The complete Q&A with Kings president Geoff Petrie

Geoff Petrie has time on his hands.

The Kings missed the playoffs for a second consecutive season and and they're not looking for a coach as they did the past two summers, meaning the focus of the offseason is forward progress in this ongoing rebuilding phase.

In an interview that took place Wednesday, the Kings basketball president took time out of his day of NBA draft preparation to hit on a wide variety of topics. He discussed his recent rejection of overtures from the Atlanta Hawks for their general manager position and what it says about his commitment to the Kings, the first season of coach Reggie Theus and his status entering the final guaranteed season of his contract, the unknown futures of Ron Artest and Beno Udrih, and analysis of a roster he continues to re-tool.

Question: Let's start simple. Give me an overview of the season as you saw it.

Answer: Well I think we accomplished some good things. We obviously won more games than we did a year ago. We were a better home team. For whatever percentage of people ... who thought we were going to continue to spiral downward, that just didn't happen. I thought later in the year, that even though it became more unlikely that we would have a chance to be in the playoffs that our team continued to compete and our younger players continued to develop and play with a lot of enthusiasm, which helped us - especially at home. Our home games, for the most part, were pretty entertaining. And I've got to think that at the end of all that, you see that we have some decent pieces.... Overall, there are some things to build on here.

Q: We talked the other day about style of play - things you guys did well and things you want to get back to. Is the assist-to-turnover ratio the first thing you have to fix, and how do you see that problem? (The Kings were last in the league with a mark of 1.25 in the assist-to-turnover ratio department)

A: We've had a couple lengthy meetings already to collectively talk about the season, and I think we have a pretty good consensus of the two areas we really need to focus on. The assist-to-turnover ratio deteriorated to a level that we had never really seen here. And then our rebounding. We were a little bit better, but not significantly enough better to hang your hat on that. Those are the two areas.

When you look at style of play vs. personnel, what ultimately happens on the court is always some function of what you're doing and who's doing it. But the whole assist-to-turnover ratio issue is probably a little bit more weighted toward style of play issues than personnel, whereas I think you could probably fairly say that the rebounding is more weighted on the personnel side. So going forward, those are things that hopefully we can address to some extent by working through it during the offseason.

Q: Do you feel like Reggie will be better equipped to fix some of those problems because he'll have one year and those experiences under his belt?

A: I think by his own admission, we're in agreement that he feels he knows his personnel a lot better now than he did a year ago. Obviously just by experience you have a better feel of what happens within the league as well. That should hopefully translate into utilization of the players - whatever your final roster is - utilization of those players to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. I think there is some advantage from his perspective on that basis going forward.

Q: You obviously have Kevin (Martin) as a big piece for the future, but how do you envision the pieces you eventually want to put around Kevin?

A: Our team right now, really, when you look at the ages of some of our most productive players, they're all well below 30. Beno will be a free agent, and Ron has the capacity to be one. But Kevin is young, Frisco (García) is young, John (Salmons) is still young, Spencer (Hawes) obviously is young, Quincy (Douby) hasn't been as productive as those guys yet but he's young and we're going to have another decent draft pick this year. We have some flexibility. And depending on how things work out, I think you can see the potential for the ongoing development and a group there that can be productive.