HOOPSWORLD | Basketball News & NBA Rumors

The Sacramento Kings took another step towards becoming the Anaheim Royals on Tuesday when the Anaheim City Council agreed to issue $75 million in bonds to help facilitate the franchise’s relocation.

Of the earmarked funds, $50 million would go to the Kings as a loan.  The balance would be spent upgrading the Honda Center (including the addition of a new locker room).

The city is doing its part to bring a third team to Southern California. 

The Maloof family (who own the Kings) had originally strived to keep the team in Sacramento but couldn’t get governmental support (read funding) in place for a new building.

The arena formerly known as Arco is outdated and while the Honda Center in Anaheim isn’t the most modern structure by contemporary standards, the additional luxury suites would help the Kings compete with most of the league on a more equal footing.

"We are grateful to the entire leadership group of the city of Anaheim, who tonight fully endorsed our shared efforts to bring an NBA franchise to the region." said Michael Schulman of Anaheim Arena Management in a statement."

Sacramento has shown that it can be a great market.  The Kings packed Arco during their run last decade with Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Peja Stojakovic and the rest.

Unfortunately the team has been rebuilding the past few years and with the economic downturn and aging building, the Kings have been struggling financially.

Whether or not Anaheim can generate enough fan support for the Kings in what is generally considered "Los Angeles Laker country" remains to be seen (Kobe Bryant lives in Orange County).

The Los Angeles Clippers are also gaining in popularity behind presumptive Rookie of the Year Blake Griffin.

"It’s ridiculous to put another franchise in this market" said Lakers Coach Phil Jackson recently.  "It just doesn’t make sense to do that."

It won’t make sense for the Lakers and Clippers who may see dips in income with a third team in the area.

According to Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com, the Lakers would lose 10% of their massive 20-year television agreement (estimated to be $3 billion) if a third team moves into the area.

Naturally, the Lakers are opposed but it would take a majority of teams to vote against the move which leaves the Lakers and Clippers 14 short.

Given that the revenue sharing is expected to increase under the new, yet to be written, Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Lakers may argue to other teams that the move would ultimately hurt the entire league.

Certainly there are other locations the Kings could explore like Kansas City, St. Louis, Las Vegas (although there’s no building and the whole gambling thing to sort out), Vancouver, San Jose or a number of other possibilities.

Never the less, the Maloofs have found a willing suitor and Anaheim is doing whatever they can to make it happen.

Of course the Lakers leaving Fox Sports West after next season to join Time Warner opens up a television deal for the Kings which could be a boon for the franchise.

It’s difficult to decipher exactly what the Lakers are getting under their current agreement.  The number $30 million a year has been mentioned but does that include road games on KCAL or is that an additional sum?

The Kings don’t come in with the Laker cachet but Fox Sports badly needs the programming.

The Anaheim bonds will be privately funded, so it won’t hit the taxpayers. 

Of course there’s still plenty of red tape that needs to be sorted through before the Kings become the Royals.

According to Ryan Lillis of The Sacramento Bee, "A legal team from Sacramento thinks the Anaheim City Council would violate state law," by issuing the bonds immediately instead of waiting 60 days.

The delay is supposedly required to allow for opponents to petition for a ballot referendum.

The Kings have a deadline with the NBA to file for relocation by April 18th.

If the money from Anaheim is in doubt, would the Maloofs make a leap of faith that they’ll get their funding or delay relocation another year?

In the meantime, the Kings won their fourth straight on Tuesday night to improve to 21-52.  They’re currently 35 1/2 games behind the first place San Antonio Spurs.

After this season, the Kings have just $30 million in committed contracts.  It may take some time for the franchise to get off the ground but if they can field a winning roster (be it in Anaheim, Sacramento or elsewhere), the fan base will return . . .

Lamar Odom Sixth Man of the Year?

The Los Angeles Lakers have never had a Sixth Man of the Year Award winner but this year could be their first.

Lamar Odom and Jason Terry seem to be the front-runners as the Lakers and Dallas Mavericks head down the stretch with near identical records (Lakers are at 53-20, Mavericks 52-21).

