Thanks to the Sacramento Bee’s Jason Jones, via twitter:
Kings hoops prez Geoff Petrie on Jason Thompson: “We’re not having any trade discussions regarding him.”
This makes a lot of sense when you factor in that Samuel Dalembert, Carl Landry and Darnell Jackson are all free agents at the end of the season. Thompson, considered a building block of the future last season, has seen his playing time diminish this season, hitting rock bottom on Friday night when he received his first DNP-CD of his career against Phoenix. Coach Westphal had this to say last night:
“I’m a big fan of JT. Right now, we have Sam and DeMarcus ahead of him at the five spot. Carl and Jackson ahead of him at the four spot and all of those guys played a reasonable amount minutes and didn’t have bad foul trouble so he didn’t get in at either of those spots. It’s pretty tough to expect him to play the three against the Suns, the way they’re constituted, so there were no minutes for him. It’s hard to not put him in the game, knowing what kind of player he is but there are only so many minutes to go around right now.”
When I asked Coach Westphal today at practice, he said that he thought Thompson would play against Detroit, he had these two statements to add:
“I think we’ll see him in there. I think Jason is a really good player and it’s really hard not to play him in that game.”
“I think Jason can bring a lot and we don’t want to have him get too many DNP’s, it’s just the way it worked that game.”
Coach Westphal is charged with the difficult task of balancing both the present and the future. Jason Thompson should still be considered part of the future unless a can’t miss deal comes the Kings way. For the present, Dalembert, Landry, Cousins and Jackson are playing the majority of the minutes. If the Kings don’t end their four game skid tomorrow against Detroit, that may change.
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