I'm watching this Memphis game and starting to hope... no, pray, that Paul Westphal is let go by the Kings. Sooner, rather than later, please. I'm going to outline my bitchings in an unclever list of bullet points. I don't have the time to do a lot of statistical analysis here, but I desperately need to vent. If you're into that, have fun, join me, and post your thoughts below. If you aren't, then by all means, just check out now. These are qualitative, not quantitative, so I'm curious if you guys agree or disagree with my ocular evaluation.

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     A couple of weeks ago I posed a solution for slaying our small forward hydra, intimating that the most pressing concern for our squad, as currently constructed, was what to do with the logjam at that position. Well, the Kings brass responded to that question (in large part) by jettisoning fan favorite Omri Casspi to Cleveland for the young and equally-or-more promising big man J.J. Hickson. I complained in my previous post about Omri's passive-aggressive trade request. And while I don't take back anything I said, I will say that I was sad to see him go. I thought it was the right move to ship him out, but I truly wish that he had been able to bloom into our SFOTF (small forward of the future). Good luck, Omri, you were fun to root for.

     In a vacuum, i think the swap was brilliant, we netted a cheaper, younger and currently more productive player at a position of need for one that was likely to see his already-erratic minutes slip more in 11'-12'. Radical. But what do we do now? Does this spell the end for Samuel Dalembert? Is that a good thing? Let's see....

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From the FanPosts. -- TZ

The biggest current issue facing our new-look Kings is how to kill the hydra at small forward. There are now 5 (five!) prototypical small forwards on the roster. Sure, Donte Greene can slide down to play power forward in stretches. Francisco Garcia and John Salmons can play shooting guard, but I think that Paul Westphal prefers both players at the 3. As Ziller pointed out, Tyler Honeycutt could be a major talent and his skills are exactly what we are looking for. But he's not going to get ANY minutes trying to play behind the older and more experienced heads of the beast. The second symptom of this disease is that we're going to submarine the trade value of whichever 2 or 3 players don't really play next season by sitting them on the bench.

The obvious solution is that SOMEBODY needs to be moved. But who, and for what? We've all seen our boys perform well in stretches, but our cumulative opinions are largely swayed by our players' likeability and particularly remarkable performances, whether they are few or common. Let's take a look at their advanced stats and try to organize a ranking. Not to decide who's best, but to decide who's worst.

For current Kings I will use their stats from last season, but I'll try to point out if those stats look like outliers or not. For Mr. Salmons, I'll use his career averages, as we don't know how he'll fit in with these current players and this current system. We also know that he was limited last year by some injuries. I'll leave Honeycutt out of this project because I don't think he's someone that we're considering moving at this point, and his college stats probably aren't hugely reliable.

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