Shareef in Sacramento (visiting)

[Bricklayer]

To be honest, I'm halfway expecting a virtually unchanged roster in October. I don't see the Kings getting much for Cuttino (I think it's most likely that someone signs him outright, maybe for the MLE) and I would guess that Petrie will try to bring back Darius and Mo, but only end up with one of them.

You could easily be right. But if that happens what is that going to say about this franchise, this GM, and the future?

While it is far from a good development in general, I actually have hopes here that the crumbling season ticket holder base and arena problems might light a fire under the butt of the front office. Of course, on the flip side it could make them even more risk averse.

 

[6th]

what i'm trying to figure out is how any player "signs up" at a position. if he were to come to sacramento, expectations of starting as a power forward, but then the kings pull off trading peja for tyson chandler (for example), and adleman moves rahim to SF, what's he gonna do? cry about it? not if he wants to start. we all know adelman loves small ball, but the point is not what position rahim wants to play, its what position a team decides to utilize him at. if the kings decided he's better used at SF, he'll play the SF. if they think he's a better PF than SF, then he'll play PF. individual team analyzation of its players and needs is what determines which players play where. history plays a small part, but each team looks at its players in a different light. detroit would figure out the best way to utilize rahim's limited defensive abilities. sacramento would find the best way to insert rahim into the offense. the spurs would most likely attempt to create a balance of both aspects. each team is different, but no team gives a **** what rahim wants. he'll play where he's best suited to meet a particular teams needs.

Excellent, Padrino! The same thoughts had occurred to me. And, when are these guys going to realize that it is the TEAM that counts, and they will play where the team best needs them?

 

[VF21]

While it is far from a good development in general, I actually have hopes here that the crumbling season ticket holder base and arena problems might light a fire under the butt of the front office. Of course, on the flip side it could make them even more risk averse.

At this risk of "telling tales out of school," I'm going to quote something from bleachermob...

...I've actually been invited to a Fan Forum by the Kings later this month to voice my opinions publicly amongst a small group of season ticket holders and team marketing and management personnel. We'll see....

That is the FIRST indication I've seen anywhere that the Kings organization is actually interested in getting feedback from some of the "rabid fan base" they're constantly professing to be so loyal to...

It actually gives me a modicum of hope.

As 1kingzfan says, "We'll see..."

 

[G_M]

I actually have hopes here that the crumbling season ticket holder base and arena problems might light a fire under the butt of the front office. Of course, on the flip side it could make them even more risk averse.

I'm not sure the season ticket holder base is crumbling. Although, I am not renewing after eight seasons. I think there is still significant interest in season tickets.

I think THIS season is the watershed season for many season ticket holders.

 

[Ryle]

I'm not sure the season ticket holder base is crumbling. Although, I am not renewing after eight seasons. I think there is still significant interest in season tickets.

I think THIS season is the watershed season for many season ticket holders.

This very well may be my last year. This will be season #6 for me and if the product doesn't improve I can't keep throwing my money away....

 

[mr. moustache]

Well.. I guess you could always hope they fire adelman.

This very well may be my last year. This will be season #6 for me and if the product doesn't improve I can't keep throwing my money away....

 

[Bricklayer]

I'm not sure the season ticket holder base is crumbling. Although, I am not renewing after eight seasons. I think there is still significant interest in season tickets.

I think THIS season is the watershed season for many season ticket holders.

Well I said crumbling, not totally gone. I suspect that they have probably been able to maintain the numbers from the waiting list, but that list has to be growing shorter now for the first time in a long time. Always hate to see kingsfans loyalists deciding to give up their tickets. If people who care as much as the people on this board do are giving them up, there's got to be a problem of some sort.

I agree that this is likely the watershed year for the Kings in a lot of ways. And that's really what I was aiming at -- shaky ticketholders, arena deal in the air, if the Kings just return as they were at the end of the season, you could see things really spiral. Normally I don't think that's a good motivation for teams to do things -- can make them panic and screw up badly. But in this case, where I actually fear the front office may be too complacent about the product on the floor, it could actually help.

