Why the Kings Should Have Traded Mike Bibby

After an off-season of change for the Sacramento Kings, one that was supposed to bring defense and intensity to an offensive minded squad, has brought nothing but inconsistency and poor offense. Trying to repeat the Rick Adelman-led Kings of the early decade was not feasible, but the results with new coach Eric Musselman are far from expectations. The main problem for Sactown has been the play of point guard Mike Bibby. Coming off a season when Bibby averaged a career-high in points, it was reasonable to expect him to have another solid season. Not so. Bibby is averaging 16.9 points a game (his career average) on a poor 39.3% from the field and an even worse 30.7% from behind-the-arc. Bibby has always been a scoring point guard. Never in his career before last year was he the main threat. The Kings had Webber, Divac, and Stojakovic to run the offense around, allowing Bibby many open looks as well as opportunities to penetrate the lane against an off-balance defense that would double Webber in the post and stay out on Peja to prevent the open trey. These scenarios allowed Bibby to thrive. Also, Webber and Divac were two of the greatest passing big-men in the game. Now, the Kings have a totally different lineup. There is no immediate threat down-low, allowing teams to stay on Bibby out on the perimeter. K-Mart is emerging as a solid player, but none worthy of a double-team, as well as Artest. This leaves Bibby on his own, having to create his own shots. Don't get me wrong, Bibby is a good player, but he doesn't fit with the new Kings. He is too slow to penetrate the lane and breakdown a defense. And with Martin becoming the Kings go-to-guy of the future, the last things the Kings need is a shoot-first point guard. The ideal move would have been to package Bibby for a pass-first point guard. Someone who can penetrate and dish to a bunch of shooters; Martin, Artest, Miller, Garcia, etc. You can only have so many players that want to shoot. With emerging talents such as Jose Calderon of Toronto, who averaged 9.5 assists over 8-starts filling in for the injured TJ Ford, the Kings could have made a three way deal sending some players to Toronto for Calderon while sending Bibby to a point-guard hungry team. Or what about to Miami and bring J-Will back to Sactown? At least we know he can pass.