I have always had a soft spot for the Sacramento Kings and a lot of this has to do with me not enjoying the same teams being bad year after year. Do you remember the 80's / 90's when the Clippers were consistently bad and then it was revealed in a interview that this was actually financially beneficial to the owners of the team for some reason? That was all a shock to me and I don't remember the details but I remember thinking about it a bit and thought, well you don't really advertise a losing team, nor do you spend a ton of money on it, so I guess it makes sense.
I wonder if that is the case for Sacramento? I certainly hope they are making money because they sure as hell aren't winning games.
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Sure, they were invited to the bubble and were having a better-than-you-would-expect-from-the-Kings season and this was exciting. It was looking like the Kings might have a chance at being in the playoffs for the first time in, well.... a really long time.
But then they lost 4 out of 5 games and their convincing loss to the Rockets last night was the nail in the coffin. At 29-41, with their only victory being a win against New Orleans (who are performing badly and will soon be eliminated themselves) Sacramento's dreams of breaking the streak of not making the playoffs were squashed in front of a non-existent crowd.
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It's hard to say why it is that the Kings are so terrible, but with this elimination from contention for the playoffs they became the 2nd highest ranking team on a list a team doesn't want to be on: They are now 1 season away from being tied for 1st for the team that has failed to make the playoffs the longest. The current top spot is held 1977 to 1991 Braves / Clippers who were basically searching for an identity and a home during those times.
The last time they made the playoffs was in 2006 when Metta World Peace (still hate that fake-ass name), Mike Bibby, and Kevin Martin were on the squad. Of course we can go back to 2002 when Chris Webber and the boys looked like they were going to make Sacramento the new dynasty in the sport only to have that season, and all the ones after it, kind of fall apart.
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To be fair there is a lot of talk about how the series between the Lakers and Kings in the playoffs in 2002 was "fixed" and there is a lot of evidence to suggest that is true what with the Lakers getting 27 free-throws in the 4th quarter of game 6 while averaging 22 free-throws PER GAME in ever game leading up to that. That was the year that the Kings looked like they could win it all and things just went downhill from there and they never returned to that glory.
Can the Kings turn it around? Well, of course they can. You look at how Golden State was a non-issue for many years only to become dominant for a 4 years and then get relegated, abruptly back to obscurity. It happens to every team eventually. It is just surprising to see mediocrity encompass the same team for so many years in a row.
This year looked like it could be the King's year to break the curse, but sadly, with the loss to the Rockets yesterday, we are one year away from making the Kings the "Kings" of something that nobody in basketball wants to reign over: The biggest losers of all time.
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I feel as though the Kings started to become a bit popular when the rebranded themselves in the mid 90's with a new logo and that's also when Jason Williams played for them. He was a lot of fun to watch but also turned the ball over a lot.
Well.. at least they won the LA Lakers today 😅
I was a big Kings fan 20 years ago, Peja used to be my favorite NBA player and I rooted extra hard whenever the bench mob made an appearance. But those days are long gone. Since I didn't have any link with Sacramento beyond the players, I kinda lost interest in the team and their draft picks in recent years haven't been helpful either. They can turn it around if they become a fun team again. I do like the Fox - Hield combo, but they don't have a clear identity yet.
I read that people are stating that they shouldn't have been invited at all but didn't they just win 2 straight? Or is there some sort of bigger strategy going on with the top teams (such as the Lakers) not playing as hard to save the players for another day? I don't really follow the sport very closely so it is tough for me to know wtf is going on :)