This Just In: The Sacremento Kings Are Really, Really Bad

With two fantasy league starters and the promised goodness of a matchup against the worst team in the league, I tuned in to the Sixers-Kings game.

And, um, hoo boy, are the Kings awful.

How bad are they? Well, the Sixers gave Kareem Rush playing time tonight. In fact, a good amount of it, the most he's had since December. Rush has played in two other games in the last two months. And it's not because the Sixers were having injury concerns, or that they didn't need the game; it was just because they could, and with a game looming tomorrow night in Portland, there was no reason not to.

The lead was 28 a little more than a minute into the second half, and it was closer than it should have been, because the Kings' "offense" of dribbling it up court and having a player shoot a crazy long three pointer was more effective than you might imagine. And yes, I know, what else was I expecting from a 15-54 team and all, but good grief, they are terrible. Philly set a new record for points in the first half for this season with 69... beating their previous record which was set on, you guessed it, the Kings.

(The Kings actually made it a game late behind Spencer Hawes slowly accumulating triple double numbers and Francisco Garcia getting a season high from made threes, but I never felt compelled to rewrite the lede here. Make of that what you will. Your final score was Sixers 112, Kings 100.)

There is a palpable feel and stink to a bad pro basketball team. The lifelessness of the defensive rotations, the abandon in which the opponent drives to the hoop, the zeal in which opposing star players start working, because they know that tonight is the night that you are not going to have to pace yourself, and that if you are going to get numbers, you will need them in the first three quarters, because your ass will likely be bench-bound in the fourth; it's all very recognizable to someone who came up in the Doug Moe Era in Philadelphia. Andre Iguodala had been struggling with his shot in the last couple of games; tonight he hit his first 10 in a row. Bad teams have a way of doing that.

But for this all to happen in a wildly enthusiastic setting like Sacremento, where the locals care way too much because they are the only game in town, and the team won 55 games just a couple of years ago... well, it's hard to imagine, really, that a franchise could fall this far, this fast, without some sort of catastrophe happening on the court or in the owner's box.

Sheesh, even last year, they had 38 wins and were in the playoff hunt.

There's also the *way* in which the Kings lose. Bank shots that miss the rim entirely. Turnovers are common, and not from attempts at spectacular passes; just from the routine, day-in, day-out kind of throws that you never see sail in to the stands from a decent team. They must have hit the sideline monitors a half dozen times tonight. No player stands out as a plus offensive or defensive player, and they don't move the ball in any way that might convince you that Pete Carill is drawing a paycheck.

Of course, they don't defend worth a damn, and didn't even in the glory days. The most speed I might have seen from a Kings employee tonight might have been from the mascot. He had hops, too.

Word has it that the Kings aren't long for Northern California, with the Maloofs looking to take them to Vegas or Anaheim or God knows where else. The next place will get a team with no real signature player. Kevin Martin gets numbers, but has no game that puts fear into any opponent. Rookie Jason Thompson may be tolerable, but they need a lot more than that. Hawes wound up with 17 points, 11 boards and 9 assists tonight, and for the life of me, I can't remember any of his points.

More telling about the Kings is that the owners seem to have lost their taste for this sort of thing. How else can you explain locking up Beno Udrih, a career mediocrity as a back up point guard, to a five-year, $32 million deal? Or failing to get anything meaningful in trades that moved veterans John Salmons and Brad Miller? Is anyone even still trying here?

But at least they beat the Knicks the other night, which means that they won't be the first team in the history of the league to lose every game they played against the opposing conference. So there's that. Oh, and they also will have the most lottery balls in next year's hopper, which is shaping up to be one of the worst drafts in recent history; maybe they'll wind up with Blake Griffin, who looks like another meh pro to me. Plus, they'll have lots of money under the cap to try to lure a premier free agent to a one-team cow town that might be on the move. Good luck with all of that.

