After Stojakovic Trade, Bibby Last King Standing

Mike Bibby doesn’t have anywhere left to go in the Sacramento locker room when he wants to talk about the good ol’ days.

When the Kings sent Peja Stojakovic to Indiana in the deal for Ron Artest, it left Bibby as the only remaining player from the teams that won consecutive Pacific Division titles and nearly reached the 2002 NBA Finals.

The core of the team that won an NBA-high 61 games that season gradually was broken up in recent years. Vlade Divac left after the 2003-04 season. Doug Christie was traded away last January, and Chris Webber was sent to Philadelphia a little more than a month later.

“Me and Peja always talked about it all the time. Me and him, we’re the last two left from that team,” Bibby said Wednesday. “For him to be gone, you don’t want that to happen, but things in this league happen. You’ve got to live with it. You lose friends, you lose enemies. You got to deal with it.”

The Kings have since fallen from their spot as one of the NBA’s best teams, and have tried to halt the slipping by being one of the league’s busiest teams over the last year. Sacramento made another trade in the summer, sending former top reserve Bobby Jackson to Memphis for Bonzi Wells.

“Peja is the fourth guy in the last year that we’ve had to say goodbye to,” Coach Rick Adelman said. “This is tough.”

After winning consecutive division titles in 2002 and ‘03, Sacramento was second in the last two seasons. The Kings’ win total has decreased in each of those four seasons.

And if they decide to shake things up again, Bibby knows even he could be dealt.

“Hopefully I can stay,” he said. “I love the organization and the people here. I love the town of Sacramento, so hopefully I can finish my career here.”

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When Byron Scott needs basketball advice, he knows he always can call Larry Brown.

And when Brown was looking for a shooting guard for his first college coaching job, he called Scott.

Scott said thanks, but no thanks.

When the New Orleans Hornets beat the New York Knicks last weekend, it gave Scott a victory over one of his biggest influences in the sport. Their relationship goes all the way back to 1979 -- and it started with Scott turning down Brown.

“He got the UCLA job, I had already committed to Arizona State, and he came in and tried to talk me out of it,” Scott said. “So we go all the way back to my senior year in high school.”

Scott was playing at nearby Morningside High School and could have remained local had he decided to join Brown with the Bruins. And though he went on to a successful career with the Sun Devils and was the fourth pick in the 1983 draft, he gave plenty of thought to doing things differently.

“I told myself then that I wish I had changed my mind,” Scott said. “I was 18 years old and I had made a commitment. I’m going to go to Arizona State, even though I wanted to play for Larry Brown.”

He eventually got his chance when he spent two seasons with the Indiana Pacers from 1993 to ’95 near the end of his career.

“When I finally went to Indiana, he said, ‘Well, at least we finally got it right so we get a chance to be together,’ ” Scott said. “And we’ve been basically together ever since.

“LB is someone in the summertime I spend time with that I talk to probably a couple of times a month about basketball and just in general how he’s doing. He’s one of the best coaches I’ve ever been around, one of the best people I’ve ever been around.”