I thought this tidbit was the best part, regarding the Dubs:

"Brown was widely considered in coaching circles to be the favorite to be hired as the next coach of the Golden State Warriors, who, according to sources, now expect Brown to be soon off the market. Other candidates in Golden State include Shaw, Dallas Mavericks assistant Dwane Casey, Boston Celtics assistant Lawrence Frank, ESPN analyst Mark Jackson and TNT analyst Kevin McHale."

Oh lord, please let this happen. To quote one phenomenal NBA orator, Mark Jackson would be "manna from heaven". Or at the very least, delightful entertainment.

News10 will be streaming his comments live at 11:45, following his closed door meeting (with regional representatives, I believe)

Supposed to start at 11am.

Edited to reflect the NBA's comment on the matter:

"No decision has been made on summer leagues," NBA spokesman Tim Frank told ESPN.com on Wednesday. He declined to discuss the league's timetable for making a decision.

Another owner's arm twisted into overpaying! Good thing there's a new CBA and potential lockout coming.

If this is true, does it have any effect on Petrie's plans for this season? Was Petrie saving his cap space until 2011 to potentially make a run at 'Melo?

Interesting, I thought he regrouped nicely this season.

Kings coming around on Cousins?
10:42AM ET

UPDATE: This likely doesn't have strong bearing on the Kings' eventual choice, but it does deserve a quick mention.

From Gery Woelfel of the Journal Times: "Sacramento Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans has let it be known to Kings officials that he wouldn't mind the team drafting Kentucky forward DeMarcus Cousins with the fifth overall pick."

---
As we've noted previously, DeMarcus Cousins projects as the best player in this year's draft, according to ESPN's John Hollinger as well as some teams' front offices.

But there are questions about his demeanor and attitude, and it's made some teams a bit wary of him, despite his immense talents.

In his latest mock draft, ESPN's Chad Ford has the Kings selecting Georgetown's Greg Monroe with their No. 5 pick as they're likely going to draft a big to fill a need up front.

But according to sources speaking to Ford, Cousins was incredibly impressive in a recent workout for the Kings.

So are the Kings now seriously considering Cousins instead?

Ford writes on the NBA Draft Blog on Monday that it appears the team is now split between the two:

ESPN's Chad Ford
Cousins impressive in workout, but Monroe, trade could still happen

"Sources say [Kings GM Geoff] Petrie has been high on Monroe all year and before the Cousins workout, felt that Monroe was the safer pick. However, Cousins' size and superior talent have put him seriously in the mix at No. 5. Cousins had a phenomenal workout in Sacramento on Saturday according to multiple sources. He took around 200 shots, all of which the Kings logged, and he hit 78 percent of them -- the best clip they've had in the 40 players who've come into town. Cousins also is getting into better shape. He's down to 13 percent body fat from the 16.4 percent number he logged in Chicago. He still needs to drop another 10 pounds, but he's getting there. At this point it looks like the team is split between two players. But now Cousins has two legs up on Monroe. Not only did Cousins have a better season, he also had a better workout. Also don't be surprised if the Kings end up trading the pick for a veteran who can help the team improve immediately. With young players like Evans, Omri Casspi, Spencer Hawes and Donte Greene already on team, the Kings would like to add some experience."

The relevant portion when it comes to Mr. Cousins (I trimmed this down due to Fair Use concerns, but TZ, etc...if you feel there's too much here, go ahead and delete) :

"Another major red flag is lack of conditioning during the draft process...Teams figure that if a player is not going to take the time and energy to get his body right before the all-important pre-draft process, how will he be able to manage doing it during the far more distracting and busy NBA season?

...

The weight/conditioning/strength issue is part of a bigger picture, called attitude and work ethic. When teams see ripped muscles, low body fat and strong lungs in their private workouts, they can take comfort in the idea that the players who exhibit those characteristics are either not afraid of real work or are guys that love to improve their body and game. The opposite suggests a player who will be the type of guy who is "last one in the gym, first one out."

...

In this draft, DeMarcus Cousins is flying this particular red flag, thanks to his high body fat percentage in the Chicago pre-draft camp and his less-than solid performances in individual workouts. His conditioning is a major question. And as with other on-court issues, it's enough to make teams think twice before taking him."

Yes, I said Chad Ford, so ingest the appropriate amount of salt before reading. Here's his info on the Kings:

"Analysis: Last year it took us until the day of the draft to nail this pick for the Kings and I have a feeling it's going that direction again this year.

I don't have a good feel for which way the Kings are leaning. That's partly because the Kings play things close to the vest. It's also because there is no consensus player at No. 5. On talent, it's DeMarcus Cousins all the way if he's still available. But Cousins makes some teams wary, and I'm told the Kings are among those teams that, for the moment, are unsure.

That leads us to Monroe. He has the talent and size to be a legit NBA center. He's the best passer in the draft and is offensively gifted. He takes games off on occasion and lacks a killer instinct, but the talent is there.

