Fall from Royalty, Part Three: The Final Touches on the Decline of the Sacramento Kings

However, Douby (at best an undersized shooting guard) was selected with the 19th pick, ahead of PGs Rajon Rondo, Kyle Lowry, Marcus Williams, Jordan Farmar, Sergio Rodriguez, Booby Gibson...seriously, should I even continue? There is no chance that any GM would consider a Douby for (fill in the blanks with any of these guys), even if you tossed in a second-rounder for good measure. This was a big miss. 

Step 12: Sign John Salmons (Summer 2006)

I hated this deal when it went down.  Here's proof from an entry in my old blog:

"Can someone please explain to me why my Kings thought it necessary to pay $5 million over 5 years to a guy with career averages of 5 pts, 2 rebs and 2 assists? Not to mention the fact that they already have full house of 6 players at 6-7 or 6-8 on the roster...and Kevin Martin and Francisco Garcia at the same position, but who can actually shoot. Why not give Bonzi $8 million? At least he cleans the glass and bullies dudes. From what I can tell Salmons is a jack-of-no-trades...

My friend Hutch: Who is John Salmons?

How can the King's spend $5 million a year for John Salmons and the Wizards sign DeShaun Stevenson for less than a million per? Damn that's frustrating"

I still think the Kings would be much better off with Bonzi than Salmons and would have received similar contributions from DeShawn Stevenson if the Kings signed him to the two-year (NBA minimum) $2 million deal the Wizards inked.

While Salmons has played well this year, the Kings still owe him $16 million over the next three seasons. Stevenson—who is two years younger, plays better defense, and had three years as an NBA starter at 24 years old—opted out of year two of his deal and resigned with the Wizards last summer for four years $15 million. In the end the Wizards paid $9 million less for a guy that they even got to test drive from $1 million.

Additionally, the emergence of Kevin Martin makes this move even more difficult to swallow. With Martin and Artest in place, Salmons becomes a $5-6 million a year backup with similar skills to Francisco Garcia, who's still on his rookie contract for $1-3 million over the next two years. 

While this deal is not as awful as I first imagined, given Salmons team-first attitude, versatility, decent handle, and improving shot (50 percent FG this year for a 44 percent career guy), I think Stevenson would have been the better choice given the defensive direction and the contract he ended up with in Washington.

Step 13: Fired Eric Musselman and hired Reggie Theus (Summer 2007)

Taking a chance on Reggie Theus has been a very good decision thus far. While the jury is still out on whether he will be able to have success in the long run, this team is much more crisp and more disciplined than DUI Eric's team ever hoped to be last year.

Step 14: Draft Spencer Hawes (Summer 2007)

Given the Kings' worst offseason in recent memory and the incompetence of their coach, it was not a huge surprise that a team that mustered 44 wins in 2005-06 could not make the playoffs in 2006-07. The benefit of that failure of course was a couple of balls in the hopper for the Oden-Durant sweepstakes.

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