Tonight will be the "Black Out". Perhaps you've seen it noticed on Twitter. (Or perhaps not.) The question is: Will the Kings win?

Last night the Lakers lost to the Bulls on a Derrick Rose half hook/running jump shot (it was a hybrid of the two really) and when Kobe Bryant had his end of the game shot blocked, the Bulls won. That's the last 10 seconds of the game. The Lakers played well for 43 minutes, and then imploded during the last 5 minutes of the game. Go figure. Was it because of no Andrew Bynum? Maybe a little bit, but not a whole lot. The Lakers played a better game than many anticipated they could for 43 minutes, and then simply dropped the ball in the last 5 minutes. Sound familiar?

Tonight isn't about beating the Lakers although many will tell you that is so. It's about the Kings winning their first game at home, and on the season. It's about finding some measure of continuity and progress that a truncated compressed timetable training camp never could. It's about the Kings starting group finding rhythm (Tyreke Evans, Marcus Thornton, John Salmons, Chuck Hayes and DeMarcus Cousins) to kick off the season right. It's about figuring out how Jason Thompson, JJ Hickson, Travis Outlaw, Jimmer Fredette and maybe Francisco Garcia work together as a bench unit. It's the first game of a 66 game journey in 120 days. (Or maybe it's 119. Not sure. The phrase sure is cute though. It's gonna remain.) The Kings starting their end of a successful journey is what matters. The Lakers? Not so much. (To be honest the only team that the Kings beating would give me juice is beating Miami in Miami. Why? Because the Kings have won in Miami 3 times in their history. Plus there is the added bonus of beating the Heatles in their own ridiculous home setting. The last time the Kings won in Miami was in Nov 2001. The other 2 wins were in 1994 and 1990. House. Of. Horrors. Miami.)

Beating the Lakers isn't anymore important in the standings than beating the Warriors or the Cavaliers or the Wizards. That's the bottom line. Like every other team they are 1 of 82 (or 1 of 66) and you beat one team one game at the time. We could talk about what each team did a year ago or anything else.

Like I said, that doesn't matter really. What matters? The Kings moving the ball on offense and playing intelligently. The Kings playing with intelligent and disruptive defensive capability. The likelihood of that happening for 48 minutes? Very unlikely. Likely that the Lakers could struggle with the matchup given the type of players the Kings have at every position? Possible.

Tonight is the first night in what hopefully could be a playoff run.

So in case reading is your thing, a discussion about why Kobe Bryant is no longer Kobe Bryant at Silver Screen and Roll, and the state of Lakers at Forum Blue & Gold. Both are very well worth your time.

Go Kings!

UPDATE: Thanks to the Kings Twitter for the image (you'll have to click on the link sorry).

Dear Tyreke Evans:

Today in the Bee, Ailene Voisin has a column dedicated to the potential brilliance of you, Tyreke Evans. It's worth reading naturally, but there is a lot of meat to the piece. Since you're probably busy playing Call of Duty or some other video game I've never heard of or don't care about, I'll just read out loud some parts of the column that I really think are important pertaining to the growth and best interests of your career moving forward. Here goes:

"Yeah, yeah, we have guys who can do things," Evans said with a forceful nod. "I think we're building a real team. I don't feel as much pressure to do so much. I don't have to have the ball in my hands all the time, even though I'm used to that. We're going to stop being selfish. My goal this year is to play defense, to will myself to play great defense."

You're getting used to me saying it by now: This Kings team will go as Tyreke Evans goes. And, guess what, what's new about that? The most interesting thing that Tyreke Evans said in the column was that "the pressure to do as much" is no longer there. Hmmm, ya think?

There is a natural pecking order to this Kings team that we haven't seen in some time. (The collective we as it were. As if there is any other kind incidentally. Or something.) There seems to be a reasonable 3 man or 4 man rotation that works as such: DeMarcus Cousins, Chuck Hayes, JJ Hickson and Jason Thompson. Rather than trying to fit Jason Thompson in this time around at the 3 spot (like everyone else I hated it too), there is no reason. There are no shortage of guys who can man the 3 spot. Jason Thompson is the 4th big man in this rotation (based on his play in pre-season). Having a natural pecking order up front from day one helps this team a great deal.

There is an actual SF for Tyreke Evans to work with for whom production is the norm and not the hope.

One of the things that would always illustrate and mark how Tyreke Evans grew as a NBA player would be the ability to balance the facilitation he absolutely needed to accomplish as a player with the ball in his hands so often, scoring while doing the facilitation, and maintaining the energy to be a defensive stopper to boot.

I've said for awhile that I think 2 years is a reasonable amount of buffer time to let a player grow and develop. (Notice I won't be writing this about DeMarcus Cousins quite yet.) For Tyreke Evans it's put up or shutup time. It's time to illustrate what is and isn't important. You see Tyreke? Fans actually care about this stuff. The stuff above wasn't even addressed to you but the 30 or 40 readers who may stumble upon this in an insomnia ridden hysterical mood.

