Good Work. Sleep Well. I’ll Likely Kill You in the Morning.

As some of you know, I write the TrueHoop Sacramento Kings blog – CowbellKingdom.com. What many of you probably don’t know is that I’m not a Kings fan in the slightest. I actually am a devoted Timberwolves fan that enjoys long walks on the beach, tirades about not surrounding Kevin Garnett with the proper talent to make him a title winner in ‘Sota, and trying to figure out if Randy Wittman has a learning disability.

So why would I write about the Kings? Well, I’ve lived in Sacramento for the majority of my life and have experienced this team in purple as a close bystander throughout this time. I thought it would be fun to run a team-specific blog as someone who isn’t a fan of that team. It would allow me to be objectively pithy and provide completely unbiased coverage. It was supposed to be groundbreaking! People teased me that I would become a fan of the team and I scoffed. Boy, did I scoff! And I still scoff because I’m not a fan of the team by any means and would never pretend to be. The only reason I have to root, root, root for the home team is so I can cover playoff games in person. But something has happened to this little experiment and its name is Tyreke Evans.

Tyreke Evans has turned my entire world upside down. Pre-draft, I wanted the Kings to draft Ricky Rubio because I thought it would be phenomenal to cover his story. I assumed he’d be here in Sacramento this coming season and would set the world on fire like an updated version of 1998 Jason Williams. But alas, the Kings weren’t enamored enough with the young Spaniard. They opted for the soft-spoken, out of position heir to Derrick Rose’s throne in Memphis. I was disappointed from the frame of mind as a Kings blogger and thrilled from the viewpoint of a Wolves fan.

I didn’t expect Tyreke Evans to do much for me. I knew he was a good basketball player. I really did. But to me, he played the same position as the Kings best player and was going to be terribly out of position as an NBA point guard. And then I went to the Las Vegas Summer League and watched him over the course of three games before I headed back home.

Matt Moore tried to explain to me how good this guy was. And I never really considered his words as anything more than Midwest pride for a one-and-done Memphis Tiger. But once I saw him in the LVSL, I was ready to proclaim Geoff Petrie as the draft genius tag he was once regaled as.

The thing about ‘Reke is that he’s one of those quiet assassins. Remember when Derek Fisher Tony Twist’d Luis Scola and said something about “beware of the quiet kid in the corner?” That’s Tyreke Evans. You need a boom mic to have a conversation with the kid because he’s so soft-spoken. In fact, he kind of makes Derrick Rose look like Joy Behar in an interview setting because he doesn’t try to give interesting answers and he’s a bit of a low-talker. But don’t let that fool you.

Tyreke Evans is the Dread Pirate Roberts.

So much has been misunderstood about Evans. He nearly surrendered his career at such a young age because he happened to be driving a car when his cousin turned real life into Grand Theft Auto. But his trainer, friends, and family wouldn’t let him get caught up in an area that despite popular opinion isn’t always sunny. He was groomed from a young age to be an NBA player. It was his destiny. He went to bed every night in the heart of Chester, Pennsylvania with his hometown telling him, “Good night, Tyreke. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

And now? He’s a bit of controlled chaos wrapped in a large man’s body barreling down the lane. He’s unable to be stopped by cement barricades, tack strips on the road, or brick walls reinforced by God-himself. He’ll break through all of those with a reckless abandon and compose himself and his motion just before he flies by the basket. The result is a free-throw line trip, a lay-up, or a combination of the two. And he’s the reason why the Kings aren’t going to be nearly as bad as you assume they will.

This team has a small semblance of talent and it all starts with whatever Evans can do on the court as he figures out the NBA game. He’s feeling out the pro game in a sword fight and after a couple months of regular season under his belt, I suspect he’ll show us that he’s not left-handed. He’ll use his swift, cunning attacks to fluster and confuse his opponents. He won’t be afraid to go against Andrea Bargnani, Marco Belinelli or any Sicilian with death on the line – iocane powder is what he sprinkles on his Corn Flakes in the morning.

The only questions that surround him are his teammates. Kevin Martin is a terrifically efficient scorer but what else can he do? Is Martin willing to seek out Kobe Bryant, withstand puncture wound after puncture wound and proclaim that his name is Kevin Martin, Kobe killed his franchise, and now he should prepare to die? Is Spencer Hawes more likely to be set on fire while riding a wheelbarrow and terrifying villagers or playfully asking if “anybody want a peanut?” At a certain point, it will be up to Tyreke to make those decisions for the franchise.

Tyreke Evans will never be a pure point guard. And he’ll certainly never be a boisterous leader on and off the floor. But his play and how his teammates play around him determine their fate in California’s capitol. If they can’t cash in on the attention he draws from infiltrating the defense then they’ll eventually be shipped away or just let go. Sacramento, Arco Arena, and whatever arena gets constructed years from now are his for the taking. He’s the franchise player they’ve been craving since Chris Webber’s knee gave out on the Kings and their fans.

He’s come to save this franchise, put a small market on his back, and battle the rest of the Western Conference to the pain. And he’ll do so with the quiet, stealth demeanor of the Dread Pirate Roberts persona. Evans hasn’t turned me into a Kings fan but he also isn’t allowing me to remain an innocent bystander either. I’m stuck somewhere in the limbo in between these two worlds. My man crush for ‘Reke is growing with each drive to the basket, as is his eventual legend.

After all, Tyreke Evans is going to turn into true greatness. You think this happens everyday?

Zach Harper also runs Talkhoops.net, a general NBA blog, and Cowbell Kingdom, a Sacramento Kings blog part of the TrueHoop Network. You can email him at zharper[at]talkhoops.net. You can also follow him on twitter here and also here.