Eligibility is based on a player coming off the bench for more games than they start and while Odom has 34 starts under his belt, he’s been a reserve for 39 games.

Lamar is averaging 14.3 points, 8.7 rebounds and 3.0 assists while playing 32.3 minutes per game.  He’s shooting career highs from the field (53.8%) and three-point line (37.9%).

The knock on Odom throughout his career has been his consistency.  While that may or not be a fair statement, this season Lamar has arguably been the Lakers’ most consistent player.

With Dallas, Terry has averaged 16.4 points, 1.9 rebounds and 4.2 assists over 31.6 minutes a night.  He’s shooting 45.5% from the field and 37.5% from the arc.

Neither Odom nor Terry has missed a game all season.  Jason started 10 for Dallas.

If Terry beats out Odom, it’ll be the second award for the Maverick who won it for the 2008/9 NBA Season.

Coach Phil Jackson credits Odom for being a key difference-maker the past two championship seasons.

"The first year we lost to Boston was the year that we really thought that Lamar really had to step into that vacuum and play as good as he can play," said Jackson.  "That year, he didn’t take the shots that we wanted him to take. He didn’t make the plays that he wanted to take at that time.

"He’s now stepped into that . . . [in the] Orlando series, hitting those three-point shots, that’s what he had to do in that Boston series. Garnett was refusing to play him – he used to play Kobe while Lamar had the ball. Lamar has stepped into what his responsibility is . . .  but we knew he could do that." {AUTHOR_BOX}

Initially the Lakers weren’t expecting to retain Odom once he became a free agent but he had a strong lobbyist in Jackson.
 
"When we were debating about signing him or there was concern about what it was going to do to our economic structure as a team, my plea was that he was that valuable.  If he wasn’t on the team, it would be difficult for us to win a championship," said Jackson.  "Our plea with the management was, this is a player who has done the things we need to be doing to make us effective as a basketball club."

Catching the Spurs?

The Lakers are 3 1/2 games behind the slumping Spurs and while catching San Antonio suddenly became possible, it’s still a slight stretch.

Given that two teams meet again in mid-April in Los Angeles, a Laker victory would even the season series and put LA within two games (in the loss column).

If the Lakers win out at 62-20, the Spurs would hold the top spot if they wrap up at 6-2.  Injuries of varying degree to Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Antonio McDyess and Tony Parker may make that goal out of reach for the Spurs.

If the Spurs finish 5-3, the Lakers would have to end with a better conference record than San Antonio who is currently 35-11 to LA’s 32-11.

Of course any Laker loss would give the Spurs that additional cushion and LA doesn’t have the easiest schedule down the stretch with teams like Dallas, Denver, Portland, Oklahoma City, Utah (twice) and the spurs left on the docket.

Jackson Impressed by Memphis Defense

Given that the Lakers are likely to finish anywhere in the top three in the Western Conference – and the bottom three seeds are still unclear – Jackson said recently that his staff has to pay attention to a number of possible playoff matchups.

As of Wednesday morning, Los Angeles would host the struggling New Orleans Hornets (who lost David West to an ACL injury).

One team of note would be the Memphis Grizzlies who are also playing without a key player.

"Memphis is a lot different team without [Rudy] Gay in there and I think they’re playing very well but that’s to be determined," said Jackson.  "They’re still searching sometimes for scoring without Gay but they’re playing great defense."

Clippers Match Last Season’s Win-Total

While the year as a whole has been disappointing when it comes to won/loss record, the Clippers are thrilled by the rise of rookie All-Star Blake Griffin.

Blake sat out all of last year with a knee injury and the Clippers went 29-53.

With their Saturday win over the Toronto Raptors, the Clippers hit 29 wins with eight games left in the season.

Given that the team traded their 2011 number-one pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers (with Baron Davis), the Clippers have no incentive to chase lottery balls.

While their upside is 37 wins, that won’t be easy given the schedule which includes five on the road and three-straight sets of back-to-backs.

In the meantime, Coach Vinny Del Negro and the Clipper organization will get a chance to see their full roster in action – given that injuries kept the team from reaching its true potential.

The Clippers host the Mavericks Wednesday night at STAPLES Center.