For the Sixers, the win gives them a 2-2 road trip so far, with wins against the Lakers and Kings, and losses to the Suns and Warriors. Realistically, it's what you'd expect from the trip. if not quite the order you'd predict. If they can somehow pull out a win on the fourth game in five nights in Portland against the rested Blazers, they have a winning trip.

And despite the de facto bye they got tonight, I'm not really expecting it. Portland, unlike the Kings, are actually trying to win games.

Blogrolling Needs A New Arena

Won't you please save a word today? Me, I'm going with boreism, or possibly namelings to describe the dozens of Ramerizi in MLB.

NY Yankees Rumors.com has dozens of photos of the new yard, which looks really big and very expensive -- shocking, I am sure. His caption for the photo above ("It’s like an all Yankees Cooperstown") either shows that he's never actually been to Cooperstown, or that I'm very bitter, or both.

The latest NBA Teams are on the move post from Fanleader.com, by way of the Boston Globe, has the Kings and Pacers looking for greener pastures. The Kings are said to be going to Anaheim, which probably makes more sense than their usual destination of Las Vegas, given how the Association has issues with that town, and they really don't have an arena that's up to standards.

As for the Pacers, let's just say that Ron Artest killed basketball in that state, and be done with it. In reality, the rent on Conseco Fieldhouse is $15 million per year, and this is in all likelihood just a negotiating ploy on the plight of a bad team that is currently last in the league in attendance.

It's said that the Pacers have lost money in 26 out of 28 years, so maybe it's more than just Testy, but it just sounds right to blame him, doesn't it? (As for where they will go... the usual suspects now are Kansas City, Seattle and, again, Vegas. But if freaking Indiana can't support an NBA team, doesn't that just make you wonder if any place can?)

30 teams have passed on Barry Bonds, but it's news when the Red Sox do it. Of course, the Bahstons were definitely always going to stay away from him, since he's a steroid user and all.

Today's Obvious NBA Snark Moment

The NBA has announced that the Maloof casino in Vegas can take NBA bets, so long as they don't take bets on their Sacremento Kings.

So... the Kings are still in the NBA?

Houston's New Problem

FTT's favorite team cancer and wildly overrated NBA player is getting some new laundry. The Houston Rockets become the dumb pick to become an actual title contender by giving up a fairly worthless draft pick, an expiring contract (attached to the spent Bobby Jackson) and another player (reputed to be rookie forward Donte Greene) for the knucklehead. The Rockets are also expected to take some human ballast that goes by the name of Patrick Ewing Jr. and Sean Singletary to make the deal work.

If you want to look on the bright side of life, Testy is going to perhaps the only coach he's ever loved. Rick Adelman had him for the last half of the 05-06' Honeymoon Period in Sactown, and he milked him for 17, 5 and 4, along with a first-team NBA All-Defense selection. If he has his head on straight, the theory goes, he'll give the Rockets an imposing defensive lineup, with your crunch time five consisting of two stoppers (him and Shane Batier), two sieves (Rafer Alston and Yao Ming), and one situational (Tracy McGrady, who has the Kobe Ability to be good defensively when he chooses to expend the energy).

If you're the Rockets, I guess you had to do this deal. It's not like you're going to get this collection of talents for this rock-bottom price (seriously, Green should be the only thing that matters from the Kings side, and it's not as if he's a lock to make it, especially for a Kings franchise that's looking like it's packing light for the Las Vegas or Seattle moving vans). But what people don't get about Testy is that he's actually a pretty terrible basketball player. His muscles are for show, as the eternally bad rebounding numbers show -- we're talking about a 6'-7", 248=pound specimen (read: probable juicer) that plays major minutes, and gets just over a rebound a quarter. He's also one of those guys who shouldn't be allowed to touch the ball outside of the three point arc, and he likes to jack it up from there a lot.

