People act like Shareef Abdur-Rahim was garbage last year. He was no All-Star, but when you adjust for minutes he was average and when you figure he played out of position 50% of the season, he was good. He's not the value we (and Geoff Petrie) once thought he'd be, but he's certainly not terribly overpaid for a backup power forward.

Still, seeing his knee cleaned up with arthroscopic surgery is a bit frightening. For no other reason, it shows his age — the breakdown has begun, and it tends to get fast at some arbritrary point. You really really hope that point isn't now.

It also makes him tough to move this summer, as he might not be able to work out for a destination team for at least two months as he recovers. The trade market is just about dead by the end of August.

If Petrie thought the Kings could contend in 2005-06, Shareef was a quality pickup — hell, he went for 30 the first week of that season. But if Petrie realized then what we've all realized since — that this team needs to get ground pretty close to the stone before being reformed into something artistic — then the signing was a mistake. Perspective is everything.