AleksandarN
Starter
http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/12834501p-13684489c.html
SEATTLE - The transformation of the Kings and their season ended Tuesday night. Now it begins all over again.
"Going back to Vlade's departure, his leaving was really the beginning of the transition," Kings executive Geoff Petrie was saying Tuesday night, an hour before his basketball team went out to play its last game of the season.
Vlade Divac, Petrie meant. It was Divac's decision last summer to leave Sacramento for the perfectly despicable Los Angeles Lakers that truly signaled the end of one phase of this franchise's existence and, however awkwardly, ushered in another. OAS_AD('Button20');
That the team is a work in progress was brought home with gale force on a May evening in the Pacific Northwest, when the Seattle SuperSonics ended Sacramento's season with a pulsating 122-118 victory at KeyArena. The loss eliminated the Kings in the opening round of the NBA playoffs for the first time since 2000.
But if you find yourself unable to fully mourn the Kings' loss, consider yourself in broad company. Not only was this not the team that began the season in Sacramento, but by Tuesday night it included only four of the players who helped the team reach the seventh game of the Western Conference semifinals a year ago.
And it's not the roster you'll see in a few months.
"There will be changes," Petrie said.
Major changes? Not exactly. Most of those occurred over the past year, as Divac left in free agency, Doug Christie was sent to Orlando and Chris Webber went to Philadelphia in the biggest trade of the season.
On the far side of those deals, their common element was long-term concern. Divac, for all his leadership and his undeniable abilities as a passer, was spent as an NBA force. Christie barely played in Orlando before going down for the season with a recurrance of the foot problems that had plagued him with the Kings.
Webber? Though still possessed of great skill, he was operating on only one good knee.
In short, Petrie dished off three risks, and the Kings got younger and more versatile (if almost completely unrecognizable) in return. What is left is the foundation around which the team will again attempt to build a consistent winner.
Mike Bibby remains under contract, Brad Miller is in the fold, and Peja Stojakovic's offseason request to be traded has been quietly and mutually shelved. Those three are almost certain to return as the nucleus of future rosters, while Petrie waits to see whether Cuttino Mobley and Darius Songaila opt to continue their contracts.
"I still like the fact that Brad and Mike and Peja are still coming into their prime years," Petrie said on a night when Bibby and Stojakovic combined to score more than half the team's points.
The problems? Right now, they are issues of identity and cohesion, the two things that did in the Kings in this first-round series. And, of course, a little muscle around the basket wouldn't hurt.
Bibby and Stojakovic were alternately brilliant and hard to locate. Veterans Miller and Bobby Jackson, just returning from injury, couldn't be depended upon. And coach Rick Adelman often didn't know what to expect from the newcomers.
"This just hasn't been a fair test," said Jerry Reynolds, the team's director of player personnel and a broadcaster.
"Before this, we had a case where a bunch of guys had been together a number of years, knew their roles and knew the pecking order," Reynolds said. "It was a team that had personality, and that just doesn't happen overnight." There are lots of overnights ahead for a Kings team that is, now and officially, starting over.
SEATTLE - The transformation of the Kings and their season ended Tuesday night. Now it begins all over again.
"Going back to Vlade's departure, his leaving was really the beginning of the transition," Kings executive Geoff Petrie was saying Tuesday night, an hour before his basketball team went out to play its last game of the season.
Vlade Divac, Petrie meant. It was Divac's decision last summer to leave Sacramento for the perfectly despicable Los Angeles Lakers that truly signaled the end of one phase of this franchise's existence and, however awkwardly, ushered in another. OAS_AD('Button20');
But if you find yourself unable to fully mourn the Kings' loss, consider yourself in broad company. Not only was this not the team that began the season in Sacramento, but by Tuesday night it included only four of the players who helped the team reach the seventh game of the Western Conference semifinals a year ago.
And it's not the roster you'll see in a few months.
"There will be changes," Petrie said.
Major changes? Not exactly. Most of those occurred over the past year, as Divac left in free agency, Doug Christie was sent to Orlando and Chris Webber went to Philadelphia in the biggest trade of the season.
On the far side of those deals, their common element was long-term concern. Divac, for all his leadership and his undeniable abilities as a passer, was spent as an NBA force. Christie barely played in Orlando before going down for the season with a recurrance of the foot problems that had plagued him with the Kings.
Webber? Though still possessed of great skill, he was operating on only one good knee.
In short, Petrie dished off three risks, and the Kings got younger and more versatile (if almost completely unrecognizable) in return. What is left is the foundation around which the team will again attempt to build a consistent winner.
Mike Bibby remains under contract, Brad Miller is in the fold, and Peja Stojakovic's offseason request to be traded has been quietly and mutually shelved. Those three are almost certain to return as the nucleus of future rosters, while Petrie waits to see whether Cuttino Mobley and Darius Songaila opt to continue their contracts.
"I still like the fact that Brad and Mike and Peja are still coming into their prime years," Petrie said on a night when Bibby and Stojakovic combined to score more than half the team's points.
The problems? Right now, they are issues of identity and cohesion, the two things that did in the Kings in this first-round series. And, of course, a little muscle around the basket wouldn't hurt.
Bibby and Stojakovic were alternately brilliant and hard to locate. Veterans Miller and Bobby Jackson, just returning from injury, couldn't be depended upon. And coach Rick Adelman often didn't know what to expect from the newcomers.
"This just hasn't been a fair test," said Jerry Reynolds, the team's director of player personnel and a broadcaster.
"Before this, we had a case where a bunch of guys had been together a number of years, knew their roles and knew the pecking order," Reynolds said. "It was a team that had personality, and that just doesn't happen overnight." There are lots of overnights ahead for a Kings team that is, now and officially, starting over.