This, of course, doesn't even get into the sideshow mainshow that is Testy. If your team's losing, he gets bored and bails. If your team's winning, he's still a ticking time bomb with the refs, coaches, opposing fans, and life. He's also, not to put to fine a point on it, a genuinely bad human being, even by infamous athlete standards: witness the dog abuse stuff that went on in Sactown, let alone the pull the pin and toss the grenade routine that single-handedly destroyed the Pacers. This is just a guess, but I'm thinking that he's responsible for Jermaine O'Neal becoming useless, too.

Well, let the pretending begin, Houston Fan. Maybe this is the year that brittle big man Yao Ming finally stays healthy. Or that Rafer Alston isn't really a deluxe backup masquerading as a starter. Or that two guys with ineffective offensive games (Battier and Testy) can trade off the wing positions and not chafe each other -- heck, just having a franchise with eventual presidential candidate Battier with eventual convicted felon Testy makes the Rockets the sports blogosphere's go-to team. Oh, and that Rick Adelman, of all people, can crack the whip and make them all stay in line. Me, I'll put money down under the Tracy McGrady Loses In The First Round prop bet. That's worked out swimmingly for me for years.

What would I have done? Signed the surprising and effective Carl Landry, given him the starting minutes, saved yourself the heartache, and worked on the glaring Achilles' heels that are really going to doom this franchise over the next few years: the fact that they don't have a point guard on the roster that can stay with Chris Paul or Deron Williams, and that Yao is a terrible on-the-ball defender and a guy who's longing for Ziggy Ilgauskas's durability. But now, all of that gets forgotten about, because the circus has come to town.

And if you think I'm wrong, find a Kings fan -- I'm sure there still are some, it's not like those cow tippers have anything else to watch -- that tells you he's really going to miss Testy, and that he'll fondly look back on his tenure in the capital for all of the wins and winning play. Good luck finding that guy. (OTOH, I was the guy who thought the Celtics would never get Garnett, and that when they did get him, he wasn't going to be enough to get them a ring. So start printing up Finals tickets.)

Dammit, Testy, You're Better Than That

A week after Mike Bibby and his overrated but still competent self was sent out of town for a big pile of nothing...

Ron Artest has gone back on his claim from earlier this month that the Kings "would be better if I wasn't on the team."

Testy is making $7.4 million a year, which seems like a bargain -- hell, that's Bobby Sura money. Unfortunately, he's wildly overrated, a bad percentage shooter, a below-average rebounder despite his (likely roid-addled) physique and a team poison that could murder everyone on the team in their sleep, with no one in the media or NBA fandom doing much more than saying "Damn, I had April in the pool."

So what's he saying now? Hold on to your hats. Sactown, despite being clearly lottery-bound, is getting a parade!

"I am anxious to see what my future holds, [but] I like Sac," Artest wrote in an e-mail. "My entire focus is with Sac and winning a championship this year."

Well, far be it from me to cast aspersions on the Tru Warier's commitment. He's given up rap, disappointing thousands of fans of unintentional comedy. He hasn't beaten his chest like King Kong, prompting an ejection, for, like, days. He's got the back of his coach, former sitcom star Reggie Theus, who calls him the go-to guy on the team. (That sound you just heard was Kevin Martin calling his agent, looking for a trade.) Everything is coming up Testy!

Except for the fact that... the Kings are 23-28, 5 games under .500, and 8.5 games out of the last playoff spot in the West. That's currently a 3-way dance between the 32-20 Warriors, Rockets and Nuggets -- three teams with vastly superior talent, coaches and fan bases, given that Testy in Sactown is a Fish Out of Water script that Disney would reject as being too unrealistic to grunt out a movie from. That massive home-court advantage the Kings used to enjoy? Not so much now.

They'd also have to finish above Portland, who actually have team chemistry, let alone talented young players. And, well... Sactown just traded their starting point guard in an obvious give-up move for the future, and they've made no indication that they want more of Testy after this year. Given that the team has made no real move forward since he came there, you can hardly blame the Maloofs for not exactly rolling out the Chris Webber contract for the Warier.

