Well then. Here we are. First, let me show you an image that I think sums up this situation very well:

This is via Think Big Sacramento's Twitter.

Well, let's check in at the funding sources for the "supposed" 387 million dollar arena.

200 million from the leasing of the parking garages. Some monetary piece from the County of Sacramento using 3 parking lots nearby the city owned parking garages. 70 million from the Maloof family. 50 million or so from AEG is the number typically bandied about.

That's 320 million if those numbers are anywhere near accurate. And I think 320 million dollars gets the arena built for right now. Fully paid for? Obviously not. But you get the thing started and it's only semantics from there.

Plus their are ticket surcharges, brick selling (likely only a million or two dollars at most), a hotel tax that will likely be very little annually as well.

I believe this is a great day, I'm not sure what I can tell you that others can't. I will say that Seattle will always be lurking, and so will Anaheim.

A Bee story that suggests the Maloofs will put up 75 million up front and 75 million over the life of an arena. That's not insignificant no matter how you view the Maloofs.

As Rob McAllister  notes on KFBK (who has been in Orlando following this story), the next key part is to get an "term sheet" together so that the City Council (of Sacramento) has time to review and vote for the use of parking garages on March 6th.

McAllister did a podcast with the Cowbell Kingdom crew (Jon Santiago and James Ham) this morning before the news broke. Please listen, as always.

Good news today on a lot of fronts. Whatever the case is going on, there is more news coming out and while I don't think I can get all of it, there is the reality that this is a great 1st step to getting a new arena. This is a tough step to hurdle, and possibly the toughest step of all.

But, we aren't finished, and don't forget that. Don't exhale until building of the construction starts. For now, here is my reaction: #HEREWESTAYEDBITCHES!!!!!!

This is going to be a bit disorganized so I'll just say these are the notes as I was watching the game after it was over. (Yes I knew the Kings won.)

Some notes about the 4th quarter (fairly scattered as these are rough notes):

Isaiah handoff to Chuck Hayes with 6:33 remaining in the 4th for a layup; this puts Kings up 5.

After 2 Wiz 3's (one by Roger Mason & Jordan Crawford), Francisco Garcia misses a jumper. Then, on the other hand, the Kings force a miss, come out of the crowd with the ball, and Isaiah Thomas scores the bucket that keeps the Kings up for the rest of the game with 4:02 remaining. The score is now 102-101 Kings.

With 4:28 remaining Chuck Hayes gets his 2nd of 2 baskets (the only 2 he attempts) off a Jason Thompson missed basket. The Kings are now up 104-101, and the Wizards turn it over on the ensuing possession.

After Jordan Crawford scores his last bucket, Isaiah Thomas answers with another driving layup at the 3:33 mark.

With 2:36 remaining, Isaiah Thomas hits a layup after Chuck Hayes and Marcus Thornton trap Jordan Crawford to get a steal. Thomas leaks out and gets an easy basket off this steal. This puts the Kings up 110-103. (DeMarcus Cousins was also set to come into the game, but after the timeout apparently Keith Smart changed his mind.)

With 2 minutes remaining, Thornton does his typical "standing there with the ball and jab stepping". He then splits the defenders, loses the ball, Chuck Hayes picks it up and gets fouled. Hayes hits both FT's. The Kings are now up 112-103 with 1:49 remaining.

With 1:15 remaining, Francisco Garcia hits the 3 that seals the deal. The Kings are now up 115-105. (The previous Wizards possession Kevin Seraphin has a dunk.)

With 29 seconds Jason Thompson gets an offensive rebound that allows the Kings to essentially run out the clock. Kings win 115-107.

After last night's scintillating loss where a pretty cool answer to a trivia question emerged (Q: Who has scored the most points on Miami Heat in a single quarter this season? A: Isaiah Thomas), the loss to Miami still counts as a L. Tonight, the scintillating and lovely dysfunctional Washington Wizards. A group that makes the Kings, umm, look good.

Both teams are at the  bottom of everything you can be at. I'm not going to write the ORtg/DRtg's for both because they are both bottom 5 in ORtg/DRtg.

