Let me go over each of these one by one.
lemme just recap his moves in the last five or six seasons:
traded away Chris Webber for a bunch of bums, including Kenny Thomas' ridiculous contract.
I think you're forgetting how angry KingsLand was at C-Webb and the team at this point, they were one missed shot from running him out of town with torches and pitchforks. At the time we dumped Webb and his massive contract (which,albeit, would have been off the books a little sooner than K9), it was for moveable pieces (who were we to question the virtue of trading for three undersized power forwards?). Hindsight is 20/20 but honestly, what other offers were we getting for the bionic knee?
The Kings under Peja were listless, boring, and, to put it bluntly, going nowhere fast. Once we traded him for Artest, we somehow ended up in the Playoffs. Now, I don't know if it was worth the headaches and all but at least we did get the better end of the trade (Indiana got Peja for half a season, after which he walked off to New Orleans where he earned a massive contract and then promptly broke his back. We, on the other hand, got Ron Ron for two seasons and then promptly dumped him off to the Rockets for Bobby Jackson (fan favorite brought in for nostalgia purposes), Donte Greene (who has shown flashes of being a defensive stopper/good sidekick to Reke), and Omri. The Rockets got one season out of Ron, after which he left them to play Dennis Rodman in Hollywood)
Traded Bibby for sheldon williams
When Bibby got injured, some guy named Beno came out of nowhere and strung together a stretch of games that made him look like our potential PG of the future. As a result, Mike became expendable as he was A. getting old (It's painful watching the Hawks games because he's so..old) and B. pretty darn expensive (this was pre-Beno, but I'll get to that in a second). Now trading him for an undersized PF who was getting by based on college accolades (Kinda like Sean May only with the buffet) and Tyron Lue and Anthony Johnson can perhaps be questioned but this can really be seen as our first MAJOR move of rebuilding (dump salary, acquire young talent [whether the talent pans out or not is another matter]).
overpaid for injury riddled SAR
Yes, this move can be seen as pretty stupid. He failed an NJ physical and we signed him anyways. That being said, his first year of being in Sacramento went pretty good (Hell, I even admired him for being able to play through a broken jaw). Once his knees fell apart, it was all down hill. Luckily, we got the insurance coverage where it didn't hit us in the cap so, technically, no harm done.
I agree that this was a bad move. Not really sure what Geoff had seen in Mikki that would warrant the MLE. Maybe it was the dreds, maybe it was the generic stat-lines of nothing, maybe it was the exuberance exhibited whenever Mikki did something he should have been able to do anyways.
I blame the Clippers. No, honestly. They wanted him. (They also wanted Baron Davis. I'm not sure what the timeline was on this thing) We really really wanted Beno so we dropped the bigbucks on him. He accepted. He sucked. We hated him. Tyreke shows up. He doesn't suck. There is much rejoicing.
drafted Quincy Douby nuff said
You must remember that at this point in time, we were still generally competitive and what potential playoff team doesn't want a good shooter. He apparently had a legendary pre-draft workout (according to Chuckles, the best he's ever seen shooting-wise). Now making the shots in an actual game was another matter. Does that rectify this move? Not at all. Does Geoff Petrie like people who can shoot? Yes.
drafted Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson, two busts
I think you use the word bust too lightly. JaMarcus Russel and Ryan Leaf? Busts. JT and Spence are both serviceable bigmen. Are they Shaq or Dwight Howard? No but then again no one really is, that's what makes those bigs special.
failed to retain guys like Gerald Wallace and Hedo
Remeber that GW was pretty much rotting on the bench. Sure he could dunk but other than that, his biggest talent was keeping the chairs nice and warm for Webb and the other guys who actually mattered. Does that make the bitter taste of seeing him become an all-star go away? Hell no. But I can see why we would do it. We were in win now mode and Wallace was in slow-developing mode.
Hedo was a nice part of our team. That being said, he was the integral piece in getting Brad Miller, who was an all-star his first two seasons here and essentially tearing it up (of course, this was at the point where he still gave a damn). I should also add that while Hedo is a good, solid player, he is also paid far more than he should be.
as you can see his list of failures keeps getting longer and longer....
Gee. Picking up that Tyreke Evans scrub sure was a terrible move and then giving away Kevin Martin for Carl Landry and capspace. Terrible. Absolutely terrible. He also wasted a pick on some scrawny Israeli loser when he should have obviously picked Maynor.
