Here is my mock draft, usually when a player does well in the tournament, their stock goes up in the draft. Teams are gonna pass on Sheldon Williams, due to poor tournament performance. He’ll be the next Elton Brand and will help that Hornets go to the playoffs next year. I put Reddick with the Jazz, looking at the Jazz's draft history they pick over hyped white dudes, who can’t play in the NBA. Hopefully the Sonics get Brandon Roy, he and Ridnouer will form the best back court in the league circa 2110. I only did college players that I have seen play and one Eurotrash dude that Espn ranked high. I guessed the teams that will end up with the highest lottery picks.

 1. Bulls from knicks- joekim Noah.  Had a good tournment, he could really develop 

2. Portland Trailblazers- Adam Morrison. Keep him local.  

3. Charlotte Bobcats-  Tyrus Thomas

4. Atlanta Hawks-Lemarcus Aldridge

5. Toronto Raptors-  Randy foye

6. Orlando Magic- Josh Mcroberts

7. Golden state- Andrea Bargani. The bay area better have ample olive oil and garlic.

8. Boston Celtics- Dee Brown

9. Timerwolves- Rodney Carney

10. Supersonics- Brandon Roy

11. Rockets- Al Hortford

12. Bulls- Ronnie Brewer

13.Utah jazz- J.J reddick. Another white person playing basketball in Utah, I don’t understand.

14 Hornets- Sheldon Williams. Every team will regret passing on him

15. 76ers- Maurice Ager

16 Indiana- Jordan Farmar.  

17. Sacramento-leon powe

Rudy Gay was going pretty high but he will end up a second rounder, due to poor performance in the tournement    

"This might be my last one. Thought I'd go out with a bang. This is it. I mean, let me be free. They need to trade me for a big man. This has gotta be my last game. I know the trading deadline is tomorrow and nothing against the fans of Portland, but I just want to be happy. Hopefully, things go right for me. I just want to start my career over."

The move also reunites Ruben with his old Cincinnati partner in crime Kenyon Martin. No word yet on whether or not Bob Huggins is sober enough to be brought on as an assistant coach, but Karl is definitely going to need someone around to dole out hush money to the scores of traumatized Denver residents whom Rube and K-Mart will undoubtedly leave in their wake.

So Denver gets some defense, Seattle gets a back-up PG with a hella long contract and a decrepit Byron Russell, and Portland gets a back-up PF/C and a little cap room, and one less Ruben Patterson. Wrap it up; I'll take it. So long Ruben, don't forget to register when you get to Colorado, you scum bag.

Update: It seems as if I spoke too soon. Rumor is the deal now has Brian Skinner coming to the Blazers from Sacto instead of Vitaly, in exchange for Sergei. Potepenko supposedly is off to the Kings, and the Blazers are still getting Lenard. I liked the first version a lot better. Skinner makes too damn much. This still hasn't been finalized, so who knows what it will look like when everything shakes out.

You'd think there would a limit to the number of wholly embarassing losses the Kings would suffer this season before something would happen - you know, a starter benched, a coach fired, a player traded, a GM axed. But no. There's no limit. Let's count them off:

1. The opener against New Orleans/Oklahoma City. 67 points? One hell of a bad omen.

2. At home against Detroit. This is one of those contests they should call after the third- you know this team ain't even thinking about coming back against that team.

3. At home against Denver. You go into the fourth trailing by 1. You lose by 16. Hrmmm.

4. At home against the Knicks. Wow, that was a depressing game.

5. The home game against Minnesota. The offense was the most anemic I've seen in Sacramento since like 1989.

6. Home against Houston. Don't call it a comeback.

7. At Charlotte. Ladies and gentlemen, Kevin Burleson and Bernard Robinson Jr.: Kings killers.

8. At home against Dallas. Giving up with six minutes to go is poor show.

9. At home against Portland, the worst team in the West. Insult, injury - eff it all.

10. At home against the Pacers. The game that was over at halftime. Seriously. It was over.

11. Last night, at the OU Sooners. Yeah.

Losing to four last-place teams before New Year's is bad. Remember, the Knicks were in the Atlantic cellar at 0-5 when they came in and stomped the Kings at ARCO. So were the Southwest Division's Rockets. We lost a tight one in Charlotte (last place in the Southeast) a week prior to last night's embarassment against Portland (last place in the Northwest).

The only division whose last place team we haven't lost to is the Central. The key there? We haven't played last-place Chicago (who would likely be the best team in the Atlantic and second-best team in the Southeast). Don't fret - we are 0-3 against the Central, though.

The elusive sixth last-place team in the league has beaten Sacramento pretty consistently throughout the season, because the sixth last-place team is Sacramento.

Monday night was one of those games - stupid little turnovers, a lack of defensive effort from most of the team, a failure in execution. The fact that the highest Game Score on the team was a 15.1 illustrates that rather clearly.

Price, Garcia and Skinner were the only Kings that showed any sort of energy outside Quarter 1, though Shareef had his moments. Bibby was ice cold. And when Bibby's ice cold, he's just a waste of a player out there.

Peja, whose back injury I'm convinced was a setup, was red hot early but cooled off considerably as the game went on. Again, if he's not shooting well, he adds little (though he's much better defensively than Bibby).

Brad was hitting the boards well - he finished with 12 overall. But he wasn't sneaking any passes inside, he wasn't springing Bibby free and he wasn't getting a lot of really open looks (despite shooting 5-10).

Shareef was consistent ole Shareef - 8-15, 18 points, 2 blocks, mostly acceptable defense on ZBo (who can apparentlyt hit the 18-footer now). You'd like to see Reef get some more rebounds, especially on this poor rebounding team. But beggars can't be choosers.

