New King of Sacramento

Blake Griffin is the obvious front-runner for this year’s Rookie of the Year award, but Tyreke Evans is quietly winning critics over with his play for the Sacremento Kings so far during this preseason.

The Kings, a franchise in need of a spark and a point guard, took Evans with the fourth pick in June’s draft ahead of more traditional playmakers like Ricky Rubio and Johnny Flynn. Despite many seeing Evans as more of a two-guard than a point, the Kings liked the matchup problems that his size (6’6) creates when paired in the backcourt with 6’7 scorer Kevin Martin and his ability to get to the rim.

As evidenced by his one season at Memphis, Evans is not exactly the best candidate to deftly run an offense without mistakes (3.9 AST/3.6 TO), but the Kings will not be overextending his responsibilities in the offense and will allow him to play to his strengths.

“He just needs to play the way he plays,” Coach Paul Westphal said in an interview with Sports Illustrated. “We’re not going to ask him to be the orchestrator of all things for this team. We have a lot of offense initiated that is initiated by many different people. He’s not being asked [to] be the second coming of Bob Cousy. We’re asking him to attack and make the right decisions when the defense adjusts to his attack.”

Evans has impressed through the pre-season, putting up 15.2 points per-game along with 5.4 rebounds and 5.2 assists, but his average of four turnovers a contest is another reminder that he is still an unfinished product with much room to grow his game.

“Turnovers are always going to be an issue,” Westphal said. “I’m sure he’ll have some games where he turns it over more than he and we would like to, but it’s all part of the learning process. You don’t learn without being aggressive, you’re going to make some mistakes.”

Evans has already earned the respect of his veteran teammates and could be a devastating offensive player in the future once he improves his jumper and develops a post-game to take advantage of his 7-foot wingspan.

“I just love playing with that guy,” Martin said to CowbellKingdom.com. “That’s the guy I wanted since day one and I got him. So just being here on the court with him, we’re still learning each other’s games. We work together everyday. It’s just going to get better and better.”

Handicapping the Rookie of the Year Race:

The Contenders (The guys who will make a serious case for the award)

Blake Griffin	The combination of the Clippers expected improvement, his hustle and expected 15-10 stat line should give him a stranglehold on the award.
Tyreke Evans	Will get the appropriate playing time to post big numbers, but the Kings anticipated poor record will most likely hold him back from seriously challenging Griffin.
Johnny Flynn	If he can get 30 minutes a night for the Timberwolves – and most likely will – watch out! A line of 15 and 6 on an emerging team will garner him a few looks from voters.

Good, not Great

James Harden	Having Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Jeff Green will take away touches from him on offense, but his presence might be enough keep the Thunder hanging within sniffing distance of the playoffs into March. Expect a line of 13-3-3.
Stephen Curry	Despite his prowess in college, Curry has yet to really find his stroke in the preseason. He will certainly have his moments this season, but his inconsistencies and Don Nelson’s erratic substitution patterns will probably keep him from being a serious contender. Then again nothing is certain in Golden State and he might end up logging 35 minutes a night – Nobody knows.

The Fan Favorites (They won’t be stars, but they will be impact players in their roles and will leave you wishing your team had taken them)

