Jones Is King for a Night With 35 in Laker Win

Trade talk was everywhere Tuesday night in Arco Arena, and almost nowhere in reality.

Nothing new. A greater chance that it won’t happen, if anything. So that must have meant this so-called audition by Eddie Jones was for nothing. Unless you were a Laker, of course.

In that case, it was for everything in the second game of the season, this career-high 35 points on 14-of-17 shooting in a 101-98 victory over the Sacramento Kings before 17,317.

And then Jones--not Mitch Richmond--got on the plane back to Los Angeles. A Laker present and very possibly for the future, what with the blockbuster deal involving the Lakers and Kings, and all-stars Jones and Richmond, still active but hardly closer to completion.

Said Richmond, asked after scoring a team-high 24 points if Jones was trying to make a statement: “Maybe he was.”

Or, maybe he wasn’t. Jones doesn’t want to be traded, and certainly not to the Kings.

“With everything going on, I should want to play badly in front of the Sacramento fans,” he said after the Lakers also got 21 points from Elden Campbell, 19 from Nick Van Exel and big free throws by both in the final minute. “Then they would say, ‘We don’t want Eddie.’ ”

How about Campbell instead? He scored nine points in the fourth quarter, including the three-point play that tied the score at 94-94 with 2:20 left, followed the next possession by two free throws that put the Lakers ahead for good.

The Kings, trailing, 101-98, had a chance to tie after calling timeout with 3.8 seconds left. But Billy Owens’ running three-pointer hit the front of the rim.

Jones and the Lakers arrived Tuesday morning, hoping to treat this like any other game. He just couldn’t find many others willing to buy into the same theory.

The Sacramento Bee ran a story repeating Jones’ comments from the day before that he didn’t want to become a King for a day, let alone the next three seasons before it would be possible to leave as a free agent. It came complete with the headline stripped across the top of the sports section.

“Jones: ‘I don’t want to go to Sac’ ”

No, he definitely does not--”I want to be competing after May,” he reiterated about an hour before tipoff.

Unappreciative of the truth, some fans booed him during pregame introductions, while others cheered. What happened next may have warmed them all up.

Jones drove for a layup.

Then Jones took a lob-toss from Van Exel on a two-on-none fastbreak and dunked.

Then Jones made a 19-foot straightaway jumper.

Then Jones dunked again.

Any other game, this was not. Winning fans by the minute, even while hoping never to play for them, he scored the Lakers’ first 10 points, finishing the opening quarter five for five from the field. Jones followed that by making his first two attempts of the second quarter before missing a three-pointer with about 4 1/2 minutes left before halftime.

No matter. He made the next three shots, going into intermission with 24, his most for a half, while making 10 of 11 attempts and both tries from the line. Richmond, meanwhile, was four of six, though limited to 13 minutes because of foul trouble.

It clearly registered with fans. But it was impossible to gauge what, if any, impact this all had with King management, which went into the game giving more and more consideration to pulling Richmond back and waiting until the trade deadline approaches in February to make a deal, hoping teams will be willing to surrender more when the championship run comes into greater focus.

Of course, after appearing somewhat more likely as the season began Friday, the deal was anything but an automatic down south, either, by the time the new week began. This had nothing to do with Jones’ anti-Sacramento stance and much more to do with the emotions involved in breaking up the nucleus of a group that could succeed into the 21st century.

So, the deal remained a possibility come tipoff, but was far from the automatic that some were making it seem, to the point that some close to the situation figured it was not likely to happen at all. Then again, it also could happen this week, Jones having done his part to convince the Kings. As much as he didn’t want to.