I felt better after the DeMarcus Cousins trade than I did before. The Kings were young and fresh and going to rebuild instead of clawing for the 8th seed with veterans. That was better. But now the draft lottery looms and then what promises to be an underwhelming free agency period, and I’m so tired of rebuilding.

I want the Kings to be good again. Not just “oh hey they’re frisky”. I want the Kings to be good. I want the Kings to be a team people assume will be in the playoffs. I want them to be a team that isn’t considered an easy out in the playoffs. I want them to be good.

And rationally I know that the rebuild is a better path towards that goal than Cousins and discount veterans. I know this. But I also know there’s no guarantee this rebuild works. We’ve seen the Kings rebuilding for over a decade now. And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of covering a pile of garbage that occasionally gets sprinkled with a dash of hope.

I was going to write about free agent targets this morning. But I just couldn’t bring myself to get excited about “maybe the Kings could get Patty Mills!” Mills is a fine player and would probably help the Kings and I might still write about that sometime soon, but I just couldn’t do it this morning. I’d be trying to talk myself into a 28 year old point guard who just averaged over 20 minutes a game for the first time in his career. And there’s a good shot the Kings wouldn’t be able to sign him even if they did target him.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited about Skal Labissiere and Buddy Hield. I’m thrilled at Willie Cauley-Stein’s growth in year two. I’m eager to see more of Malachi Richardson and Georgios Papagiannis. I want Bogdan Bodganovich to come over and be great. But I’ve also been burned by this type of thing before. Tyreke Evans was supposed to lead us back to the playoffs. And then DeMarcus Cousins was the answer. And Isaiah Thomas, and Rudy Gay. Ben McLemore was supposed to be good, just like Thomas Robinson before him and Nik Stauskas afterwards. And I’m tired of things just not working.

In short, I’m impatient right now. I know the Kings made the right move, I’m just having trouble getting excited about enduring the rebuilding process for another summer.