Yeah, the Kings have confused everyone. Watching their SL games, it looks like they want to change the offense into a more team oriented offense. The moves seem to be based on passing more often and pace. They skipped on Vonleh because they had poor assist #s from the PF spot and Vonleh has questionable BBall IQ. They were considering Stauskas or Payton, and went with Stauskas. Both improve passing on the team. Stauskas is actually pretty selective with his shots and can create for others, and will make the extra pass.
Not resigning IT and never planning to seems to do with IT's refusal to be a 6th man. They got Collison for pace and passing. DC isn't pass first or a great passer, but he can function within an offense without dominating the ball. He also gets into transition quickly and will pressure the other PG 3/4 court. RayMac can also pressure the PG. They want that to increase pace.
Their disinterest in IT was base don his wanting to be 'the man' and his tendency to dribble the ball.
Article on this:
http://www.sactownroyalty.com/2014/7/13/5896453/passes-per-possesion-time-or-where-did-the-kings-ball-go-to-dieTeam was last in the league in Assists per game and second to last in passes per minute. Isaiah Thomas was one of the worst guards in the NBA getting regular minutes at passes per minute at 7.763 while Collison was much higher at 11.528.
The question still is why they got nothing in return for IT who was a very good asset that they seemed to never have interest in starting. Why not trade him during the season for something valuable? Why trade him just for a Trade Exception? Oh, because you have a really high salary and are a 28 win team. The salary issues have some to do with Gay's contract and some of the bad contracts they inherited, but they did some Landry to a long contract at 5-6mil per for no good reason other than the coach wanted a familiar vet. Now they have tons of money tied up in PFs that they don't like and are right up against the luxury tax threshold. So what they could take back for IT was already limited by previous problems. They could have still taken something of worth back and cleared space by the trade deadline to avoid paying the tax, but they did not.
To me, that's the real mystery. What the hell they plan to do with all these PFs and what they do about their payroll. I can sort of see the plan/logic with IT to DC and Stauskas. The issue is that they need another shotblocker inside and are throttled by their PF salary problem.