It was only 10 minutes. And as Beno Udrih saw it, it wasn't a pleasant 10 minutes.
Before the point guard became the rising star in Sacramento, signing with the Kings on Nov. 1 as an emergency fill-in for the injured Mike Bibby and beginning his career anew four years in, he was a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
A welcome trade from San Antonio had landed him with the T-wolves on Oct. 29, but just as Udrih prepared to stay afloat in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, he was cut. Set free, really.
"My agent told me I'd have to fly to Minnesota the next day," said Udrih, who signed a one-year contract with the Kings for the league minimum of $826,046. "He had called the general manager or somebody (in the Timberwolves' front office), and he said, 'Yeah, we want to see what Beno is going to bring to the table.'
"And then, 10 minutes later, they waived me."
Udrih sought a setting in which playing time would be plentiful and competition minimal, and Minnesota obviously was not it. At point guard, the T-wolves had the well-respected Randy Foye, the seventh overall draft pick in 2006; Sebastian Telfair, the 13th overall pick of the 2004 draft with plenty to play for; and established veteran reserve Marko Jaric.
Udrih, who spent so much of his first three seasons dreaming of big minutes with the Spurs while playing behind Tony Parker and, in the later years, Jacque Vaughn, was concerned.
"They had a bunch of guards … so I was really not sure about going (to Minnesota)," Udrih said. "I was not happy about that trade. But still, it was a young team, and I just told myself that they were going to need some players. That's what I was telling myself.
"Ten minutes later, my agent says they waived me."
The outcome, of course, has fallen largely in Udrih's favor. Minnesota enters Arco Arena tonight with the second-worst record in the NBA (12-48), unable to know how different things would have been if Udrih had stayed.
The day after the Timberwolves waived Udrih, they learned Foye had a stress reaction in his kneecap. Foye missed the season's first 43 games. Ironically, Timberwolves vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale told Minnesota media that his questions about Udrih's durability were a factor in his decision to cut the guard.
"When you do your investigation, I guess the biggest concern I had was that (San Antonio) really felt that, injury-wise, he had been hurt quite a bit," McHale said. "You're (thinking), Well, we've got unknowns right now (on the roster). I don't think we were in a situation where we were willing to bring in two unknowns. We already had Sebastian here."
Meanwhile, Udrih has played well enough in Sacramento to earn a nickname. "The Tasmanian Slovenian," so named by Kings television personality and team director of player personnel Jerry Reynolds, has been on quite a tear in the last five games.
In that span, Udrih has averaged 22.6 points and 5.8 assists while shooting 56.5 percent from the field and continuing to prove himself. When the Kings traded Bibby to Atlanta on Feb. 16, Udrih's emergence was no small part of the equation.
His impending free agency this summer meant the Kings would most certainly lose Udrih if Bibby had remained, and Udrih's early play had intrigued the Kings' front office more than enough to warrant a closer look at the situation.
And it appears Udrih, 25, could be here for years to come. This summer, the Kings will be in a position to offer part or all of their midlevel exception (approximately $6 million) to retain Udrih. The chance the Kings gave him after his 10-minute Minnesota stay, Udrih said, will not be forgotten.
"This is the team that gave me an opportunity to show myself," he said. "I'm really happy here. I like it. We'll see what comes at the end."
Read Sam Amick's Kings blog at www.sacbee.com/blogs.