The fact that a number of veteran NBA GMs have compared him to Vlade Divac shouldn't hurt."

At this point, it's an addiction. Is he an attention whore, or does this stuff still work?

"When questioned about potential physical play in the series, Jackson took his first swing. "We don't have a smackdown mentality," he said. "You might have seen that with [Kevin] Garnett on [Orlando's Dwight] Howard in Game 6 in Boston, where he was smacking Howard's arm and was finally called for an offensive foul. That's not our kind of team. We don't go out there to smack people around. I call it more resiliency. We're a more resilient ball club. We try to stay strong and play hard. But we're going to have to withstand some of that. We're going to have to play through it. We have some guys who are capable of playing to that style in [Derek] Fisher and Ron [Artest] and obviously Kobe [Bryant]. But our big guys are going to have to stand up because that's basically what got the Celtics through Orlando."

Honestly, I've always thought Bosh is the most likely of the big free agents to leave, and this news does nothing to dissuade me. He's definitely getting his money too, as Toronto is amenable to the idea of a sign-and-trade.

And no, Virginia, the Sacramento Kings are not on his list.

Phil's up to his usual antics, getting pre-butthurt over the favorable officiating that every team outside of his poor Lakers squad receives.

I know the guy's a great coach, but I won't miss his "I'm the wittiest guy in the room" vibe when he's retired.

Bengie Molina - at it again:

"Look, you can say I'm the slowest guy in baseball or in all of sports or in the entire world. I don't take issue with that because I AM the slowest guy. I have always been the slowest guy. I can't challenge that criticism. But ESPN's intention was not to criticize but to humiliate."

Just watched Brockman continue his torrid rebounding pace, as well as swat a JR Smith shot into the crowd to end the third quarter of the Nuggets game. It reminded me of why we love Petrie so much around here. This link takes you to the second round draft thread at the point Brockman was selected - pretty fun to read the comments now.

I didn't see this up on the site yet, but I'll delete if I'm mistaken. This is an Insider feature, so enter at your own risk. Here is the relevant information (and why can't we blockquote in the link area of Fanshots - or am I just missing something?):

"FREE AGENCY: Diogu's return to Kings unlikely

The Sacramento Bee reports Ike Diogu has not heard from the Kings since they declined to tender him a qualifying offer.

"I was disappointed (the Kings declined the offer), because I felt that I handled myself extremely well in a very tough situation last year," Diogu said. "I felt I could've helped the team a lot earlier than I was given the chance to, and I felt like they knew what they were getting."

Diogu's agent told the newspaper that he has no reason to believe his client is in the Kings' plans.

"I haven't had any conversations with them (since the offer was declined)," Thaddeus Foucher said. "With the way they finished up, I thought we could've got something done really quick, but obviously they went in a different direction and that's their prerogative. (But) if you look at the team and what they need, I think he'd be a perfect fit."

I've sort of weened myself off of the Sports Guy over the last few years - for many reasons, but primarily because he's been insufferable since Boston turned into Title Town. He's also anti-blog and anti-small/middle markets, and has become more of a bully and less of a voice of the common fan IMO.

But this is a pretty damn good read. You may disagree with his solutions, but I think he hits the mark regarding this year's playoffs. There have been some potentially all-time great series going, but the officiating has made them more of a disjointed mess than they should be.

Mark Cuban should just call the man and his mother and apologize. He started this nonsense and he should take the high road and end it.

I enjoyed this Kenyon Martin quote though:

"The world got to see it before the person who it was meant for got to see it. That tells you how that goes. I ain't never known nobody apology to somebody through other people."

That statement is reason #1235 to cross the University of Cincinnati off my daughter's list of potential college choices.

Well, this will give ESPN something to obsess over for the next month or so...

No agent, though.

There is now a Sam Amick amongst us.

As much as I dislike KHTK, it really is the only place to hear Kings discussion in Sacramento. Three things you may want to take a listen to:

First is the John Moag interview from March 2nd. Kudos to Grant and Mike for a solid interview, asking all the right questions.

Second is the Gavin Maloof trainwreck of an interview from March 11th. Lord knows I've defended the Maloof brothers regularly around here, but this was unconscionable. When are these guys going to get a VP type that can elucidate the direction of the franchise in a better manner? Grant and Mike bent over backwards to try to lead that horse to water (aka not sound like a jackass), but he wouldn't drink. Say what you want about a guy like Ralph Barbieri, he wouldn't have beaten around the bush and would have (rightfully) hammered Gavin for the nonsense he was spewing.

Third is the item at the top entitled "Bobby Jackson on REVENGE". Let's hope that Donté isn't in the car when Bobby burns it down.

Interesting quotes from Theus - it's hard to figure out the relationship between Kenny and the franchise, it's also hard to figure out why Natt played him out of the blue earlier this season (and he played effectively), then velcroed him back to the bench.

Also, Bill Bradley notes in his "Leading Off" column today that Kenny Natt only had 2 practices in the recent 4 day break. WTF?