Straight to the Point: Sacramento Kings Must Weigh Lottery Options Carefully

The NBA Finals has wrapped up with a convincing five game series win for the Los Angeles Lakers, and loyal Sacramento Kings followers have every reason to be shaking their collective heads in misery.

It’s been a long season full of woe and frustration, with row upon row of empty seats at Arco serving as bitter testament to the team’s epic collapse to the rock bottom of the Western Conference standings.

As if to add another injury to the team’s perpetually-operating rehabilitation ward, the Kings’ worst season on record was promptly rewarded by falling all the way to the fourth pick in the Blake Griffin sweepstakes.

Granted, the lottery is essentially a casino in terms of its odds and unpredictable outcomes, but that didn’t stop me from being utterly stupefied when the wrong envelopes were pulled out by David Stern.

The Kings were handed a terrible set of cards. But that’s not an excuse for front office wizard Geoff Petrie to avoid making the best draft-night plays possible.

The “win now” mentality that has defined the Maloofs’ ownership strategy for the past few years has now become practically irrelevant. In fact, you should expect the Kings to be just that for the next few seasons—irrelevant.

It’s time to finally snuff out the candles and begin the process of building a championship contender anew. The draft is the first step in that process.

The fourth pick is not a bad pick. In recent years, we’ve seen perennial franchise players like Chris Paul and Chris Bosh selected from the cleanup spot, as well as very serviceable starters like Russell Westbrook and, to a (far) lesser extent, Tyrus Thomas.

Sure, there’s been borderline trash like Drew Gooden, but there’s no such thing as a surefire draft pick.  

Most pundits have complained that the draft class as a whole is weak, which is true. But there is actual a substantial concentration of talent clustered around the top. It’s just a matter of slicing through the ambiguity.

It is useless to speculate about who the Kings select without first obtaining even a vague sense of which three names could be called first.

Los Angeles Clippers: We all know that Dumbleavy and Co. will be sorely tempted to screw up their franchise beyond repair. Again. But the Clippers will almost certainly pick Griffin. With the only top-tier prospect off the board, the draft instantly becomes a much harder beast to analyze.

Memphis: The ever cost-conscious Grizzlies represent one of the most significant variables in the draft. One could argue that the usual debate between drafting the best player available and drafting for need might not even come into play here.

Ricky Rubio, who is probably the next-best player in the draft after Griffin, has already expressed hostility towards the prospect of playing in Memphis, and has made no plans to even stop here on his tour of the U.S.

It doesn’t help that Mike Conley Jr. has shown promise at the point. On the need side, there are no standout power forward prospects after Griffin, and it’s a little early to be stretching for Jordan Hill.

The logical route for Memphis would be to simply FedEx the pick for some cash money and quality young pieces. But barring a bold move to go forward with Rubio, it seems like the Grizzlies’ interest in Hasheem Thabeet may otherwise come full circle.

Oklahoma City: The Thunder face a similar dilemma with regards to Rubio, as Westbrook is currently solidly occupying the starting floor general spot on the depth chart.

There’s been some valid speculation that Westbrook could slide over to the two, but it’s still a thorny situation and only the Thunder’s front office can determine for sure what their best interests are.

If Rubio is off the board, OKC has a variety of options. The names of Thabeet and James Harden have both been floated around on the rumor channels. Harden makes sense from a positional perspective, as he gives the Thunder the dangerous perimeter threat they desperately lack.

The dark horse here would be Stephen Curry. Word is that the Thunder like him, but it’s not known if they would prefer him over Rubio or Harden.

Sacramento - Plan A:

With all that said and done, it’s extremely probable that some combination of Harden, Rubio, and Thabeet will be off the board by the time the Kings’ first draft pick rolls around. The good news is that two of those names are unlikely to be called by the Kings.

Petrie has reportedly expressed no interest in drafting Thabeet, with major concerns revolving around his “project” status and lack of defined offensive skills. That’s a decision calculus that I’m inclined to agree with.

Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson are promising young big men who should form an integral part of the Kings’ core in years to come - adding Thabeet would strengthen the interior defense but would inevitably trade off with the development of the other young bigs. I can’t see Hawes and Thabeet being able to effectively split their minutes.

Along similar lines, Harden is an intriguing prospect, and he’s also the one most likely to be still on the board. But the Kings already have an abundance of perimeter shooters and aren’t really looking to add any more wing shooters to their small collection.

Harden has claimed that he could step in and contribute at the point, but he’s had no past history from which to analyze his point guard skills, making such a selection a risk at best.

Of the three, Rubio offers by far the most appealing package of potential, positional need, and all-around skills. It’s no secret that Petrie is a big fan of European talent, having secured the likes of Peja Stojakovic and Hedo Turkoglu in prior drafts, and Petrie has reportedly taken a liking to Rubio’s multifaceted game.

Sources do say that the Kings also believe Rubio has his fair share of flaws, and that he is not by any means the guaranteed pick should he happen to fall to their position, but that is true with every player in this draft not named Blake Griffin. Plus, you can’t discount the possibility that Petrie is only saying that as a strategic front against trade rumors.

Rubio brings the kind of name-brand value needed to bring some energy and vitality back to the franchise. From a financial standpoint, he can reinvigorate the all-omnipresent season ticket sales and put more butts in more seats.

From an on-court perspective, he has already more than proven that he has potential by putting in a strong showing at the international gauntlet that is the Olympic Games. His lockdown defense and impressive passing and handles make him an ideal candidate to lead the Kings into the future.

In addition, as of press time, Sacramento is apparently the only lottery-bound city (aside from Los Angeles) that Rubio has visited or is planning to visit. Oklahoma City is pushing for a visit to go through the routines and discuss his contract buyout, but it’s still up in the air at this point.

