from Lisa Dillman of the LA Times,

In an emotional, poignant reaction on the day of the resolution of the Mike Richards contract saga, Kings General Manager Dean Lombardi called what happened to Richards "a tragedy" and said he was devastated that Richards became caught in "a destructive spiral."

"Without a doubt, the realization of what happened to Mike Richards is the most traumatic episode of my career," Lombardi said in a written summation he provided to The Times on Friday. "At times, I think that I will never recover from it. It is difficult to trust anyone right now-and you begin to question whether you can trust your own judgment. The only thing I can think of that would be worse would be suspecting your wife of cheating on you for five years and then finding out in fact it was true.

"Anyone close enough to me knows how much I loved Mike Richards. I believed that when I had acquired him, I had found my own Derek Jeter.

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