So the Kings might move, huh?

How is this news?

If you check out the quote from Joe Maloof, you get an impending sense of doom about the Kings viability to stay in Sacramento until the rest of NBA time.

“We are looking at all options to ensure the long term viability of this franchise. We’re looking at all our options. Of course you’re going to look at your options! We’re businessmen. We’ve been at this for 10 years without any (arena) success.”

That looks very scary until you put it into the context of the situation at hand. Joe Maloof went on to say what we’ve known all along about the Maloofs and their feelings on keeping the Kings here. They’re working their butts off with the mayor to figure out a way to keep them here.

“There is a sense of urgency because we’ve been at this for so long,” he said from his cell phone. “We can’t sugarcoat it. Everybody knows the region needs a new arena. When the NCAA (Tournament) is refusing to schedule events in Sac, you have to acknowledge that you need an entertainment venue. I can’t give you a timetable, but at some point, something has to get done. (Sacramento) mayor Kevin Johnson is working with four different groups, looking at four plans, and we’re hoping something comes out of this. We want to be right here in Sacramento. We’ve always said that. It’s been what? Eleven years? Rumors, rumors, rumors. I get tired of answering all these questions. Can’t we just talk about how much better DeMarcus Cousins is getting?”

Well that doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?

This is the same thing we’ve seen before. The Kings need a new arena. And whether you think it’s posturing by the Maloofs for getting a new arena or not, the city of Sacramento needs a new arena for more than just making money for the Maloofs.

Bigger and better concerts will happen here if the Kings get their new palace. Have you ever been to a concert at Arco Arena? It’s horrible. The PA system makes it sound like you’re next to a Cutlass Supreme that has more bass than it can handle so it’s just doing that annoying vibrating thing that makes the entire block wish this guy’s car battery would explode.

The NCAA tournament would come back to Sacramento with a new arena and the area might even get games from the later rounds too if it’s nice enough.

An arena could revitalize downtown in a way that could be huge for the city’s identity. And let’s be honest, without a new arena this city’s identity is currently whatever Phil Jackson improperly lamented it to be a decade ago when he was waging psychological warfare on his team’s biggest threat.

While the quote out of context sounds scary, it doesn’t mean the Kings are going anywhere right now. The paper work hasn’t been filed to relocate. Hell, there isn’t really a good option to relocate anyway.

Kansas City has the arena but they don’t have enough support to get the Maloofs to swoon over Middle America.

Anaheim and San Jose have immense territorial rights with the Lakers/Clippers and Warriors, respectively, and make moving a team there a huge headache for the current owner.

Las Vegas has too much red tape and no viable arena right now.

Seattle had a state of the art arena 15 years ago that was so awesome Clay Bennett decided to move his team back to his own hometown. Last I checked, the same arena is still in the Emerald City, so the Kings fans don’t have to worry about the team relocating there until they get THEIR arena situation… well… situated.

Next key date in all of this mess is January 25th when the four new proposals will be bandied about by Kevin Johnson and the city council in trying to determine which effort has the best chance of becoming a reality. If all of those proposals are failures and not a single one can possibly move forward, then it’s time to start getting worried about the team staying in Sacramento.

Until then, websites and cities will take quotes out of context in hopes of fulfilling their NBA-less municipal lives.

Now let’s talk about the reawakening of Tyreke Evans…

THIS.

An all-star capable big man with a volatile and smothering game.

A young guard with unlimited scoring ability.

Lots of young, talented role players with the potential to become contributors in this league that truly matter.

Sound familiar?

I’m talking about the 2010 Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers are an exciting young team right now. They’re showing glimpses of a future and of ridding themselves of demons past. Amazingly, they’re exactly what the Sacramento Kings need to be following right now.

I know the building plan was to be the new (healthy) Portland Trailblazers or try to replicate the quick successful career track of the Oklahoma City Thunder. But the progress from last season to this season hasn’t exactly been one of those walkways in the airport that help you cover ground like Derrick Rose. In fact, there is no progress for the Kings at all. Regression is the buzzword for the Kings this season and it’s causing a ton of basketball depression amongst Kings fans.

Being the new Blazers or the newer Thunder just isn’t in the cards this year. If anything, looking toward the Los Angeles Clippers for inspiration seems to be the way to go. The Kings shouldn’t look toward the Clippers as a way to build your team. This latest installment of the Clippers renovation is going to crumble under its Sterling foundation within the next two years. That’s what they always do.

What the Kings need to look toward as far as the Clippers’ current existence is how they handle the losing. Clippers culture is a losing culture. Yes, they have Blake Griffin and he’s a bowl of wow on the basketball court. But they’ve had Lamar Odom, Danny Manning and Darius Miles before. They’ve had guys with a lot of juice early on in their career who somehow don’t put it together for this franchise.