Further on down in Voisin's column:

"Coach talked to me about (improving) my defense before camp," Evans said. "I know if I play great defense, we can be a good team. That's why I asked coach to put me on Monta (Ellis). It's not easy, though. When I talked to Chuck (Hayes) in practice, he said, 'You have to defend to make the playoffs.' Chuck has helped me a lot. Never played with anybody who talked so much on defense. But, man, it's hard."

Chuck Hayes and saga go together as well as Vodka and Breast Milk. (I stink at metaphors.) Yet, because the Cleveland Clinic has cleared Chuck Hayes, which is without question great news for Hayes, is exactly where the Kings are at right now.

When Hayes potential signing first leaked, my biggest complaint was that it felt like the franchise didn't have competent adults at the table. I suspect that is inaccurate. The reality is that you have adults at the table with especially strained resources who can only afford so much. Risks for them, especially when it cuts into potential income, are simply not tenable.

Last night, James Ham offered as plausible an explanation as you are going to get about this whole voided contract situation as you're going to get:

You can always resign Hayes if his health issues are resolved. This was the only recourse the Kings had at this point. You don’t gamble on $21 million if there is a possibility the player will never play again. Insurance policies are based on the passing of a physical. The Kings would not have been able to insure the money owed due to the failing of the physical. Fans aren’t going to like this, but voiding the contract is the only answer in this situation.

Lets hope for a very quick recovery and Hayes getting another bite with the Kings.

Again, and as James pointed out in that discussion thread at Sactown Royalty, and I have been pointing out this morning in a different thread related to the Cleveland Clinic thread at Sactown Royalty the same thing. This is all together now: An insurance deal.

If you've seen the boxscore, you'll know it was ugly. 27 Turnovers ugly. And, I'll get to that. First I'd just like to say, again, for the record, that it's nice to be discussig actual basketball. Even though we've had a slew of games recently of the pre-season, after the long lockout and the silly Free Agency period (not to mention the depressing Chuck Hayes news and the Peja Stojakovic retirement yesterday) it felt like the lockout extended with better headlines.

So, onto the standard bullet points....

Well, there are multiple options I guess. One is they can stand pat and let their current rotation of big's man the middle for them. I'm not sure if I'm ready to believe that a Cousins/Hickson/Thompson rotation really works however.

The first available option would be to re-sign Dalembert given that Sammy is still on the market. (The only thing more strange than Sam Dalembert being on the market so long is that Arron Afflalo was on the market a really long time too.)

What would it take to re-sign Dalembert? Quite a bit I bet. There is a reason the Kings renounced Dalembert, and there is a reason they have considered Dalembert an option to re-sign. Since the tests that showed Chuck Hayes has a medical issue (that really sucks by the way), I'm sure re-signing Dalembert has remained within the teams thoughts.

What other big men are out there? That's the question. The Kings have guys who can play PF & C in Cousins and Thompson. Hickson is a PF. Donte Greene and Travis Outlaw both are combo F's who in some cases are better at the PF spot than the SF spot. In a dire emergency (meaning everybody's injured) Hassan Whiteside might be available assuming he hasn't thrown a hissy fit that day.

The biggest issue I think the Kings are missing is Chuck Hayes leadership and veteran savvy. Which without Hayes is a real problem with or without Dalembert. Dalembert is certainly talented enough to do so, but will he? That's a question only time could answer along with a Dalembert re-signing in Sacramento.

If that isn't an indication of how many people miss Hayes, and how quickly Dalembert has been forgotten along the way, what else is there? Hopefully, at the end of the day, the Kings can sign someone like Dalembert and get this over with. It might even work. As always we don't know until it happens and it's merely guesswork based on details of the past as to how something would work moving forward.

It says a lot when the franchise and fans miss the presence of a player who never played a single game for the Kings. I never thought I'd say this, but whoever replaces Chuck Hayes in the rotation has some large shoes to fill.

I was going to write something long and irritating, but instead I'll just say this. It sucks, I was looking forward to seeing Chuck Hayes play in a Kings uniform, and best of wishes to Chuck Hayes and his family.

First off, I'd like to say it's great to watch basketball again. That's first and foremost. Here is the boxscore.

Some random thoughts before I hit a bullet point. It's quite possible the Kings were playing without their entire opening day starting frontline tonight: Cousins, Hayes & Salmons. Because of the circumstances surrounding the game, it's hard to evaluate exactly what went on. Because it is the Warriors who are not an exceptionally big team, it's ever more difficult to assess how this team is going to go.

In general, I find it strange that Westphal didn't play a deeper bench although I'm sure he'll address that in his post-game why some other guys didn't get those minutes.

Onto the bullet points.....

This is according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports. Look. I hate Travis Outlaw. What I wrote last night was being kind. Outlaw is an inefficient combo F who really only scores and does little else. His man defense may be okay, and I stress okay, but he's no better than JJ Hickson is for instance.