For most of Petrie's career he's kind of tiptoed around, making a sharp deal here, a sharp deal there, as needed. Like the man himself, not much flash. That was perfect for after the team reached the top -- you never had to worry about him going off and doing a Cuban and swapping out half the team every year screwing things up. But despite the lingering shreds of respectability, I really think this is the year we need to see the Geoff of the one magical year in '99 when the Maloofs arrived, and Geoff built the core of the Kings as they would be known in the modern era. He was flashy and dramatic that year, but no less incisive. Questions are does he still have the same mandate of "do whatever you have to to win" from the Maloofs? And has he become overly attached to our current personnel? Geoff actually got himself fired in Portland for the stated reason of not doing enough to reverse the decline of the early 90's Blazers mini-dynasty. Basically he was acused of sitting on his hands, and I remember the mockery at the time of Geoff as the guy who didn't create the dynasty (not sure who was GM before him), but instead just presided over its slow demise. Its hard to see him ever get fired here, but I hope he learned his lesson from that experience. Having a poker face and playing things close to the vest are in general good traits, but there still comes a time when you have to put your chips on the table if you ever want to win big.

 

[nbrans]

Geoff Petrie doesn't have flash?? He's doesn't take risks to prevent the slide of the franchise? Overly attached to personnel? This is the guy who traded Chris Webber. CHRIS WEBBER!! No one thought Chris Webber could be traded. If that's not putting your chips on the table I don't know what is.

Nor would I characterize the trading of two of the Kings' most popular players (Hedo and Scot Pollard) for Brad Miller as lacking in "flash." Just think at where we'd be without that deal. Hedo would have either gone and signed somewhere else or played second fiddle to Peja. Pollard would have self-destructed, as he did in Indiana, and the Kings would have had nothing. Now we have one of the top 5 centers in the league. That's flash.

So is turning Jason Williams into Mike Bibby. Or Mitch Richmond into Chris Webber.

I agree that we need some of that Petrie magic now more than ever, but I think your fears and dire tone are unfounded. It's July 12th, give the guy some time!

 

[Andriod_KiNg]

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/13219193p-14062071c.html

If it's money that talks, Abdur-Rahim is no lock

Kings president of basketball operations Geoff Petrie said Monday he plans to show free-agent forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim Sacramento's best.

But after all the fine dining, scenic views and palatial estates, Abdur-Rahim is going to want Petrie and the Kings to show him the money. And that bottom line may not be any more than $5 million - the approximate expected midlevel exception most every other team can offer.

For free agents, the way to maximize dollars on a new contract is to re-sign with their previous team, enabling themselves to sign a six-year deal instead of the five-year maximum available when signing with a new team.

The incumbent team also can increase the salary in each year of the contract by approximately 2 percent more each season than a new club can.
Re-signing with the incumbent team and then being involved in a sign-and-trade sending the player elsewhere often is attractive to players because they can make maximum money and go to their desired team.

However, in Abdur-Rahim's situation, Portland general manager John Nash said his team's plan was to not accept any salary in return for free agents.

Abdur-Rahim, who last week was wined and dined by the New Jersey Nets, made $14.6 million last season.

"Without Shareef's salary, and if we were to take a salary back, it would put us in the tax limit," Nash said. "So (a deal with the Kings) is not realistic. We'd take draft picks."

But a team would have to have cap room or a trade exception - a salary slot into which a player could be acquired in lieu of a player-to-player salary match.

"(The Kings) would have to be able to take on his salary," Nash said, "and I don't think they have a trade exception, so it's ... moot."

Petrie said there are a number of players available through either trade or free agency the Kings like. He avoided directly answering whether Sacramento had made offers to any players.

"I think the only real fair answer is we're in discussions with any number of players, any number of agents and to some extent a number of teams," he said after returning to Sacramento from Las Vegas to meet with Abdur-Rahim and, of course, talk on the phone. "We have nothing definitive to announce. We have a strong interest in Shareef."

 

[Padrino]

Petrie said there are a number of players available through either trade or free agency the Kings like. He avoided directly answering whether Sacramento had made offers to any players.

"I think the only real fair answer is we're in discussions with any number of players, any number of agents and to some extent a number of teams," he said after returning to Sacramento from Las Vegas to meet with Abdur-Rahim and, of course, talk on the phone. "We have nothing definitive to announce. We have a strong interest in Shareef."

classic geoff petrie. not sure what "strong interest in shareef" is supposed to mean, and i hope its not to insinuate that shareef is among the best players the kings are looking at, but i am slightly encouraged to hear that the kings are in talks with "any number" of teams, players, agents, etc.

