Ron Artest remained with the Kings on Monday, when the deadline passed for the small forward to opt out of the final season of his contract and take his skills to free agency.
Now, if only he could play point guard.
Just as one offseason question was answered for the Kings, another arrived in the form of the official arrival of free agency. That means the beginning of the Beno Udrih courting.
The fifth-year point guard became a former King at 9 p.m. Monday, when the team dialed his agent, Marc Cornstein, in New York to make their pitch in an attempt to bring Udrih back. Numerous sources close to the team said the Kings were prepared to offer Udrih their full midlevel exception (approximately $6 million) in a five-year deal. Former Kings point guard Anthony Johnson and forward Lorenzen Wright also became free agents; the team is not expected to pursue either.
The Kings' most ardent competition for Udrih could be the Los Angeles Clippers, who likely will have ample salary-cap room to offer Udrih more than the midlevel and are in desperate need of a point guard. New York also is believed to be interested, and the list most likely grows from there.
Udrih is the Kings' priority for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the obvious. They have no other point guards other than second-round pick Sean Singletary, and Udrih, with former Chicago point guard Chris Duhon, is considered the cream of the unrestricted free agents.
Udrih produced in his one season in Sacramento as well, proving he can be an effective NBA starter. On the upside, he proved a creative scorer on his way to averaging 12.8 points per game on 46.4 percent shooting. But while there might be questions about his assist-to-turnover ratio (1.91-to-1, 42nd in the league among point guards) and his durability, Udrih appears to have nearly all of the leverage in negotiations.
"Every team, maybe with a few possible exceptions, has an equal playing field now," Cornstein said by phone Monday afternoon. "With (Udrih) being unrestricted instead of restricted, you would think this would be a fairly quick process, but I've learned not to make assumptions."
Asked about the perceived interest level, Cornstein said: "I could speculate and say that there appears to be more of a demand for point guards than there is a supply. …"
He would be correct. Yet if Udrih decides to weigh his options and the Kings need to keep shopping, they will pursue Duhon next. The fifth-year player hasn't been a regular starter since his rookie season in 2004-05, when the Bulls finished 47-35 and fell to Washington in the first round of the playoffs.
While Duhon averaged 5.9 points and 4.9 assists that season, Kirk Hinrich replaced him the following season. In his career, Duhon, out of Duke, has averaged 6.9 points and 4.5 assists and shot 38.7 percent from the field.
"Chris wants to play for a team that has a chance to build into something positive and potentially contend at some point," said his agent, Kevin Bradbury. "He'd like to be a part of something like (the Kings), a team that's trying to turn it around. He'd be very open to that, to listening to what Sacramento had to say. The important thing will come in is there truly interest in him, and then we'll know."
The unrestricted free agents to be considered from there include former Orlando point guard Keyon Dooling, and even the likes of former Kings point guard Jason Williams, most recently of Miami. If free agency fails, the final frontier for finding a point guard would be via trade.
That's where Artest comes in. His decision to not opt out means he will earn $7.4 million in the final season of his contract and become one of the league's most discussed potential trade pieces. He's not known for running the point, though, so the search on that front continues anew today.
Read Sam Amick's Kings blog at www.sacbee.com/blogs.
