Pete D’Alessandro and Michael Malone talk Marcus Thornton for Jason Terry/Reggie Evans trade

Pete D’Alessandro and the Sacramento Kings pulled off another trade on Wednesday, bringing in veterans Jason Terry and Reggie Evans for Marcus Thornton.  Before the Kings took the court on Wednesday, both D’Alessandro and coach Michael Malone spoke to the media about the move and what impact it will have on the Kings’ final 29 games.

Here are the highlights from those conversations.

On the addition of Terry

• “I talked to Jason (Terry) a little while ago.  When he gets here, we’re going to sit down and talk about, kind of, his vision for his role, because he is a veteran and we respect that about him.  He’s got a heck of a resumé.” – D’Alessandro

• “I think depending on how he feels and his conditioning and all those things, we’d like to see him on the floor a little bit in moments, kind of help bring some of the younger guys along.” – D’Alessandro

• “We look forward to adding the veteran experience that both Reggie and Jason bring.  When you look at Jason Terry and his career, he’s won a championship in college, in the NBA.  And I think they both provide veteran leadership that this team needs.” – Malone

Will Terry ever play for the Kings?

• “I’m not going there right now. He’s gonna come in and he’s and we’ll have a chance to sit and get to know each other and be with the team and practice. But my main thing moving forward is Ben McLemore.” – Malone

• “We haven’t gone there.  I’d like to see him in a uniform.  With that said, this is the NBA.  I need to sit down with Jason and talk to him, but our plan is, we brought him in to be part of this team and so that’s what we look forward to.” – D’Alessandro

Why the trade made sense

• “I think the opportunity it brings for young guys.  I think the opportunity for Ben, for Ray (McCallum) to another extent.  Because now we can play Ray a little bit off the ball at times too.  I’m going to leave that for Michael, but we talked about clearing up some room for those guys to kind of get out there for these last 29 games.” – D’Alessandro

• “I think it’s a great opportunity in these 29 games to allow Ben McLemore to play and play heavy minutes every night so we can get a great look as to where he’s at and what he needs to work on going into the offseason.” – Malone

On what this season’s trade deadline has been like

• “You know you feel bad.  I mean because, end of the day a lot of people look at these guys as stats and analytics, but they’re people.  And Marcus Thornton, I appreciate everything he did and I could see it to be very honest on a few of our guys faces the last couple days that it’s been weighing on them.  My message to the whole team today was stop looking at Hoopshype because half the stuff that’s on Hoopshype is wrong.  It’s just fabricated stuff that comes from I don’t know where.  So just if something’s gonna happen, we have a great general manager in Pete D’Alessandro.  He will communicate with each player, their representation to let them know if something is going on just like he did with Marcus Thornton.  So you’re not going to get a phone call from somebody out of the blue saying that you’ve been traded.  So I tried to calm them down, but I’m never gonna lie to them.  The reality is this is a business.  And tomorrow at 12 noon, at 3 o’clock eastern, the trade deadline ends and then we can relax and move forward and finish out this season.  But it becomes a big distraction and as a coach, you’re always trying to limit the distractions with your team so you can concentrate on the task at hand.” – Malone

What’s next for the Kings

• “In terms of our roster, we’re an unfinished product.  We’re still an unfinished product.  We’ll just continue to try to change it and turn it over and try to figure it out until we can get it right.  I think change is good when you’ve lost a lot.  You have to change, you always have to change.  We talked about that at the beginning of the year and we still talk about that.  We’re not there by any means, but we’re working hard to kind of get there.  Bring the right guys in.  Bring young guys along and then really be ready for what we expect to be a pretty good draft as well.” -D’Alessandro