniably appealing (more parts to be played with in the summer). But Petrie also saw players whose skills could be valuable to the Kings and Adelman in incredibly specific ways.
I have a feeling, by the way, that we're about to find out Adelman got more out of Chris Webber than most coaches could ever dream of getting. Most likely, that news will be received in Philly as evidence Webber has quit, rather than that he's being used wrong. In the meantime, the Kings move on, their fans finally coming to grips with the fact that this team won't be a contender this spring. Just in time for the front office to begin dreaming all over again.
They are pretty damn good.