Maybe this time seems different but I have to see it to believe it.

Even though a team many hoped would make a playoff push is once again kicking it in the NBA cellar with a 9-22 record, the attitude around the team couldn’t be more upbeat. Their young guys are playing hard and trying to be excited about what they’re putting together. The coach isn’t pouting or being irrational about losing games now. He doesn’t necessarily accept losing as something that’s okay, but he’s also not punishing Blake Griffin for screaming at other plays when he’s dunking on them and trying to detonate their will.

This Clippers organization is taking the positives in the losses and not trying to force a winning culture that isn’t there yet. Maybe they’re just lucky because the Clippers excitement is an easier draw in a bigger market that already has a winner in the building. The willingness to not force that this team is winning and on the cusp of title aspirations does help with the overall psyche.

Nobody in the NBA likes to lose. Most guys who aren’t named Vince Carter hate it because it was not something they were used to doing while growing up. But taking a positive approach and not panicking can do so much for the psyche of your organization, it’s building blocks and the mood of the fans.

If the Clippers have figured out one thing, it’s how to lose and not panic. The Kings seem to be incapable of that. The Kings are struggling to grapple with entourages for the controlling destiny of the organization’s future. The Kings are desperately trying to show you this old house is great for viewing a basketball game that is most likely going to be a losing experience before the new mansion is built downtown in West Sacramento next to the old one hopefully anywhere in the greater Sacramento area.

The Kings are showing you DeMarcus Cousins is a good, young, marketable player with a halo hovering his head and a heart of gold. Earlier in the season, the Kings were boasting about being bigger and tougher. Now they’re trying to show you Cousins is as lovable as Barney or some other freaky mascot your toddlers love to watch.

The Kings aren’t embracing what they are or who they have anymore because this season didn’t turn out the way everyone hoped. The Clippers on the other hand are taking it all in stride and living out their fame on YouTube. The Kings don’t have that eye-popping guy with Tyreke incapable of duplicating what made him so fun to watch last season. But they do have a lot of young talent, capable of bringing energy and fun back to Arco.

In a sense, the Kings could use a little more Clipper in them. Don’t replicate the culture and the history of that fabled franchise. Just find a way to deal with the losing in a way that doesn’t make you look like you’re grasping at marketing straws.

The Clippers come to Sacramento tonight to show everybody how losing is done. Sometimes showing off your youth is the way to go.

NBA 2K11 can get boring at times.

Sounds crazy, right?

When you do marathon square-offs like my friends and I do, blowouts can be fun for the trash talking and buzzer-beaters are a daggerfest the likes a good NBA League Pass night can give you. However, whenever you have those games that constantly sway between eight and 12 points and your opponent can’t quite make a good enough run to make it interesting, sometimes you start intentionally giving up baskets and making questionable decisions to make it more of a game.

With the way the Kings played in the fourth quarter against the Warriors, it almost looked like that was their plan. This game was too in their control and they decided to make it more intriguing. Only it backfired on them and they ended up giving away a rare victory.

Now, we know they didn’t ACTUALLY make plays to their detriment in order to make it more interesting. That’s the kind of thing we only find in segments of Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel or the movie Blue Chips. It would just be a much more believable scenario for why the Kings would turn the ball over nine times in the fourth quarter or fouling a 3-point shooter twice in the final 20 seconds of a game.

A lot of people are focusing on the choking gestures an exuberant (to say the least) DeMarcus Cousins was making right before he choked in grabbing key rebounds to help close out the game. But really the decision-making of the entire team should be under the interrogation lights.

Two turnovers by Cousins in the fourth. Two by Beno. Three by Tyreke. The Kings only made six shots in the fourth and one of those was assisted.

They just couldn’t execute and the Warriors shoved the fastbreak down their throats. They couldn’t execute all game.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of knocking down shots too. A trend for the Kings this season is not making open shots set up by the guards (or occasionally a big man who passes out of the post properly). They’re one of the worst in the NBA at it (ranked 24th according to Synergy).

This game was no different. Kings made six of their 23 spot-up shots. That’s a blistering 26%. And this is the problem of the team overall.

This team can’t shoot. At all. When Tyreke does create open shots for his teammates, they don’t seem to knock them down. The alternative appears for him to barrel into traffic like he did last season only he can’t finish anymore. Or he’ll shoot horrible jumpers off the dribble. Or Carl Landry will get the ball and waste possessions (most games, not this past one. He was fantastic against the Warriors). Or maybe Cousins will try to do too much driving to the hoop or Donté Greene and Omri Casspi will struggle to find a good shot they can knock down.