In a loss that wasn't nearly as embarrassing as the final score might indicate, the Kings actually showed some positive things tonight. Tyreke Evans actually played like a NBA player (it's a nice change), Isaiah Thomas had a career night going off for 20 points in the 3rd quarter (a season high in a quarter for a Miami opponent) and 24 points for the game (a new career high), and the ball movement at times from the entire team was something to behold. But, when you run into a championship contender who have all the answers you simply won't win. That's Miami in a nutshell.

No words to mince here: Tyreke Evans cost this Kings team the game with that foul. Would it bother me if it was another player or something of that nature? Not necessarily. But Tyreke Evans should, and always should, know the situation at hand. Mistakes are made, and I know that too. But this kind of mistake in a game where, frankly, these kind of fouls were called all night, and Tyreke looked like the Kings had a foul to give. Just a stupid braindead dumb play by him.

Thsi is the question isn't it? Whom can the Kings trade, why would they trade them, and whom would they trade said player for?

So let's a get few salary cap thingamahjigs out of the way before we continue on down the pathway of internet improving our beloved assclowns.

Is there any player on the Kings roster that can't be traded?

The technical answer to this is everyone is eligible to be traded except for Travis Outlaw, and I'm fairly sure (I have a call on the Twitter bat phone to Larry Coon that I hope he'll answer in the next week--I'm partially kidding here as Coon does a lot of work and always has a ridiculous amount of questions to answer) that Outlaw will be treated as most waiver wire pickup's are. In otherwords, once 30 passes days after you've picked up a player off waivers you are capable of trading that player. So, the point here, is that Outlaw should be tradeable if the amnesty waiver process works as the typical waiver process does. The nice thing is that the Kings are trading a player that has 3 years and 9 million dollars remaining on his salary so that is something should be remembered. While Outlaw has been terrible for the Kings, there is recourse to moving him off the team. The real question would there be any takers? Coon speculated on Dec 8th 2011 that the waiver process of when you would be able to trade that player would be 30 days, and I haven't found anything since that contradicts that.

I'm typically loathe to make a whole post around one article, but this isn't just any article. It's an in depth profile from Sporting News on DeMarcus Cousins that every Kings fan must read. Kudos to Alejandro Danois for a ridiculously enlightening article. Here is the most important snippet of the whole thing:

“DeMarcus has an edge and he has to watch that at times, but he’s a great dude,” said Strickland. “Once he respects you, you’re good. He’s a good natured dude who is good at heart. But if he senses you being fake, or not being straight up with him, then you might have a problem.”

Now, a lot of people will take this as a shot at Paul Westphal and they should. The better question is why Paul Westphal's acumen is being judged as subpar to begin with.

While the entire article was mainly about Cousins, that particular paragraph illustrates how political the entire DeMarcus Cousins discussion really is. Which is really enligthening to begin with, but it certainly is illuminating on why Cousins is such a divisive topic for so many people.

For those who are not on Keith Smart, or are in love with Jerry Sloan, this is my biggest worry. It's not the basketball acumen; it's simply a generational disconnect. I worry that an older coach like Jerry Sloan who had difficulties getting along with Deron Williams (not the most difficult superstar of all time) when Williams was asking for relatively mundane things would have an innate amount of difficulties dealing with both Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins, but especially Cousins.

Again, please read the article linked up top. While it's very long, it couldn't be more worth your time.

I'm hoping to make this brief, but with all the reports flying around today I wanted to make sure that people got where I stood.

A) I'm not surprised by the amount that Dale Kasler of the Bee reported in today's paper.

B) Second, read Rob McAllister's yet again fine piece (something you'd expect from a journalist of his caliber) on Cowbell Kingdom why Seattle isn't the swellest alternative of all time.

Well, the time to cross paths with Jeremy Lin is here. Beware, it's Linsanity everywhere you look. (I had to do it. Sorry.)

As far as the Kings vs the Bulls, here is the advanced boxscore from the Kings-Bulls for you:

And Chicago's advanced box score:

Okay, now that we got that over with, some links and other nonsense to finish this monstrosity off after the jump. 

Another day, another game recap. After the jump....