 

[LPKingsFan]

Does anyone else feel that even if this goes to plan, and we pick up SAR relatively cheap and then can move Peja, that we couldn't even get Chandler for Peja straight up??

 

[nbrans]

Does anyone else feel that even if this goes to plan, and we pick up SAR relatively cheap and then can move Peja, that we couldn't even get Chandler for Peja straight up??

I think the Bulls see Deng as their SF of the future, so no, I don't think that would happen.

And you know how I feel about moving SAR to the SF...

 

[Padrino]

Does anyone else feel that even if this goes to plan, and we pick up SAR relatively cheap and then can move Peja, that we couldn't even get Chandler for Peja straight up??

oh, i'm quite certain we couldn't get chandler for peja straight up. peja's value has dropped significantly. it will, of course, rise a whole helluva lot by the end of this season, because peja's gonna play like an all-star again. GUARANTEED. nothing lights a fire under a player's *** (in any sport) like a contract year. unless your name's kwame brown, you play your absolute best when that contract year rolls around, otherwise you dont make the big money. peja's gonna look like he did 2 seasons ago, and the kings may yet again have a 50+ win season, but we're gonna have to pay him serious money after that if we wanna keep him. while i dont think peja will ever be deserving of THE MAX because of his one-dimensional style of play, its what he will get come next season, with the kings, or elsewhere. it may very well be in the kings best interests to bring in a guy like rahim, if the price is right. it'd be a nice insurance policy if peja walks at the end of this season. i'm no fan of rahim's, but the peja situation is rather complex. if he walks, you would have some flexibility at the SF with kenny thomas (assuming we are unable to move his contract) and rahim (regardless of where anyone thinks he should play). just a thought...

 

[Hezi]

ok,my opinion is:
Peja will stay in sacramento and play as SF
peja can't play as a PF because SF need to shot from out...(3pt)
Shareef can't shot from there and no body who has a PF(only Dirk Nowitzki)
so peja can't play at PF.....

 

[VF21]

Hezi - I don't think anyone is saying Peja could/should/would play power forward.

 

[Andriod_KiNg]

Hezi - I don't think anyone is saying Peja could/should/would play power forward.

Although i remember a very intresting poster on realgm.com who demanded Rick Adleman fired because we didnt put Peja on Yao since he was our tallest players at the time, i laughed for days

 

[zeke04]

You would think that Don Nelson would be to busy to be posting on realgm or maybe it was after he stepped down.

 

[Venom]

Geoff Petrie doesn't have flash?? He's doesn't take risks to prevent the slide of the franchise? Overly attached to personnel? This is the guy who traded Chris Webber. CHRIS WEBBER!! No one thought Chris Webber could be traded. If that's not putting your chips on the table I don't know what is.

Did those chips make us better? Younger? Tougher? Or did they merely appease Petrie's golden boy? Nobody thought Webber could be traded, but we all knew he was being shopped pretty hard. We'll see how attached Petrie is with what happens to Peja this offseason. Logic states that Peja should be traded this summer. He's one dimensional, about to be an unrestricted free agent, and his market value has been set FAR ABOVE his actual value by the signings of Redd and Allen. Furthermore, Peja is the trade piece that could really bring us back some youth, possibly at 2-3 positions. Bibby's contract is considered exhorbitant for a non-superstar, and Miller has been solid but not fantastic. Trades involving them would be less lucrative for us, and would make less sense considering their contract situations as opposed to Peja's.

 

[ForlornKing]

Hey... Let's not argue, let's just wait and see what happens and then argue as the kings future heads into a darkness of doom.


Shoot, I forgot this was a messageboard.











... I don't know.

 

[acisking]

Did those chips make us better? Younger? Tougher? Or did they merely appease Petrie's golden boy? Nobody thought Webber could be traded, but we all knew he was being shopped pretty hard. We'll see how attached Petrie is with what happens to Peja this offseason. Logic states that Peja should be traded this summer. He's one dimensional, about to be an unrestricted free agent, and his market value has been set FAR ABOVE his actual value by the signings of Redd and Allen. Furthermore, Peja is the trade piece that could really bring us back some youth, possibly at 2-3 positions. Bibby's contract is considered exhorbitant for a non-superstar, and Miller has been solid but not fantastic. Trades involving them would be less lucrative for us, and would make less sense considering their contract situations as opposed to Peja's.

yea def...if we want quality in return we have be willing to give up a player with a reputation like peja has