The Kings have already interviewed him and done a physical, but weren’t able to work him out due to an illness Rubio came down with during his stay.

Still, he may be back before draft day, and Rubio has made it very clear that if he cannot be in Los Angeles, a quick six-hour drive up I-5 would be the next-best thing.

Plus, it’d be absolutely sagacious if I could call the Kings’ new starting frontcourt “The Ricky Martins.”

If only it were that easy, though. We can speculate and daydream all we want, but the reality is that there is a substantial probability that Rubio will be off the board before the Kings can get around to nabbing him. Time to conjure up Plan B.

Plan B:

Get drunker than a Russian serf exposed to his lord’s unlocked cabinet of vodka and bemoan the inevitable relocation of the franchise to Sin City.

We jest, of course. And will someone please confirm that “drunken” is an actual word? Thanks.


Plan C:

Even with Rubio out of contention, there are still a fair number of intriguing prospects available. For the most part, the Kings have finished working out the serious contenders for the fourth pick, so we have a pretty good indication on which players are moving up the Kings’ short list.

The good news is that most of the players under consideration address the Kings’ most dire need—point guard. Beno Udrih demonstrated time and time again last season that he was not deserving of the five year contract he received. He should have been a stopgap solution at best.

This is not a mock draft, nor is it a big board. Petrie has proved over and over again that he is capable of blowing everyone’s mind on draft day with seemingly confounding picks (read: Jason Thompson) while getting the last laugh on the critics (read: Chad Ford) later on.

While the following list goes in order from those I feel are least likely to be selected to those most likely to be picked, it would not surprise me at all if one of these first couple of names ended up donning the royal purple.

Jordan Hill: Hill doesn’t bring the “oomph” factor that would compel Petrie to take a big man for the third year in a row. Thompson and Hawes have solidified the frontcourt and I don’t think Hill would ever enter the discussion here.

DeMar Derozan: The Kings are working him out as I type this. Petrie has drafted athletic wings before, most prominently Gerald Wallace, but it’s his atrocious perimeter percentages that will drive down his stock the most. He’s all hype and little substance.

Stephen Curry: The Kings have him on their workout schedule, and according to the ever-wise Sam Amick at the Sacramento Bee, there have been whispers that he is clawing his way up the draft board.

Unfortunately, putting Curry at the point would serve only to deepen the Kings’ horrendous defensive woes.

Curry and Martin are very good at what they do—jacking up shots and scoring points—but those skill sets aren’t complementary and don’t lend themselves to playing side by side. Curry would be great if he could play a sixth man role in the fashion of Jason Terry.

But it’s far too early on in the rebuilding process to be thinking about anything other than potential future starters when dealing with early lottery picks.

Tyreke Evans: He didn’t exactly blow away the Kings brass during his first workout, but he remains an intriguing option.

While he definitely has some point guard attributes, it’s no given whether those can actually transition into an NBA-ready game—remember, the rationale behind handing him the point duties at Memphis was simply so that he could bring the ball up the court and charge the hoop without needing an additional pass.

He’s probably more of a Brandon Roy lite prospect than a point guard—he can handle the ball but I don’t see him becoming a true point guard, which doesn’t make him an ideal candidate for the pick.

Jrue Holiday: It’s amazing how much a single team’s hype can impact where a player gets drafted. Before Kings (very) publicly made it known that they were very interested in Holiday, he was considered to be a late lottery pick, at best. Some mock drafts even had him going to the Kings—at pick 23!

But despite all the hype surrounding his unrealized potential, it’s largely unknown whether he can step in right after and transition to the playmaker the Kings need him to be. At UCLA (where yours truly is attending in the fall, I might add), he was mostly relegated to off-the-ball duties alongside Darren Collison.

On the other hand, if he proves capable of transitioning to being a true point guard, his size, length, and defensive mindset will bring a whole new skill spectrum to the Kings’ frontcourt.

Udrih and Martin proved over and over again to be inept at slowing the opponent’s guards, and Holiday could help serve to remedy that while still contributing on the offensive end.

Jonny Flynn: According to multiple sources, Flynn has just rocketed up the draft boards in wake of his Sacramento workout, where he impressed the team with his leadership and on-court play.

He is as focused as point guards come, which is absolutely a necessity at the highest echelons of the game. Flynn is also explosively quick and can just clean you out of your shoes on his way to the hoop.

One thing that the scouts really like about Flynn is his attitude. He’s really a natural leader and makes everyone around him better—think the opposite of Rajon Rondo, who has been described by Doc Rivers as being moody and a pain to play with. Those kind of qualities should also make him a very popular person in the Sacramento community.

On the other hand, Flynn often makes questionable on-court decisions. That is something that can be remedied with coaching and maturity, though, so I’m not worried about it.

Flynn could step in right away as a point guard, and I’m fairly confident that he is one of the lowest-risk picks in the draft. Is he Chris Paul-caliber? Probably not. But if can prove that he has the work ethic to improve his average jump shot, he will have all the tools to be a widely-respected player in this league for years to come.

I would put him in a virtual tie with Holiday with respect to draft positioning, but he gets the slight nod because of his workout performance.

Wrap-up:

The Kings should try to draft Rubio, but if he’s not available, Jonny Flynn and Jrue Holiday would both be ideal candidates for the pick. As long as the Kings take one of those three point guards, they should be in relatively good shape.

Of course, I haven’t even touched on the Houston pick and the Kings’ second rounder, or what could happen post-draft, but that will have to wait for my next article. This one can’t really get much longer than it already is without leading to some negative side effects for those who have been intently hanging on to each of the 2460 words displayed here.

Like the virtual ink flowing from my fingertips to your computer screen? Think my colorful observations are more worthy of a garbage compacter? I want to hear your feedback, so post them up in the comments section. Thanks.

- Nick