The NBA announced today that Kyrie Irving won this year's NBA Rookie of the Year award. The Kings Isaiah Thomas placed seventh in the voting. Thomas received no first place votes, 6 second place votes, and 10 third place votes.
Although Irving was the expected winner of the award, it is surprising that Thomas finished so low. IT had regularly been debated to place somewhere between second and fourth in voting, in contention with runner-up Ricky Rubio and third place finisher Kenneth Faried. Instead, Thomas was also surpassed by Kawhi Leonard, Iman Shumpert, an Klay Thompson.
Although disappointing, seventh amongst all rookies caps an incredible season for the 60th pick in the draft. "Mr. Irrelevant" earned a role in the Kings starting line-up, finished the season with an average of 11.5 points and 4.1 assist per game, averaging 25.5 minutes per contest. Thomas also won Rookie of the Month honors in February and March. Irving was the only other rookie to win the honor more than once this season.
There is some discussion of the award and voting in Dub_TC's fanshot. A full breakdown of the votes can be found after the jump.
An NBA spokesman told Sactown Royalty on Saturday that there is no meeting between commissioner David Stern and Filipino tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan scheduled. A report out of Manila this week said that Stern and MVP would meet to discuss a deal to buy the Kings, a team that is not for sale.
MVP has been tied to the Kings via reports and rumors for a while now, and was said to be involved in the Chris Webber group that popped up last year. In an excellent podcast on Cowbell Kingdom, Rafe Bartholomew, author of Pacific Rims, explained MVP's interest in NBA ownership and the Philippines' love affair with basketball.
One note of particular interest from Bartholomew's chat with Jon Santiago and Jameser Ham is that Tyreke Evans was apparently added to the roster for last summer's Manila All-Star event because MVP wanted to see the King play in person. It remains unclear why Hassan Whiteside wasn't also added.
But dreams of new owners will apparently remain just that. MVP seems like a solid No. 2 in the Dream Owner Power Rankings, behind Ron Burkle.
One of a couple of excuses peddled to explain the Sacramento Kings' relative lack of progress this season has been injury troubles. But data from the Sixers' stats person published by SB Nation brother site NetsDaily shows that by the raw numbers the Kings were actually pretty fortunate on the injury front.
At least 10 Kings missed time due to injury, but most of the absences were brief. According to the data, Sacramento only lost 73 player-games to injury, the sixth-lowest figure in the league. The most: the Nets lost 248 player-games to injury, just about 3-1/2 times than Sacramento did.
Of course, context is missing from the equation here; injuries to, say, LeBron James and DeShawn Stevenson aren't remotely the same on the court. Using this data, they are the same on paper. The Kings' biggest injuries were to Chuck Hayes (who wasn't great when on the court), Marcus Thornton (who was one of the team's better players) and John Salmons (who had a good run once moved to the bench, where he was injured). So the raw numbers may underrate the actual impact injuries had on the Kings.
SI.com's Sam Amick has a full round-up of front office movement orbiting around the Portland Trail Blazers' vacancy. The local hook is the continued suggestion by folks in the Oregon media that Sacramento Kings basketball ops chief Geoff Petrie is still considered an option up north. But have the Blazers, who are actively seeking a new GM, reached out to the Kings to ask permission to talk to Petrie? Not yet.
If they do, they'll get an OK from the Maloofs, Amick reports.
With one season left on his contract, there continues to be conflicting signs about his future with the team, and while co-owner Joe Maloof told SI.com on Saturday that Portland has not requested permission to speak with Petrie, he said he would allow him to pursue the opportunity if that was his wish.
"We'd love to keep him, but we aren't going to hold him back if he did get another offer," Joe Maloof said. "It's whatever he decides."
I don't think there's any chance Petrie ends up back in Portland. But a separation that involved him getting another job might actually be the only way he leaves and the only way the Maloofs lose him.
Of course, if Petrie did leave, we'd likely be left with Chris Thornberg or Eric Rose as the team's GM, so ...
DeMarcus Cousins picked up his 13th technical foul of the season on Sunday against the Bobcats. Boogie and rookie Bismack Biyombo exchanged words, and referees did what referees do when Cousins is involved: they blew a quick whistle, assessing double technicals.
Thirteen is the threshold for automatic one-game suspensions this season, so Cousins is scheduled to be barred from Tuesday's game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. That's a tough game with DeMarcus; without him, it's increasingly difficult to imagine victory.
But according to Jason Jones' gamer, Keith Smart says that the Kings will look at appealing the tech, which would put Cousins back at 12 technical fouls and safe (for now). While it's not clear whether the Kings appealed any of Cousins' techs last season, he definitely had at least one rescinded. Sunday's whistle was itchy enough that most seemed confused as to whether double technicals or just a double foul had been assessed.