As far as the modified waived process that allows teams to bid on amnestied contracts, the Kings utilized that option with Outlaw. The minimum bid on Chauncey Billups (or any contract I believe) was 1.3 million, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Kings were the only team to bid on Outlaw. If they bid a minimum of 1.3 million for 1 season, I can live with that.

The question is can the waiver system on amnestied contracts work the same way as the waiver system? When a player is waived, a player has 48 hours to clear waivers before a player is waived. During that 48 hours teams can decide to pick up the entire salary of the waived player (along with the contract). My judgment of the modified process is that a team is able to bid years and dollars on an amnestied player. I'd be shocked if the Kings bid more than the minimum on Outlaw and for longer a year. If the only way you can bid on a player is to bid a dollar amount for the remaining years of the contract, the greater question is why? What's the point. (Like I said, I don't think the Kings have assumed the remaining 4 years of Outlaw's deal.)

UPDATE: According to Howard Beck, the Kings bid 3 million and will assume the next 4 years of Outlaw's contract. Excuse me, I have to ram my head repeatedly into a wall. Resume reading.

I don't like Outlaw, and I'll be happy if I'm wrong. But there's a reason Portland traded Outlaw away to the Clippers in 2010, and there's a reason the Nets, even after dropping a 5 year 35 million dollar deal on Outlaw, amnestied the guy. He just doesn't have a lot of value left.

Maybe I'm wrong and maybe I'm not. As per usual, folks will see this how they want (I don't like him and have thought he was overrated for a long time), and I see this as a stupid move. If it works out, then it works out. I'm just not holding out my breathe that it will be something of any real or even immediate value. Here's hoping I'm wrong eh?

A lot of people are still hoping Andrei Kirilenko is a player the Kings can go out and get. At 3 years 27 million it's a risk, but this team is at that juncture where a risk is more than reasonable. In fact, a risk is outright mandatory for a team that needs to get back to the playoffs as soon as this season.

I'm going to examine potential trade candidates that would require limited or very little other than financial relief from the contract. Before I do that, I want to make it clear that there are few players out there will be available for pure "cap relief" that are also enticing. The idea of this list is to find players who, for whatever reason, could rebound from poor production making their contract difficult to move. In my opinion, this is the one area where the Kings have a quality opportunity to find a player whose contract, otherwise impossible to take on, can help you in the interim and provide you with quality play in the next few years.

Marvin Williams Atlanta

No-one else on the roster even qualifies, and according to StoryTellers contract info (a must bookmark--Twitter here), Atlanta happens to have just crossed into the tax territory.

Demands from Atlanta? The only realistic asking price would be Donte Greene or Hassan Whiteside. Of the two, Donte most likely would be the asking price (mostly because the Hawks need a roster filler and Greene is a cheap test run at the worst). Does Atlanta do this? I do have my doubts. Rick Sund is known to over-demand talent in return for players like Williams which hurts things. As long as Atlanta wishes to pretend that it has a championship level team, trading for Williams is likely to take a major piece in return. There is no way the Kings do this.

Would I do this? Williams is due just under 25 million (24.9 million more precisely) and has produced very mediocre numbers in Atlanta. Would he be the type of player that would benefit from an up-tempo system? My opinion is yes as Atlanta is a very slow team which doesn't help Williams much.

When judging a deal like this, is it possible the Kings could lose just money and little else? Well, that's pretty much what the deal would be. I don't think Williams is on Petrie's radar, but I do believe he is the type of player that would benefit from a change of scenery and an up tempo system. Time is running out to get players who can contribute on a roster and do so quickly.

Chances of happening? 20-80 and that's being kind. Other than Josh Childress, I would rather have Williams than any other player on this list.

I know. It's Josh Childress. He sucks. Or does he?

What happened in Phoenix is an unfortunate bi-product of what can happen when things don't quite go your way. Is Josh Childress as bad as the 6% of 3PT's he hit last season? No. Until he left for Europe, Childress' career Percentage was about 35.7% on 258 3PT attempts. OVER 4 SEASONS.

Childress, despite the fact he isn't that adept at taking 3 pointers is a very good player. He handles the ball, is a good passer, and can play the 2/3. In a lot of ways for a team looking to shore up it's depth and get a veteran, I think Childress qualifies.

I would be very happy to trade Donte Greene for Childress if a veteran is really something the Kings are looking for. Sure it sounds crazy, but quality SF's are not easy to find. Is it a risk? Sure, 4 years and about 27 million remaining is a risk. A crazy out of mind risk? One that analysts will agree with? Not really no.

Let's be honest. There are not many players that are veterans that are available, that are easy to attain, that teams will just trade away for little or next to nothing. There is risk associated with this type of move. Some will say why not trade Francisco Garcia to get Childress? Because for no other reason than depth is necessary. Garcia provides a necessary veteran component that the Kings believe (and they aren't alone) they need.