Isaiah Thomas says Kings players trying to keep heads down during ownership fight

HOUSTON — Kings guard Isaiah Thomas’ says his phone is constantly buzzing with tweets and texts from friends asking, “when are you and the Kings coming home to Seattle?”

Thomas grew up is Seattle and played at the University of Washington. Then the Sacramento Kings drafted him and he has embraced California’s capital like few other players on this team (he’s even got a local sponsor deal with Pizza Guy).

He’s the one player with his foot in both worlds — where the Kings play now and where the team could play next season if the NBA owners approve a sale of the team to a group led by Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is working to set up a counter offer. David Stern is playing a non-committal role. It’s all up in the air until the owners vote in April.

So what is Thomas telling all those friends that want to know if and when the team is moving back to his hometown?

“I can’t control what happens,” Thomas said. “It’s tough for a player, it’s tough for my teammates. We really don’t know more than you guys know and we don’t what’s going to happen or if anything is going to happen. We just got to go out there and play basketball.”

Do the players even talk about it in the locker room?

“Not really, not as much as you would think we would,” Thomas said. “It’s like we don’t really talk about it unless (the media) brings it up. It’s definitely not discussed in the locker room….

“Once you’re on the practice court or the game situation you don’t really think about it. The only time you think about it is before or after games when there’s questions about it.”

The Kings players are just trying to keep their head down and win some games. Which isn’t that easy when you don’t know where you will be living come this fall.

Or if they have a Pizza Guy restaurant.