After two depressing Press Conferences today, the first from the Maloofs and the second from David Stern. Both essentially declared the current arena deal as dead. Kevin Johnson, who flew into New York late last night, got a chance to respond in a press conference after meeting with the Maloof Family.
For those hoping for some good news, you were once again disappointed. Clearly emotional and upset, Johnson appeared baffled that the process had come to this point. He reiterated several times that the deal in Orlando, while non-binding, was agreed to by all parties. More to the point, Johnson's core point was that "Sacramento Deserves Better".
Mayor Johnson talked about how much the city of Sacramento has done, something also stated by David Stern in his press conference. The city got one year to form a feasible arena plan starting from last year's Board of Governor's meeting. The city did that, and the only ones balking at the deal in the end was not the city, not the NBA, and not AEG, but the Maloofs.
Without the Sacramento Kings as a major tenant contributing $75 million, the arena is pretty much dead in its tracks. On the Maloofs' statements today that they'd possibly be interested in renovating Power Balance Pavilion, Johnson said that if the Maloofs wanted to renovate the arena with private dollars, that was their prerogative. He found it ironic that the Maloofs would say that now after telling him a while ago that an arena renovation was not viable.
"What I learned today, is that sometimes people can change their minds."
Mayor Johnson went on to talk about how it looked like the Maloofs were trying to come up with reasons not to do the deal. On the Kings' future in Sacramento, Johnson refused to speculate. That's now up to the Maloofs, who released this statement today:
Despite best efforts to negotiate an agreement with the City of Sacramento, and at the conclusion of a meeting this afternoon with Mayor Johnson, he advised us that there is nothing to be gained by continued discussions at this time.
We are committed to remaining the Sacramento Kings.
We only received a non-binding term sheet regarding a complex $400 million transaction 8 days before the Mayor's deadline of March 1st. From the moment we received it, we expressed our serious concerns with many of the proposed terms and conditions. Even now, these concerns have yet to be addressed by the City.
The negotiations that have occurred surrounding, as Commissioner Stern said repeatedly today during his news conference a "non-binding framework", never resulted in a deal that was good for the City or good for the team.
We are going to continue to work hard building our exciting young nucleus into a play-off contending team that all Sacramento citizens will be proud of.
We want to thank our loyal fans.
We love Sacramento and we will continue all of our civic and charitable involvement that over the past 15 years has resulted in more than $20 million in cash and in-kind donations to more than 200 community organizations.
On the Maloofs proposed term sheet's changes, Johnson said something to the effect that he'd be executed in Sacramento if he brought those changes to the table. The biggest one was the Maloofs' refusal to put up collateral in case the city re-financed. He also says that he wasn't aware of these "complications" until today, while the Maloofs claimed the city has had it for seven weeks. He also said that going forward, there is definite issue of trust between himself and the Maloofs in any future dealings.
"Is the deal as we know it dead? Absolutely."
Where do we go from here? Who knows. But this is a dark day for the city of Sacramento, and for Sacramento Kings fans.
Jason Jones reports straight from the player's mouth that Terrence Williams has signed a deal to remain with the Sacramento Kings for the remainder of the 2011-12 season. Williams signed a 10-day deal with the club a week ago; he'd been waived by the Houston Rockets after the trade deadline. Because Houston declined to pick up the team option for next season and waived him, Williams will be an unrestricted free agent at season's end.
If the Kings were interested in signing Williams to a multi-year, they could use their cap space this season to frontload a deal, but it's unlikely there will be a huge market for the wing in the summer, so there's probably little reason to play with what should be a small cap figure.
Williams picked up eight points, six rebounds and four assists on Friday in the win over the Jazz, and has been used as a playmaker. His passing ability appears to be as good as we'd heard.
UPDATE: The Kings have sent an official press release confirming that Williams is signed for the rest of the season.
Jason Jones of The Bee talked to Geoff Petrie and the Maloofs, and everyone denied Pete Vecsey's report that the Kings are working on an extension for the team's longtime GM. This is totally believable for two reasons: other pieces of Vecsey's column have also been refuted, and it really makes no sense to extend Petrie right now, even by this team's standards.
Even for Petrie, it doesn't necessarily make sense -- he hopes and believes the team will be in a better position at this time next year, and that the Maloofs will be closer to profitable in Sacramento. That's when he wants to ink an extension: with the team looking good and the owners' finances looking good. Those remain question marks, but that's the risk you take.
The Maloofs do commit to Petrie for next season, reaffirm their adoration for what Keith Smart is doing and intone that "eventually it's going to translate into wins."
For fans like me who would sooner turn the front office over to Ailene Voisin than give Petrie an extension, this is good news.
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