If this were any NBA player other than Testy, I'd think he was just saying the right thing to help grease the wheels for the next trade. But this is the biggest heel in the Association we're talking about here, a guy who Dennis Rodman thinks is unhinged. You aren't going to deal for him under the idea that he's turned over a new leaf. You'd pull the trigger for him if you are getting killed defensively at small forward, have nothing to lose, and have a tried-and-true clubhouse that might stand a chance of keeping him in line. You know, the way the Bulls (and not the Mavs or Spurs) won with Rodman. Under those criteria, maybe the Spurs go for him in the Stephen Jackson Memorial Role, but only if they think Bruce Bowen is ready for the glue farm. Maybe the Pistons could also pull him off, except for the fact that Tayshaun Prince is the same player, but better.

The point is that no one is buying the Nice Testy act. He might as well keep his rep alive and show up to practice with a suicide bomb belt and a timer clock until the trade deadline.

Besides, at the end of the day, we all know there is only one place for Testy to be -- the same place that was rumored last March. New York, for David Lee, so that both teams could have More of the Same.

The Incredibly Irrelevant New York Knicks would become Must Destroy Your TV watching with Testy. Watching him try to take shots away from the rest of these me-first maniacs, seeing his reactions to Isiah's bizarro-land coaching decisions, having him get in the grill of no-defense big men like Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph in his occasional bouts of caring about winning and losing...

Well, it'd be entertaining, in the way that a train wreck becomes infinitely more captivating when, after the bodies have stopped twitching and the moaning has subsided, smoke and fire start to appear, and you know Big Explosions are going to happen. One of the few always-true points about life is that so long as it's present, it can get worse... and Testy in his hometown, with that roster, fan base and coach, is almost like a science experiment of awful. Come on Isiah, ignore Testy's not-completely bloated salary and the sense of self-preservation that fills most people when they are in the presence of homicidal nutbags. Get it done!

Bibbylicious Trade Analysis

Sacramento has thrown in the towel for this year, and the Hawks have locked up that first-round playoff loss (because, um, he's not getting them out of a first-round matchup against Boston, Detroit, or even Orlando)... because here's the dirty little not-so-secret about this 29-year-old "point guard."

He hasn't had more than 6.8 assists per game since he was a Vancouver Grizzly.

He hasn't shot 45% from the floor since 2003-04.

He gives you a little more than 3 boards a game, despite logging pretty heavy minutes. And it's not like there hasn't been a lot of loose balls to be had in King Land the last few years, or a dominant big man that's been grabbing up all the boards.

He makes, gulp, $12.5 million a year, is coming off a serious injury...

and is, um, a defensive sieve who hasn't won a playoff series since, again, 2003.

If I had to list a top 10 most overrated players in the NBA, he's the point guard, really.

Now, he can shoot some 3's, has been hot in the playoffs in the past, and is the first player in a Hawks uniform that has actually been through some meaningful games. They didn't give up anything all that meaningful to get him, assuming the deal goes through as originally reported.

But he's just, well, not that good... and that's today, at 29. In the long term in the Eastern Conference, this does nothing to swing the world down Atlanta way.

Taste Some Testy

My favorite part of this is when the Testy Insanity spreads to Reggie Theus... or maybe its the Tru Warier's constant King Kong chest pounding... or the odd sense that his teammates are either with him or just too scared to not slap his hand as he's leaving... well, play it, by all means. There's too much here to miss.



To be fair, Testy was facing the Jazz and Matt Harpring. It's not like that combination hasn't provoked lesser psychos to murder. Also, he recently announced his retirement from rap, so maybe he's just feeling blocked creatively. Or, just from looking at him, that he's in a permanent case of roid rage. (And yet, still doesn't really rebound that much. Those muscles are for show, not tell.) Finally, the man has to live in Sactown now. I've been there. It's flat. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in the immortal words of Chris Rock covering the New Hampshire primary. I'm guessing he's not finding a lot of hair care products.

In other news, the Kings are 18-24 and 7 games out of the last playoff spot in the West, though they are better since getting Bibby and Martin back. Are the Maloofs still even paying attention?