Price is quickly making Jason Hart irrelevant. Actually, The Hitman - whose acquisition I absolutely loved this offseason - is making The Hitman irrelevant. I think his problem is that he's a slave to Adelman's system when the bench certainly doesn't have those parts. He needs to just play point guard when he's out there. Find an open man. Take open shots. Just play, Jason.

That said, I think Price is our best defensive guard right now, along with being explosive on offense. He had a couple of sure assists go astray because teammates just didn't know they were coming last night (including the drop-off to Reef for what should've been an easy dunk).

Kevin Martin, one of my favorite players, has been beyond disappointing in his two starts. He seemed to take on the laissez-faire attitude of the starters when we all hoped he would bring some fire and explosiveness to the floor. Lazy passes, no motion away from the ball, nothing. He's actually like a faster Peja out there, and one who can't hit a jumper. It's further magnified because Bonzi was so busy in the starting lineup - it was pretty clear last night how much this team misses that.

(And what about the f'n Kingsblogger? What the hell was that starting lineup? Two out five right on Portland and four out of five on the team he covers? What a lout. Game Score for TZ? -5.0. Fire TZ! Fire TZ!)

More than anything, this drifting cause needs a kick in the groin. (NOTE: We're not talking about TZ anymore. Thanks.) Be it trade or firing, it needs to be done. I can't imagine there will too many more losses to last-place teams - or first-place teams, like the one the Kings are visiting tonight - before the axe falls on someone.

While we idly wait for Rick Adelman to get the axe, let's look at the prospective replacements, both short- and long-term:

Elston Turner. E.T. is Adelmania's lead assistant, and would no doubt be the immediate choice as an interim head coach. He's never been a head coach in the league. There are a couple of intriguing things about E.T. - he's not ancient (46 years old), he's the defensive guy on the staff and he's been around these players enough to understand their psyche, hopefully. All that said, the guy is the defensive assistant on the freaking Sacramento Kings. He's not exactly the NBA's Marvin Lewis or anything.

Terry Porter. The former Kings assistant is currently doing TV color commentary for the Spurs. He got completely screwed by the Bucks (his hometown team) a few months ago, getting fired a week before the draft because the franchise wanted to make a run at Flip Saunders and Nate McMillan (they got Terry Stotts instead). He spent two seasons in Milwaukee, and finished third in "Coach of the Year" voting in 2003-04 (behind Hubie Brown and Jerry Sloan). That season, the Bucks were quite Kings-like - an above-average offense, a questionable defense and really poor rebounding. It reminds us that unless you have a tyrant like Larry Brown, personnel dictates everything.

John Whisenant. I personally think it's silly that Whiz keeps getting brought into the conversation. But the possibility does exist - Whisenant is an old business buddy of the Maloofs and has been seen around ARCO a lot lately. The guy won a championship with the 'Narcs, but still. This is kind of like Bill Laimbeer and the Knicks, right? Just idle speculation? I really hope so, unless he can work out a Yolanda-Griffith-for-Peja-Stojakovic trade.

P.J. Carlesimo. A lot of people hate the rotating head coach carousel, and I tend to agree. P.J. is an assistant with Gregg Popovich and the Spurs right now and hasn't been a head coach since the 2000 season. He's a very good defensive coach - even his putrid Golden State squads were above average on D. But, his career win percentage in the NBA is below .500 and he's never won a playoff series. And he replaced Rick Adelman in Portland. You wouldn't want to, you know, copy Portland.

Eric Musselman. If there was a Bizzaro Adelman, Muss would be it. He's a strict, pushy, bossy little guy. He's working as an assistant in Memphis right now. He totally got jobbed in Golden State after almost getting to .500 twice despite crappy rosters (Cherokee Parks and Dan Langhi combined to play in nine games for the 2004 Dubs).  I'm actually surprised Muss hasn't gotten another job yet; it's almost a no-brainer that this guy could be one of the best in the league in a short time. He would certainly whip these guys into shape, even if it meant benching some of the "stars."

Paul Silas. I think Paul got a raw deal in both Charlotte/New Orleans and Cleveland, but still. He's pretty old and he's probably not a championship-caliber coach.

Mike Budenholzer. I get excited just thinking about getting Bud as Sacramento's coach. He's another Spurs assistant, and is considered Pop's right-hand man. He's been an assistant there nine years, and the guy is only in his mid-30s. Mike Brown, the last Spurs assistant to leave, is doing pretty well in Cleveland. I wish I could wager on things like "Mike Budenholzer will lead an NBA team to multiple championships by 2015." I've never read a single bad word about him anywhere ever in my life. And it's not like his name is hard to Google.

Marc Iavaroni. He's considered the next big thing in NBA coaching. He was almost the Blazers' coach (until they got Nathan Mac) and he was almost the Lakers' coach (until they got Phillip back). He'll be a head coach before the 2006 draft - mark my words. Would he be willing to leave a rather plush assistant job in Phoenix when he could wait and essentially pick his gig this summer? Who knows.

Jerome Jenkins. Ha ha. Whoops, sorry. Don't know how that got there.

Okay, okay. That's enough. Let's rank the top five, in order of my preference:

1. Mike Budenholzer
   
2. Marc Iavaroni
   
3. Terry Porter
   
4. Eric Musselman
   
5. Paul Silas

l attached to this story by clicking Entry Link below. If you pick 'other,' leave a comment as to whom you like that I have failed to acknowledge. I may or may not ridicule you.