The point is the offense can’t go anywhere if you’re not making shots. And if the offense can’t go anywhere for a young team, they start rushing. When the Kings start rushing, the wheels fall off. They’re not a team that can weather their own storm. When things go bad, they go REALLY bad. Part of that is being young and learning how to grow together in this league and part of that is just not being good enough to win these games.

And that’s what is frustrating about this game for the Kings and their fans. The Warriors (ESPECIALLY and undermanned Warriors team) is completely beatable on every night. They have their own issues and inefficiencies. You saw that in much of the second and third quarters. Instead of the Kings gutting out a much-wanted victory, they made things interesting.

And it backfired.

Makes you wonder if it’s time to hit the reset button on this game.

David Thorpe follows the rookies of the NBA closer than anybody. He’s updated his Rookie Rankings and DeMarcus Cousins is shooting up the charts:

This is the point, however, in the overall story. Cousins can still be a mess from game to game. He may have the worst body language in the NBA, overreacting to everything, including his own mistakes. And he does not yet value winning enough to take fewer jumpers and dribbles. Yet he’s performing much better than he was, and with more consistency. He’s also getting in good enough shape to make more defensive plays above the rim. This is the kind of talent the Kings (and everyone else) were expecting.

As he succeeds more often, he will be tested anew. We’ve seen how he dealt with failure in November — with marked improvement. How will he deal with his success this month?

Check out the rest of the article here (ESPN Insider).

With most fans, they don’t really pay attention to what guys like Cousins are doing. They rely on national columnists to tell them what’s going on. So instead of just getting the “Cousins made a choke sign” or “Cousins has a bad attitude because he fought with the coach” type of stuff, they’re reading about how he’s progressing.

It’s nice to see Thorpe giving him credit here for adapting, playing better and showing he’s more than a tabloid waiting to happen.

There were things about Chris Webber that drove me insane.

Rarely do you see such potentially imposing post presences with that much ball skill like we did with Chris Webber. His legendary suction cup-action hands, his great vision, anticipation and passing ability, and his post game seemed more than capable of allowing him to dominate in the paint for years. If you doubled him, he’d pick you apart. If you left him one-on-one, he’d probably score or get to the line. He was as complete of an offensive weapon as you could ever ask for in a power forward.

But he spent so much damn time on the elbow and away from the basket because he had another rare skill for most big men of that era: a good jump shot. In a way, it was perfect for what the Kings needed most of the time. He had the ability to play away from the basket and run their Princeton-inspired offense to a T. At the same time, it kept him away from an area he just as easily could have dominated in maybe a more destructive way.

When I watch DeMarcus Cousins find his way through his rookie season, I worry about the same thing happening to him. DeMarcus is an above average big man in terms of ball skills. He can dribble decent-enough (although I cringe when he starts making a move with his left hand). He’s a fantastic passer with great hands and good recognition of the play developing. And he’s shown the ability to knock down the mid-range jumper. He can also push it out to the perimeter when he needs to.

However, when you put DeMarcus Cousins on the block, he scores the ball pretty well. HoopData.com has DeMarcus making 72.5% of his shots at the rim this season. It’s one of the best percentages in the league amongst big men. He’s too strong for many of the post defenders in the NBA and he has pretty good awareness. His biggest issue is rushing into his post moves and getting ahead of himself. That seems like something that gets worked out with more reps on the block. If the defense doubles him, he can pass the ball well and hit the cutter.

The problem with getting Cousins the ball on the block is two-fold. First, the Kings are arguably the worst post-entry passing team I’ve ever seen. Beno Udrih can make the pass. And DeMarcus can make the pass. That’s it. Nobody else on the team can consistently get a good post-entry pass into the block, and Cousins certainly isn’t allowed or quick enough to pass it to himself in the post. Second, the offense gets big men like him, JT and even Dalembert too far away from the hoop for hand-off screens.

I think it’s great Cousins has confidence in his shot and can create by driving better than most centers in the NBA. He still should be on the block.

Big men with jumpers don’t do much for me. I don’t really get the point. When you have someone as physically overpowering as DeMarcus Cousins, why wouldn’t you bolt him to the block (figuratively and systematically, not literally) and make teams stop him inside? Chuck Hayes is one of the best post defenders in the NBA and Cousins bullied him in the post multiple times like it was nothing. How many guys can realistically shut down a man that strong with that skill and good touch around the hoop?

The Kings have offensive problems right now. They play one-on-one, don’t feed the guys in the corners and don’t get the ball on the block. If a post player kicks it out and re-establishes position, he rarely gets the ball back. This can all be changed by centering the offense when Cousins is on the floor with pick-and-rolls heading toward the basket and giving him the ball on the block.

