The SACRAMENTO BEE reports Sacramento Kings co-Owner George Maloof was popped for DUI in Vegas on Saturday night in an arrest that provides embarrassment to Maloof for more than just the alcohol-related charge.

Maloof told the Bee he was arrested as he was pulling into his driveway and that he “didn’t feel intoxicated” after drinking four beers at a wedding earlier in the evening. The Bee reports that Maloof indicated his blood alcohol was .086. The legal limit is .080.

If that is indeed the case, sounds like a garden-variety DUI that may get reduced down to a lighter charge. (Maloof told the ASSOCIATED PRESS he plans to fight the charge.) But not surprisingly, Maloof wasn’t anxious to detail what else he was charged with by LVPD. Read more…

The SACRAMENTO BEE and KCRA-TV in Sacramento report that a large outdoor mural of Sacramento Kings player Omri Casspi, who is Israeli, was defaced with a backwards swastika earlier this week.

Sacto Police Department spokesman Konrad von Schoech said local authorities first learned that the plywood display of the NBA player and his Sacramento Kings teammates had been vandalized midday Wednesday. A Nazi symbol was etched between the eyes of Casspi’s image and the removal of the graffiti appears to have permanently damaged the large portrait.

The vandalism took place just down the street from the California State Capital building. California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said of the defaced mural, “This act of hate and intolerance is despicable and cowardly. It is all the more offensive because it occurred on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the Jewish new year.”

Von Schoech said the “hate symbolism” elevates the severity of such a vandalism crime and that local police continue to search for suspects.

Reached at his home in Israel by Bee reporter Ailene Voisin, Casspi said that he was aware of the incident: Read more…

Tyreke Evans at the Bobby Jackson Foundation Celebrity Golf Tournament in Sacramento on Monday showed that his driving ability is still suspect.

Don’t be fooled. If his highway driving is any indication, Evans is just testing the wind for the drag coefficient.
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Tweet from rookie Sacramento Kings big man DeMarcus Cousins the night the Lakers won the NBA title:

Just what the Kings needed.

This morning venerable NBA writer Ailene Voisin of the SACRAMENTO BEE speculated that Kings Coach Paul Westphal’s recent punishment of Spencer Hawes was related to illness of Westphal’s wife. That is, that the stress of that situation was affecting Westphal’s judgement.

Voisin called Westphal’s punishment of Hawes “excessive” while noting:

And this from an unconventional thinker who considers right-wing blowhard Rush Limbaugh one of his friends?

The piece was published just after midnight this morning, but as you might expect, the comments are rolling in about Voisin’s characterization of Limbaugh in her basketball article.

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ESPN 710 host and Lakers broadcaster John Ireland said yesterday that “people close to the team” told him that it “isn’t in the cards” for the Kings to stay in Sacramento and that the team eventually is “going to be forced to move” by the NBA. Ireland made his comments on the Mason and Ireland Show before he broadcast the Kings-Lakers game in Vegas last night.

(NBA’s soon-to-be newest throwback line?)

Ireland on KSPN-AM in Los Angeles:

“The people I have talked to in the NBA have told me that the Kings are going to be forced to move. They are not, especially in that political climate, going to get a new arena. No matter what the mayor says, no matter what the Maloofs say. Most of the people close to the team have told me they will try everything humanly possible to stay in Sacramento but that it’s not in the cards.

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• Florida Panthers exec Uri Man shows what kind of man he his by hitting on Fox News anchor Ainsley Earhardt during an on-air interview.

• Bud Selig softening on Pete Rose Hall of Fame ban? Don’t bet on it.

• Ladies & gentlemen, your 2009-10 Sacramento Kings Dance Team!

• And the Jeremy Mayfield meth mess goes on: NASCAR says they have witnesses that saw him do the drug.

• Just because “Zorn” rhymes with “porn”, that doesn’t mean the Redskins coach has ever wanted to seen any.

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Who can forget this great moment in sports from 2008, when WITH LEATHER uncovered a cache of highly inappropriate photos of the Sacramento Kings Dance Team running amok at a party? Ah, memories.

Nothing like that this year, unfortunately (the Kings organization had a seizure when those photos got out). But the Kings Dance Team marches on anyway, having just completed 2009 auditions this weekend. Videos of the grueling selection process, and the final results, following the jump.

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Because it’s unlikely that a member of the Sacramento Kings is ever going to get any media attention for something they did on a basketball court, rookie forward Donte Greene decided that he needed to make a splash off the court.

And make a splash he did. During Memorial Day weekend, Donte jumped into the American River near Sacramento to save a woman who had fallen off of her boat and couldn’t swim. Greene let the world know about his heroics via Twitter (of course), but genuinely seems humble about the whole thing. Greene used to be a lifeguard and said that his instincts just kicked in when he saw the woman struggling in the water.

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Ricky Rubio and his agent, Dan Fegan, have started applying the pressure on NBA teams to ensure he ends up in the best possible media market. Because he still has to spend his own cash to get out of his Spanish contract, he has the leverage to return to Europe if the “wrong” team drafts him.

(Why would anyone not want to play in Memphis?)

Therefore, Memphis and OKC can just draft around him. Instead, Fegan (who failed to stop Milwaukee from drafting Yi Jianlian but got him moved to the NYC market eventually) wants his client in L.A. or Sacramento to get at that California cash.  Sacramento drafts fourth, but haven’t the Clippers promised to take Blake Griffin with the first pick? Rubio couldn’t end up in L.A. still, could he?

He could, as it turns out.

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