Countdown of West's Best Moves plus

With the first pre-season Kings game less than two weeks away, ESPN's Marc Stein has a column assessing who's done the best shopping and tweaking in the Western Conference. He gives the Rockets his highest marks for their moves over the summer. Stein ranks the Kings 9th of 15 teams, ahead of the Jazz, Mavericks, Nuggets, Lakers, Clippers and Timberwolves. Steins notes:

Maybe new coach Reggie Theus proves to be the right replacement for Eric Musselman and gets a re-energized response from a group that never responded to Muss. Maybe Kevin Martin's $50 million contract extension winds up as a bargain if he keeps developing.

But look at the rest of the Kings' roster. Does anyone but Martin offer much long-term hope?

As I suggested three months ago, I think that the Kings will be stuck going with a starting five of Bibby, Martin, Miller, Artest and Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Given the size of the contracts, I do not believe that they will be successful in their attempts to trade any of these five players or Kenny Thomas. I think that the King's strategy is going to be to tell Theus to get Bibby and Artest to get along.

Marty McNeal notes in his column in the last two weeks:

Kings basketball president Geoff Petrie left Wednesday for Madrid, Spain, to see the final few days of the European championships. He said there was nothing on the table for the Kings in terms of a trade, so what the Kings have now likely will be what we'll see when they open training camp next month.