Q&As with Cisco and The Landlord

At the Monarchs-Sparks contest on Saturday, I ran into Francisco Garcia and Shelden Williams. While Garcia was clearly in favor of the home team, Williams was rooting for his fiancée, Candace Parker, and the Sparks.

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Shelden Williams

How has your offseason been? “It’s been alright, not too bad. I’ve just been working out and traveling.”

How much do you enjoy going to your fiancée’s games?
“It’s been good. When I was in Atlanta, I supported her when she was at Tennessee and I caught a lot of her home games there. Now I see her on the professional level and it’s a good thing.”

The local media had a chance to see a couple of NBA prospects work out at the Kings practice facility for a pre-draft workout recently. Do you remember what that process was like?
“I do. It was two years ago when I was doing the same thing. I know how anxious and nervous you are. But now some players I know are going through the same things themselves.”

Are you planning to play on the Kings Summer League team?
“I think I will.”

Will you go into it focused on a particular aspect of your game?
“Honestly, it’s something that they want to see me play more. So I’m going for the betterment of myself and the team and I’ll just take it as it is.”

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Francisco Garcia

I saw you in the Kings practice facility the other day with Kevin Martin. What were the two of you working on?
“We were going at it a little bit, working out and having fun, just getting ready. We have a lot of goals and they are high goals, so we are just trying to get better.”

What have you done so far in the offseason?
“I’ve been traveling a little bit. I’ve been to my country, the Dominican Republic. I had a little fun but now I’m back to work. We’re off for a couple of weeks and now we’re back.”

What are your plans for the rest of the summer?
“Work out, get better and better and get ready for next season.”

Are you going to Summer League?
“Yeah, I’m going to go with the team and enjoy myself a little bit.”

Lastly, what do you enjoy most about the WNBA?
“The women play hard. The Monarchs lost tonight, a tough loss, but they played hard and I just like the sport.”

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Kings Draft Day Party

The 2008 NBA Draft is less than a week away and ARCO Arena is the place to be on Draft day. You’re invited to the 2008 Kings NBA Draft Day Party on Thursday, June 26 at 3:30 p.m. at ARCO Arena. Not only will you have the chance to watch the excitement unfold live on KingsVision with fellow Kings fans, you’ll hear from President of Basketball Operations Geoff Petrie and a Kings player on Draft day!

For more information on the 2008 Kings NBA Draft Day Party, click here.

Driving from Chicago

Well, Kings Fans!! Long time no read! 

This past month-and-a-half has been a whirlwind of sorts for me. There are lots of exciting things going on with me and none of them were planned. My controlling side is screaming and my free wheeling side is having a blast!

After about a month of training camp, my WNBA career has officially ended. As all of you just did… no “Awww’s” necessary, because it is not at all a bad thing. Going into the season there was already a huge question as to whether my back would be healthy enough to withstand another season, and after two weeks of practice and two weeks of being unable to practice with the team, the writing was pretty much on the wall. I most likely could have played this season, but a large portion of it would have been limited and questionable, so my former team was looking for a bit more reliability and released me. Great thing about it, I was guaranteed!!! So I have been enjoying a bit of “paid” vacation time.

However, since receiving the news from the Sky and actually leaving Chicago, an awful lot has happened. It started with my drive back. Yes, you read that correctly — my drive back. I drove to Chicago with one of my three dogs for the summer. It was easier than shipping my car and waiting forever for it to get there. Well, it just so happens that the halfway point of my drive home was Laramie, Wyoming, which, quite ironically, was having some freak weather that evening. And by “freak,” I mean a tornado.

I was about 20 miles outside of Laramie, where my nice bed at a local motel was awaiting me, when the weather took a turn for the worse. It had been raining hard all day, but in the matter of a mile it went from 55 degrees and raining to 30 degrees with about 4 inches of sleet on the road. Given the conditions, I was only going about 25 mph when I lost control of my SUV and slid underneath a semi truck and trailer. After a lot of noise and a decent amount of spinning, I ended up facing east on a west-bound freeway in the center divide. The lovely semi truck driver thought best to keep driving! After assuring limbs and sockets were all still in place, and my little mini dachshund had not wet herself, I happened to look out on the freeway and see all my Coach purses strewn all over the road. I sprinted down the road nabbing every single last one. Once the most important things had been tended to, I called the highway patrol and assessed the damage.

To make a long story short, the car was totaled and I was stranded in Wyoming with a car full of stuff now soaking wet and covered with broken glass. Luckily, I rented an SUV and made it back safely to Sacramento. Unfortunately, the cost of a one-way rental return was enough to consider selling body parts, being as I no longer needed them for playing. I thought long and hard about that and ended up deciding to make a second trek to the lovely state of Wyoming for the sole purpose of returning my rental.

But, despite totaling my car and traveling across the country in a matter of days, there was nothing in the world that could have kept me from making it to Las Vegas for the opening of the Palms Place at the Palms Casino. The Maloofs, ever advancing, opened a new tower at the casino called Palms Place, which includes everything from studio apartments to penthouse suites. A long list of celebrities and dear friends of the Maloofs took a stroll down the red carpet to honor the grand opening and enjoy what always promises to be an amazing night of entertainment. I would have to say, working my first red-carpet event proved to be a world away from being behind the mic at a Kings game, but it turned out to be a great perk to working for Maloof Sports & Entertainment.

Favorite celebrity of the night: Jessica Simpson who had just released her first country single and hopes to be making her way to Sacramento in the near future! Aside from Simpson, I have to say, my interview with Mini-Me (Verne Troyer) was nothing short of entertaining!!!