Plugged-in sources say that making a run at bringing Turkoglu back to Sactown -- given Orlando's well-chronicled concerns about re-signing last season's NBA Most Improved Player award recipient and staying under the luxury tax -- holds great appeal to the Kings.
Yet that depends on Sacramento's willingness to spend this summer.
It remains to be seen if the increasingly cost-conscious Maloof Brothers, who authorized a flurry of payroll-slashing deals before the Feb. 19 trade deadline, are prepared to use their projected $7-plus million in salary-cap space to assemble a long-term offer to the 30-year-old.
Turkoglu is expected to opt out the final year of his current contract with the Magic, worth $7.4 million next season, to become a free agent July 1. He signed a six-year deal with Orlando in 2004 worth $39 million but is regarded as a much more mature and dangerous player than he was when he left Sacramento in the summer of 2003 in a three-team deal that landed Brad Miller with the Kings and sent Turkoglu to San Antonio.
Players adept at running Pete Carril's Princeton offense -- with Carril back on Sacramento's bench and expected to retain a role of prominence with the Kings whether or not they re-hire Eddie Jordan as their next full-time coach -- are sure to interest the Kings going forward. Although he acknowledges that Sacramento's young big men are raw, Carril has said that Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson have the potential to develop into a tandem resembling the Divac-Chris Webber duo if they keep progressing.
So it's not difficult to understand why trying to bring Turkoglu back has been discussed.
