Staten picked up by Kings

“Thank you @Sacramento Kings! #blessed”

The NBA Summer League begins July 10 in Las Vegas and will be televised on NBATV.

Despite impressive collegiate credentials, Staten was not among 60 players to hear their names called in the draft. His size worked against him, being listed at just 5-foot-11 and 186 pounds.

Sacramento is as good a fit as Staten was going to find, a young team trying to build and not deep at the point guard position.

It is also a team in turmoil centered around former Kentucky star DeMarcus Cousins. Coach George Karl has pushed to trade Cousins as the two are not getting along, setting in motion a scenario where it appeared that Karl’s job as coach might be in jeopardy as ownership did not want to trade Cousins.

Cousins is considered one of the NBA’s best young big men and the Kings believe they have added another premier big man out of Kentucky with Willie Cauley-Stein as their first-round pick this year.

Against WVU, in the Wildcats’ 78-39 elimination of the Mountaineers in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16, Cauley-Stein scored eight points, had 10 rebounds and blocked three shots. Staten actually outscored Cauley-Stein in his final collegiate game, scoring 15 points and making five of WVU’s 13 field goals in the game.

The Kings list three point guards on their roster in former UCLA star Darrin Collison, who averaged 16.1 points a game and 5.6 assists; David Stockton, who played in only three games; and veteran Andre Miller, the one-time Utah star who scored 4.4 a game while dishing out 3.5 assists.

At WVU, Staten averaged 18.1 points as a junior and 14.2 as a senior while dishing out 193 and 139 assists those two years. He was the Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year prior to his senior season.