I’m not saying the team should run through him. He’s been terrible making jumpers consistently (28.7% from beyond 10 feet) and his short game (inside 10 feet but not at the rim) has been equally ineffective (28.9%). DeMarcus is not a go-to scorer yet. But if the Kings are going to put him in positions to be effective with the ball, why not put the bull directly in the china shop instead of down the block?

Letting him migrate out away from the basket is just asking for a less destructive pattern of attack.

Our good ole friend 2nd round pick is no longer with the team according to Marc Stein’s Twitter account:

A little quick scouting report on Jermaine Taylor:

The rim should press charges on him or get a restraining order against him, because he attacks it constantly. Jermaine is not the shooter the Kings need by any means. But he’s a competent role player off the bench and will give you a highlight dunk nearly every time he’s on the floor. It’s a nice fit with the Kings because he’s like a good version of Antoine Wright with much better skills and effectiveness. He’s very aggressive in getting into the paint. Maybe a little too aggressive (see: out of control) in the way he attacks but he makes the defense move and get out of position to keep him from getting to the rack.

He’s going to be a fan favorite almost instantly when he rocks the rim his first time. Here’s a little preview:

Tyreke Evans tweeted earlier that he’s headed to a foot specialist to check on his plantar fasciitis.

While I agree with Reke that Kings fans shouldn’t be worried yet, there should be some concern. Kings fans remember just how debilitating plantar fasciitis is. Peja Stojakovic had it when he was here and it’s just a very painful and uncomfortable ailment that can take months or even longer to heal. It requires rest, stretching, ice and other treatment to heal. When you have it and you’re the lead player for a NBA team everyday, it makes it hard to get that much needed rest.

The fact that Tyreke can play with it so far shows that he either has a ridiculously high level of pain tolerance or the injury is somewhat minor for the time being. I’ve been told it feels like a really painful and gigantic bruise on the bottom of your foot and you feel it with nearly every step and movement you take. Unfortunately for Tyreke, he’s a NBA player and not a blogger so his job requires him to take a lot of steps (insert traveling violation joke here).

I don’t think the Kings would be dumb enough to let Evans play if the fasciitis was really out of control. The training staff isn’t irresponsible and the organization can’t afford to risk losing him long-term due to an injury like that.

Immediately after the Kings’ final possession against the Dallas Mavericks failed, Paul Westphal was under scrutiny from those who watched the Kings lose at home in probably their best game of the young season.

But after watching it a couple of times, I have to say there was nothing wrong with the play call. It was actually a very good play with tons of options to score. The ball was put in the hands of DeMarcus Cousins and he ended up failing. It wasn’t Westphal’s fault. Cousins just made a mistake.

Let’s break this down Sebastian Pruiti style and pretend we’re NBA Playbook for a day.

Play starts with a clutter of Kings between the elbow and the 3-point line with Francisco Garcia down by the baseline. Omri jets to the near corner, Landry flashes to the far corner and Garcia moves to the far sideline above the 3-point line. Cousins flashes towards Tyreke to receive the pass.

As soon as Tyreke inbounds the ball, he cuts through the lane behind Jason Kidd after he fakes towards Cousins for the hand-off. At this point, Cousins should have hit Reke with a good pass over the top. This is where the play begins to fall apart.

Once Cousins misses the opportunity, Chandler’s wingspan takes away the passing lane and closes off that option for DeMarcus. This gives Cousins the lane to drive, which he does.

Cousins has one more chance to pass to Reke once Chandler has to cut off the drive, but Kidd drops down. As DMC gets into the lane, Dirk helps off of Carl Landry. This is another misses scoring opportunity because Cousins did have a slight window to drop the pass down to Reke. He also could have just tried to score the ball himself.

Cousins opts to kick out to Landry at the 3-point line, probably out of nervousness. Dirk tips the pass and it gets Landry farther away from the basket but actually gives Carl a better driving lane on the baseline.

Landry drives the baseline but instead of just going into Chandler and trying to score over him or draw the contact, he goes deeper towards the baseline and gets caught behind the backboard.

Landry really has nowhere to go with the ball or the pass at this point. He forces one out to Garcia about 35 feet from the basket. Jason Terry cuts over to intercept the pass and seal the win for the Mavericks.

Sad Panda. Terry steals the ball and the Kings lose the game.

Here is the play in real time.

Overall, I think Westphal is unfairly taking heat for this final play. The play in theory was brilliant. It gave the Kings multiple opportunities to score and tie the game. Maybe you can rip him for putting the ball in the hands of a rookie, but that happened a few times last season and worked out fine.

Good play but poor execution.

The Lakers obliterated the Kings.

It was never close.

I don’t really know what to say to make you feel better or worse about this loss. It was just a good old fashioned butt-whipping.

So instead of trying to make sense of something that makes total sense, watch this.

Kings vs Dallas tonight at home will hopefully be better. That is all.