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Sacramento Kings Report
By Joe Cronin and Ken Gimblin February 20, 2005 |
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SACRAMENTO -- The Kings are not playing so good. It seems like when a Kings player gets injured, it takes them a game or two to get back into the routine of doing what they have to do to win. Recently, they lost four in a row for the first time this season. This is first time in a long time that three of those losses were at home. And it's the idea that this slide occured because the team lost Bobby Jackson. We don't believe in our hearts that Jackson is never going to play again -- he was a big feature for this team as the NBA's best sixth man two years ago. But that was his specialty he'd come off the bench and provide some spark and some leadership. The Kings would be seven down and then pretty quick they'd be seven up when he left. Jackson was an extremely valuable player because of his quickness and he was a good defender for a little guy. The Kings had to do something to get more offensive punch, so they traded Doug Christie to Orlando for Cuttino Mobley. Now Mobley has a problem coming up with the Kings in that he's a free agent at the end of this upcoming season. Most people think that he'll sign with Sacramento. He doesn't have a reputation of being a great defender, and if he has any liability, that's what it really is. Now having said that, Christie was losing a step and was at the end of his days offensively. For you to function well as an offensive player, you have to some jump in your shot, and he really seem to be getting old at 35. He was not the tremendous defender he was even last year, and his offense has slipped from last year too. Christie was losing it, and Mobley is six years younger. Mobley has an offensive end to his game that is really great and judging from the past few games he appears to like playing in Sacramento and should be a valuable addition to the team. Mobley is the kind of guy you could win with when he gets hot. He could make the difference when he hits two or three threes, and when he's cold he just the opposite too. But nonetheless, signing him for next year is going to be a problem. People up in the Sacramento area, where you folks in the Bay area send your tax money, think that a trade is probable and even possible and most of the ideas of trades would be to trade the big power forward Chris Webber away to get some get some valuable commodities for him. Its' not likely Webber's knees are bad, he's been missing seven games with the idea that he's just got to learn how to pace himself. However, he's been playing really good the last three or four games and had a triple double the last three games in a row and that just doesn't happen very often. Webber's just one part that is functioning the best. Is Webber the kind of a guy the Kings are going to keep around here? Well, you know running up and down hardwood courts is no way to help your knees and at this point, Webber has a season or two left. There is still time to move him. The Kings are talking about a deal with New York, but that's mostly wishful thinking. We don't think anybody out there is going to give the Kings the value that Webber would really have towards the team. And they're talking about the New York Knicks approaching that, but New York doesn't really have a good team and they may not have anybody to trade back to Sacramento. So the Kings wouldn't lose too much in the transaction, but in Sacramento the General Manager, Geoff Petrie, is the absolute best one in the game. Petrie is really good because he knows how to keep his mouth shut and keep his options open. Any guy that does that is extremely valuable. Nobody here in the Sacramento area had any idea or any other parts of the management of the team, because they like to do things without everybody knowing. When the Kings got rid of Christie, who was a big fan favorite, he was revered by most people in the Sacramento area. It doesn't seem possible that Christie would have been traded because most people said he was a good defender, but he got traded to Orlando. Mobley would give you eight or ten points per game and the Kings are going to have less of a defensive team and more of an offensive team for a while. The best guess would be that one or more of them has a real good reputation as a defender, but nobody knows. Nobody gets any inkling before it happens. If you read the newspaper in the morning and you say, "Holy cats, they traded who and they got what?" It's a good thing about our work -- we get the head start on that before we get the surprise with the rest of the world because its always a total surprise. Joe Cronin and Ken Gimblin continue their journey with the Sacramento Kings get the scoop from the horse mouth and listen to their talk show on Sportstalk on Sacramento's KLIB 1110 and San Jose's KVVN 1430. |
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