THURSDAY, 10:33am: Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities reports (via Twitter) that Lockett's deal with the Kings is a two-year pact, and includes a partial guarantee, as we speculated below.
WEDNESDAY, 7:10pm: The Kings have signed Trent Lockett, the team announced on its website. The 6'5" shooting guard played for Sacramento's summer league team after going undrafted in June out of Marquette. The deal likely amounts to just a training camp invitation, but the formal announcement from the club suggests there may be a partial guarantee involved.
Lockett wasn't a highly rated draft prospect, but we heard that he performed predraft workouts for the Bucks and Knicks, and today's release for the Kings says he worked out for them prior to the draft, too. He averaged 7.0 points and 20.2 minutes per game in five summer league contests for Sacramento last month.
That 7.0 PPG is the same number he put up in 26.6 MPG for Marquette last season, little more than half of his 13.0 PPG output as a junior at Arizona State, where he played three seasons before transferring. ESPN's Chad Ford, who rated him the 132nd-best prospect in the draft, pointed to athleticism and rebounding as his strengths (Insider link). He put up more than five rebounds per game in each of his last three seasons in college.
Lockett is the 15th player under contract with the Kings, as our updated roster counts show. The 14 other players all have fully guaranteed contracts. NBA teams are limited to 15 players during the season, but they can carry as many as 20 players into training camp, so Lockett figures to receive more competition for the final spot on the regular season roster.