Category: Sacramento Kings Blog

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Oct 17: Rockets 95, Kings 90

The AP reports: Ron Artest hurried to the Sacramento locker room after scoring 13 points in the Houston Rockets’ 95-90 win over the Kings in a preseason game on Friday night… Yao Ming scored 15 points in 27 minutes before twisting his right ankle and leaving for good with 3:07 left in the third quarter. Coach Rick Adelman said Yao was also fighting a cold… Aaron Brooks scored 23 points in McGrady’s place and Luis Scola grabbed 10 rebounds for Houston. Artest played only 18 minutes, all in the first half… Kevin Martin scored 19 points and Brad Miller had 10 points and nine rebounds for the Kings, who shot 37.5 percent (30-for-80) and went 3-for-15 from 3-point range.

Kings exercise option on Spencer Hawes

The Sacramento Kings today picked up the option on forward Spencer Hawes for the 2009-10 campaign, it was announced by Kings’ President of Basketball Operations Geoff Petrie.

Hawes, currently in his second NBA season, was selected by Sacramento in the first round (10th overall) of the 2007 NBA Draft as an undergraduate out of Washington. He averaged 4.7 points (.459 FGs, .190 3FGs, .655 FTs) and 3.2 rebounds as a rookie last season.

Oct 15: Clippers 116, Kings 112

The AP reports: Kevin Martin scored 29 points in less than 22 minutes for Sacramento, but rookie Eric Gordon scored 33 points and led the Los Angeles Clippers’ fourth-quarter rally for a 116-112 victory over the Kings in an exhibition game Wednesday night… Fellow rookie Mike Taylor had another impressive game with 21 points and nine assists for the Clippers, who are unbeaten in three exhibition games. Cuttino Mobley added 17 points and Jelani McCoy had 12 for Los Angeles, which held the Kings scoreless after Bobby Jackson’s free throw with 2:54 to play.

Oct 12: Lakers 94, Kings 89

The AP reports: Pau Gasol had 12 points and six rebounds to help the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings 94-89 in exhibition play Sunday night… Los Angeles built its largest advantage at 84-72 with 5:25 left. The Kings cut it 92-89 with 36 seconds to go, but got no closer.

InsideHoops.com Stat Notes: For the Lakers, Kobe Bryant (just 4-of-12) had 9 points. Andrew Bynum had 9 points and 5 rebounds. Vladimir Radmanovic had 9 with 7 rebounds and 3 assists. Lamar Odom, coming off the bench, had 4 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists. For the Kings, Jason Thompson came off the bench to put up 15 points and 8 rebounds. Brad Miller had 10 points and 4 rebounds. John Salmons (just 4-of-15) had 11 points and 3 steals. Off the bench, Spencer Hawes had 6 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks.

Oct 10: Kings 94, Thunder 85

The AP reports: Rookie Bobby Brown scored 22 points and the Sacramento Kings beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 94-85 in a preseason game Friday night… Spencer Hawes had 21 points and seven rebounds for the Kings (1-1), while John Salmons had 16 points and Kevin Martin and Francisco Garcia both had eight. Shelden Williams added seven points and 11 rebounds. Jeff Green led Oklahoma City, formerly the Seattle SuperSonics, with 19 points, including eight in the fourth quarter when the Thunder pulled within one point. Damien Wilkins had 14 points, Desmond Mason scored 10 and Johan Petro added eight points and 10 rebounds.

Oct 7: Blazers 110, Kings 81

The AP reports: Greg Oden debuted to a standing ovation, as did the rest of the young Portland Trail Blazers, in a 110-81 exhibition victory over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night. Oden finished with 13 points in just under 20 minutes… Brandon Roy, who had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in August, played a little more than 23 minutes and had 14 points and seven assists for the Blazers. Martell Webster led Portland with 15 points. Donte Greene, acquired from Houston in the Artest deal, had 18 points and Francisco Garcia added 12 for the Kings, who led by as many as 11 points in the first half before the Blazers seized control.

PG Jason Williams brought the fun

The Sacramento Bee (Scott Howard-Cooper) reports on now retired point guard Jason Williams: “He really has a little bit of a unique place in the history of the NBA, I think,” Kings basketball president Geoff Petrie said, “in the sense that his rookie year and into his second year, he kind of came out of nowhere at a time when the league was coming out of the lockout and sort of struggling with its style of play and just trying to regain some of the footing it had lost at that time. And here was this kid that had these incredible dribbling and passing skills and sort of pedal-to-the-metal attitude about the game. He just caught the imagination of the entire country, along with the rest of our team. “It really helped the NBA. It really helped this franchise, along with a lot of other terrific players, too. He became the darling of ESPN highlights just about every night. I’ve told this to other people: There was a time there, probably for about a year or so, other than Michael Jordan, he was the most popular basketball player in America because of this flamboyant style he had.”

Donte Green does not know defense

The Sacramento Bee (Melody Gutierrez) reports on Kings rookie Donte Green: “I’ve got my work cut out for me,” Reggie Theus said after Tuesday’s training camp session. “(Greene plays) great offense and has no basic understanding of how to play defense.” Theus said he considers the forward a “project player,” because he has “never really been taught anything about defense at all.” Greene admits his weakness, saying it has been a tough transition from his season at Syracuse, where the Orange played zone defense. “Before that, he was in high school, where they don’t learn anything about defense,” Theus said. “But it’s OK, because he’s got a lot of room to grow.”

Kings add Abdur-Rahim to coaching staff

The Sacramento Kings today added Shareef Abdur-Rahim to their coaching staff as an assistant coach, it was announced by Kings’ President of Basketball Operations Geoff Petrie. Abdur-Rahim, a 12-year NBA veteran, recently retired his playing career due a reoccurring knee injury.

Abdur-Rahim enjoyed 12 seasons in the NBA with four different teams (Vancouver 1996-97 to 2000-01, Atlanta 2001-02 to 2003-04, Portland 2003-04 to 2004-05 and Sacramento 2005-06 to 2007-08), amassing career averages of 18.1 points (.452 FGs, .297 3FGs, .810 FTs), 7.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game through 830 outings. His most productive season, statistically, occurred during the 1998-99 campaign in Vancouver when he averaged 23.0 points (.432 FGs, .306 3FGs, .841 FTs), 7.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game through 50 contests (NBA Lockout season). The following season (1999-00), Abdur-Rahim averaged double figures in both points (20.3) and rebounds (10.1) per game, in which he played in all 82 contests for the Grizzlies.

Abdur-Rahim was a member of the gold-medal winning United States Olympic team in 2000 while still with the Vancouver Grizzlies. He was selected to the Eastern Conference NBA All-Star Team where he scored nine points in 21 minutes as a member of the Atlanta Hawks in 2002.

On December 28, 2002, Abdur-Rahim became the sixth-youngest player in NBA history to reach the 10,000-point plateau when he scored 18 points at Washington at age 26, trailing only Kobe Bryant, Bob McAdoo, Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with that distinction. He scored a career-high 50 points (including a career-high 21 field goals made) versus Detroit on November 23, 2001, becoming the first Hawks player to hit that mark since Dominique Wilkins poured in 52 points in 1991.

Selected by the Vancouver Grizzlies (now Memphis) as an undergraduate out of California with the third pick of the 1996 NBA Draft, Abdur-Rahim has a long-standing history of community service involvement. He was named by The Sporting News as the NBA’s Number 1 Good Guy for 2004 after funding the Reef House in Atlanta through his Atlanta-based Future Foundation with the purpose of assisting at-risk and underprivileged youth.