Guest King's Analysis

Luckily, Dan Barnes has written a guest post on the Christie trade to give me a jump-start for the blog this week. I have a couple things I wanna write about, but I'll probably post them after lunch. Take it away, Dan: (stupid blogger formatted his post in a poetry-type style cuz I pasted it from email but rather than taking time to fix it, just pretend it's one of those fancy, non-rhyming poems)

I apologize for taking so long in delivering this basketball analysis, but
legislation was blowing up last week. Vermont is regulating syrup levels,
Michigan is trying to outlaw handshaking between junior high school girls,
and the less said about Maryland the better (which, coincidentally enough,
is also Maryland's state motto). But let's talk about the important
business at hand: the trade of Doug Christie.

Although Christie has been a fan favorite in Sacramento, most of the people
I know have been sharply divided on his worth--either he's a brilliant
shut-down defender and team catalyst or he's an overrated choker who is
destroying the team. Personally, I side with the former argument -- you can
question Christie's decisionmaking, but you can't question his effort or his
heart OR his defensive prowess. And when the team disintegrated in the
second half last season, Christie was the only one who showed up to play
every night.

Still, I feel this is a great trade and has to be looked at in the context
of the great recent trades that shaped this team: Mitch Richmond for Chris
Webber, Jason Williams for Mike Bibby, Scot Pollard for Brad Miller, and
even Corliss Williamson for Doug Christie...in each case, the Kings traded a
top contributor and a fan favorite for a player relatively unknown outside
of NBA fanatic circles. And in each case, the team traded up.
I think that the problem that led to the Christie trade was that in recent
years the Kings have become increasingly old and brittle...the injection of
athleticism that players like Maurice Evans, Kevin Martin, Matt Barnes,
Eddie House and Darius Songaila have administered is causing them to rethink
the makeup of the team...the Kings rode horses like Vlade Divac and Doug
Christie as long as they could and fell short. Time to move on.

Also, Christie does have plantar fasciaitis, which never gets better, he is
about 35, and can't be counted on for offense like before. You used to be
able to count on Chrsitie for 10-12 points a game. Now you're lucky to get
5. It makes it too easy for other teams to put their best defender, which
is usually a shooting guard, on Peja or Bibby, which makes Christie the
point guard in the offense. Which takes the ball out of Mike Bibby's hands,
which is not good. Cuttino Mobley gives you that extra guard scoring that
Christie is unable to provide anymore. Mobley is also every bit the
defender that Christie is today, although not quite as good as Christie in
his prime.

And what about off the court? I feel that "locker room" chemistry is one of
the most overrated commodities in the NBA. Certainly, bad chemistry CAN
kill a team, but the Kings have proved that great chemistry does jack shit
for you in Game 7. And the Lakers won 3 bad chemistry championships before
they pushed the envelope too far last season.

As for Christie, pink sweaters, pointless pointing, and a Guantanamo
Bay-like marriage are hard to replace. Maybe it will go over well in
Orlando. One thing I'd like to keep fresh in your minds, however, is that
Christie's marriage was publicized in the last couple of years only because
of a sexual harrassment case filed against them by a former Kings employee.
This woman was fired for the crime of delivering a phone message to Doug
Christie, who of course is forbidden to have any contact with a woman who
isn't his wife...when the case finally became public, the spin machine fired
up as the Bee and other media outlets started printing self-justifying
articles about the Christie's "unique" but devoted marriage. The public ate
it up, and a clear-cut case of sexual discrimination was forgotten. So
long, Doug!