Omri Cassapi

DeJuan Blair

Terrence Williams

Jonas Jerebko

Serge Ibaka

Chase Budinger

Marcus Thornton

Training Camp Power Rankings: Old School Logo Edition

RANK (LW)	TEAM	W-L	COMMENT
1		65-17	The reigning champs retain the top spot even with the Artest-Ariza swap. Artest and their point guard situation are their two biggest concerns.
2		54-28	This might be the best group of talent that Tim Duncan has had surrounding him during his run in San Antonio. They will be dangerous if Manu and Parker can stay healthy.
3		59-23	Nice pickups in Matt Barnes and Brandon Bass. VC will be fine, but I think they might miss Courtney Lee’s defense.
4		66-16	Improved supporting cast for LeBron, but will it be enough?
5		62-20	Ranking is contingent on KG showing that his knee is ok. Why has this not been made into a bigger deal?!?!
6		54-28	Great collection of talent and potential for the Blazers. This is the year they need to put it all together in Portland.
7		50-32	Great regular season team, busted come playoff time. Drew Gooden? Tim Thomas? Erick Dampier? Good luck fellas.
8		47-35	The Hawks finally have some depth. Adding Teague, Crawford, Jason Collins and Joe Smith was big for them, Smith especially.
9		54-28	Permission to use Bill James “Plexiglass Principle”. Everything broke the Nuggets way last year and the chances of that happening again are not that great. Losing Linus Kleiza will hurt them more than they think.
10		41-41	Derrick Rose is ready to make a mini-leap this year and the Bulls have solid all-around depth. Sure they'll miss Ben Gordon, but it was smart to not resign him.
11		48-34	Too many question marks with this team. Also the their playoff exits have come a round earlier each year since reaching the Conference Finals in 2006-07.
12		49-33	They have the potential to be a top team if they can get healthy years from Peja, Mo Pete and Okafor. Julian Wright and Marcus Thornton (20.7 ppg in Summer League) need to be impact players.
13		33-49	Toronto has a chance to be as good as a top five team in the East or miss the playoffs completely. Just depends on how the pieces fit together.
14		19-63	If Mike Dunleavy doesn’t bog Baron Davis down with running isolation plays constantly they could be a sleeper team. Added lots of nice depth on the cheap this summer.
15		46-36	Nash and Amare will resume their running ways under Alvin Gentry, but their lack of depth is discouraging. I totally have a man crush on Louis Amundson, not even kidding.
16		19-63	Even at their peak, the core of Arenas-Jameson-Butler was never much of real playoff threat for the Wizards, so why would they be now?
17		43-39	I might be crazy, but I like the Warriors. Despite of the turmoil, they have enough talent and depth to be a dangerous team.
18		53-29	T-Mac is supposed to be back for the start of training camp. If he’s really as healthy and spry as he says he is then look out!
19		23-59	Keys are the health of D-Wade and Jermaine O’Neal and whether or not Michael Beasley is ready to be a major contributor.
20		41-41	Good talent, but I don’t trust Lou Williams as a starting point guard and Jrue Holliday is not ready yet for that role. Lack of three-point shooting will also be a killer.
21		29-53	No playoffs this year, but the future is bright. It’s only a matter of time before Kevin Durant is the most dominating offensive player in the league.
22		39-43	Joe Dumars has to ask himself one question: Where is my mind? Charlie V and Ben Gordon? Really Joe?
23		36-46	Roy Hibbert looks like he has made big strides in the offseason. Can Troy Murphy have as big of a season as he had last year?
24		35-47	Forget that they haven’t ever had a franchise player in their six-year existence, just having a #1 option on offense would be nice.
25		24-58	They started January off by going 10-2 before Al Jefferson was lost for the season shortly after. Kevin Love is going to make a leap this year: 15-10
26		34-48	Brook Lopez will make the East All-Star team this year.
27		32-50	Like lots of teams on this list, the Knicks have the talent to sneak into the playoffs, but it’s just not very likely. Knicks were 14-14 in games that Danilo Gallinari played in. They lost 14 games by five points or less last year.
28		24-58	They traded Pau Gasol to dump salary and then brought in Zach Randolph for the same money. Something doesn’t make sense here. Also where is the logic in running out Randolph, Iverson, Rudy Gay and OJ Mayo together? Four guys all gunning for their own stats and unwilling to pass the ball = Great plan guys.
29		17-65	Kings are really high on rookie Tyreke Evans, but they’re still miles away from fielding a competitive team.
30		34-48	They were already a miserable team last year; losing Charlie V, Sessions, and R-Jeff won’t help. Also, what’s the over/under on games before we get our first Brandon Jennings/Scott Skiles clash?

Brooklyn Bound

Training camp might have just started, but let’s jump ahead to the upcoming summer to look at what has been the most compelling storyline for the last few years. Will LeBron James leave Cleveland, why would he and where would he go?

If King James is a smart man, and he does appear to be a smart guy, he will get out of Cleveland while he can. Danny Ferry’s tenure as the Cavaliers GM has done nothing but produce short-cited moves and he continued that trend this summer. Ferry signed Anderson Varejao to what could potentially be a 5-year, $50 million contract. That is an enormous investment for a player whose best qualities are his hustle and energy, non-basketball skills that do not usually improve with age (see: Malik Rose). Varejao’s contract could take up as much as a fifth of the Cavaliers cap in 2014. This will prove to be a crippling move for the franchise and absolutely kill their ability to add better players to surround LeBron with in the future should he choose to stay.

Cleveland’s situation really has no chance of improving for the next few years because they have no attractive tradable assets that are not essential to the team’s success. Daniel Gibson and Jamario Moon are fine role players, but they are not going to bring back a major haul in a trade. Plus after this season both Zydrunas Illgauskas and Shaquille O’Neal become free agents, leaving the team without a starting center on the roster and no cap space to go sign a younger one.

The Cavaliers problem all along has been that James has had nobody to grow old with on the roster, no sidekick, no Pippen to his Jordan. Mo Williams is a nice player, but he is not a second banana on a championship team, he might not even be a third banana. Let’s not forget that Carlos Boozer could have been that player.

Despite all of the mismanagement on the part of the Cavaliers, James will turn 25 this December and has a chance to escape to a more attractive destination at a pretty ripe age.

The New York Knicks have long been the team rumored to be James’ eventual destination because of his aspirations of being marketed like a David Beckham, Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, but from a basketball standpoint this makes little to no sense for him. The Knicks would be a playoff team for sure with James, but it might take a few years before they became true contenders.

Instead, Lebron should be looking across the Hudson River at the New Jersey Nets. The Nets will have the cap space to sign King James and already have an all-star point guard, Devin Harris, and an emerging franchise center, Brook Lopez.

In contrast to the Cavs, whose championship window would only seem to get smaller as the years go by, the Nets are a team that will only get better. Plus the Nets will have the financial flexibility to build upon what they already have. Harris is signed for a very reasonable $35 million over the next four years and Lopez and Courtney Lee are not up for extensions until 2012. In addition to that the Nets will have “The Chairman” Yi Jianlian and rookie Terrence Williams, plus a lottery pick if they do not qualify for the playoffs this season. That is a core that James can grow with and win with now and five years from now.

There are even non-basketball-related incentives for James to sign with the Nets. His buddy Jay-Z is a minority owner. He is a Yankees fan. The team will eventually move to Brooklyn. The Nets will get a new arena in Brooklyn (ground is expected to be broken before the end of the year). Penny-pinching owner Bruce Ratner recently sold the team to billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who is supposedly like a Russian Mark Cuban. He would get to play in the New York media market. Where is the downside for James in this equation?

Here’s to hoping that LeBron will lead the Nets out of the swamps of New Jersey and into a new era in Brooklyn.