Evans ready for Fredette’s arrival

Tyreke Evans has welcomed the addition of Fredette, college basketball’s consensus 2011 national player of the year. But a month after the draft, Evans also has some questions: Is he still the Kings’ starting point guard? Or, is he being moved to shooting guard to make room for the heralded rookie?

Team officials gave Evans no answers after the draft, and they can’t speak to him until after the lockout ends.

“I don’t know how we are playing it,” Evans said. “Am I going to be the point? Is he going to be the point? At the end of the day, whatever one they lead me to, I’m just ready.”

After Fredette was drafted, there was some thought the Kings could play him at point with Evans at shooting guard. One league source said the team will likely begin the season with Evans and Thornton starting, and Fredette coming off the bench.

“They made the decision they wanted,” Evans said of the Kings’ drafting of Fredette. “I can’t do nothing about, but I didn’t have any issues with it.

“I like him a lot,” Evans said of Fredette. “He’s going to help a lot. …He definitely takes a load off of me. When I create, I can find him, and he can knock down that open shot.”

Evans and Fredette haven’t spoken since the draft. The young Kings don’t lack offensive options: Evans, center DeMarcus Cousins, new forwards John Salmons(notes) and J.J. Hickson(notes), who were both recently acquired in trades and Fredette and Thornton (assuming he’s re-signed). The question is whether they will fit together.

“There is only one way to find out – when the season starts,” Evans said. “I don’t know how [Fredette] plays in the NBA, so we’ll have to adapt to each other.”

Evans has been working out with trainer Rob McClanaghan and Lamont Peterson, his strength and conditioning coach, in Santa Monica, Calif. Evans said his foot injury that bothered him last season is fully healed.

Evans has received some interest about playing professionally in China during the lockout, but there has been no formal offer.