Not far from the spot where Kings basketball president Geoff Petrie discussed the formalizing of the Ron Artest trade to Houston on Thursday, brooms, resurfacing machines, hammers and garbage bags lay scattered on the team's refurbished practice facility court. The glossy spots were bright but few, surrounded by a sea of rough surface that made it clear the finished product would take some time.

The rebuilding continues.

While the Kings had taken significant steps away from their previous era, the Artest epoch was an illusionary diversion for a team choosing a simpler road to success by continuing the youth movement. Petrie – who long sought the right mixture of an expiring contract, a young talent and a draft pick for the mercurial small forward (talents and baggage included) – landed veteran point guard and Kings fan favorite Bobby Jackson, rookie small forward Donté Greene out of Syracuse and a 2009 first-round pick.

According to Petrie, the pick has declining lottery protections for the Rockets. Should Houston fall into the draft lottery (pick Nos. 1-14), it retains the pick next season. The protections decline from there, though specifics of the progression are not known.

"You're looking at the total picture with your team going forward, and (considering) how much better can it get the way it is vs. what is the potential to get better by doing something different," Petrie explained. "What we decided to do is do something different."

The Kings – who received $1 million in the deal – also sent second-round picks Sean Singletary and Patrick Ewing Jr. to Houston. The removal of their partially guaranteed contracts allowed the team to stay under the league's luxury tax threshold of $71 million.

Meanwhile, Artest's departure is expected to have an added benefit. With the Kings on average growing younger, retaining Artest would have made for a less-than-ideal mix even before his summer of saga. Yet when Artest made public his frustration over the lack of a long-term contract extension from the Kings on July 1, he instantly qualified as a potential malcontent on a potentially impressionable team. Even if he had played well without controversy, his dominating presence on the court, not to mention his status as an impending free agent seeking a contract, could have stymied the growth of others.

"You know, if you have a big shade tree, (then) shade is good to a point," Petrie said. "But if there's too much shade, then the grass doesn't get to grow.

"We have seven or eight core veterans who are really good pieces. We have this young group here behind them. Starting in (October) training camp, we'll see what it looks like."

Greene, Petrie said, should fit nicely.

"We felt he was really a top-20 talent going in," he said of Greene, who was taken 28th by Memphis and traded to Houston on draft night. "He played really well over the Las Vegas summer league and adds another exciting, skillful player to our team that we can go forward with.

"Being able to acquire another young talent with size and skill, who should be a natural small forward in the league, along with a veteran like Bobby and not sacrifice any real future (salary) cap flexibility, that starts to become attractive to you."

With Artest widely known to be on the trading block before the February trade deadline, Petrie had been stubborn about finding a package that fit his wish list. Houston and the Kings had discussed an Artest deal in February that league sources said stalled when the Rockets refused to offer point guard Aaron Brooks. The teams began discussions anew in mid-July.

"(In February) the pieces just didn't fit together," Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said in a conference call. "But we continued to talk, and we always felt like Ron was a player that if we could acquire for the right pieces would, as we're talking about today, add a significant upgrade."

A transformation of a different kind, you could say.

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