The Rebirth of the Sacramento Kings

The offseason used to be the best part of Sacramento Kings basketball–at least for me, it was.

During the summer months, you can talk yourself into an endless stream of possibilities, whether it be a specific young player making a leap, bringing a notable free agent in, or pulling off a swing-for-the-fence type of trade. That’s what the NBA offseason is about–changes for the better.

For 16 years, that didn’t happen for the Kings.

From 2006 through 2021, Sacramento continued to take one step forward before taking two–or what felt like ten–steps back. Fans were desperate for winning basketball, yet a combination of poor decisions sent this franchise into a tailspin that nearly lasted two decades.

During the thick of the playoff drought in 2010-12, my friends and I would buy cheap tickets and make the short trip from Yuba City to watch the Kings at Sleep Train Arena. Most of my friends came to see whoever was visiting, whether it was Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder or Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs; it didn’t matter–they just weren’t there to see the Kings.

There are so many of you out there that can relate to my reasoning for being at those games. It was simple for me–I just wanted to see Sacramento compete. Winning was unlikely, but my hope was just to see a close game. That was it.

Over the years, there have been several examples of successful rebuilds around the NBA. Oklahoma City, Atlanta, Portland, and Indiana all emerged in the early 2010s as playoff contenders after struggling through the end of the 2000s.

Several teams made the jump. Yet, the Kings continued to spin its wheels while franchises around them righted their ships and ventured into postseason basketball.

Sacramento became the laughingstock of the NBA.

The price of those tickets that my friends and I would buy during our Digital Photo class continued to drop. Losing seasons piled up. A revolving door of head coaches started to turn. It seemed as if Sacramento was collecting draft picks like a hobby. Rumors of relocation swirled for years until reality set in during the 2012-13 season that it could be the end for the Kings.

When it became clear that the franchise was moving to Seattle, it tested my love for a franchise I grew up idolizing. I’d ask myself, “What am I going to do now? Become a Warriors fan?”

There was no apparent solution.

The spring of 2013 was a tough time for Sacramento Kings fans. After the unforgettable memories of the early 2000s, it looked as if the Kings would go gently into that good night. No raging against the dying of the light.  It was just the end of basketball in California’s capital city.

What happened next reignited my love for this team and fanbase. Watching fans show up in numbers to games, putting their own money on the table in attempts to show the basketball world how much this franchise meant to this city, it was something that I’ll never forget—I don’t think any Kings fan can forget, really.

The fight to keep the Kings in Sacramento was a triumph, the type of story that makes for great TV or an award-winning movie script. All of the odds were stacked against this team and this city, yet Mayor Kevin Johnson, Vivek Ranadivé, and countless fans fought to keep the Kings in Northern California.

After missing the playoffs for seven-straight seasons, keeping the Kings in Sacramento was this franchise’s biggest win in nearly a decade.

Once the honeymoon phase of the failed relocation wore off, things began to get stale when it came to Sacramento Kings basketball.

In 2017, I was hired by the organization as a Sales Operations intern and witnessed an incredible atmosphere for 41 home games. Golden 1 Center was barely one year old, and fans were filing in to watch a young Kings team–with some veterans like Vince Carter, George Hill, and Zach Randolph sprinkled in–that had a new look following the DeMarcus Cousins trade.

The after-effects of the successful efforts to keep the team were still very much present, as fans were just excited to have a team to watch in a brand-new, shiny downtown stadium.

Even though Sacramento won 27 games, the energy was incredible night in and night out. The Kings finished the 2017-18 season having brought in 649,571 fans over 41 home games, nearly selling out the arena in all of those contests.

Fast forward to the 2021-22 season, and it seemed as if fans had finally had enough of the losing product.

Attendance was down last year, with the dark cloud of COVID-19 still in the process of moving into the distance following the 2020-21 season when Golden 1 Center didn’t allow fans into the stadium until the end of the season.

Sacramento finished 2021-22 29th out of 30th in attendance, bringing in 577,583 fans, down a significant margin from their 2017-18 totals.

A 16-season playoff drought will do that. Something had to change for this franchise to reignite a fanbase that was beyond deserving of watching winning NBA basketball.

Just over a year ago on May 9, 2022, Kings general manager Monte McNair introduced the team’s newest head coach, Mike Brown. Brown was Sacramento’s 12th head coach over 16 years, but there was a different feel this time around.

More than anything, the Sacramento Kings needed a leader that could implement a winning culture. That was what Brown was all about–winning. Everywhere that Brown had been before, he had been a winner.

Brown spent three years on legendary San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popvich’s bench from 2000-03, winning a ring in 2003. Next, Brown was an assistant under Rick Carlisle in Indiana for a 61-win Pacers team.

After head coaching stops with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers, Brown won three rings with the Golden State Warriors as an assistant coach under Steve Kerr.

Now, Brown was tasked with arguably his greatest challenge yet: Fixing the Sacramento Kings.

“I’m not coming here to have fun, be excited, join the area. I’m coming here to win,” Brown said at his introductory press conference. “So we’re going to embrace anything that’s in front of us that talks about winning. So, we look forward to it.”

Brown had the attitude and winning resume to fill the head coaching vacancy, but Sacramento still needed to upgrade a roster that limped to a 30-win finish in 2021-22.

McNair had pulled the trigger on a highly-debated deal that sent future All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers for multi-time All-Star center Domantas Sabonis during February 2022’s trade deadline.

Sabonis had only logged 15 games alongside budding star guard De’Aaron Fox coming into this season, meaning there were plenty of questions surrounding how will this new-look duo would work.

It wasn’t just the Sabonis-Fox duo that had questions, either–it was the entire roster.

McNair made a flurry of moves in the early weeks of the offseason, swinging a trade to acquire sharp-shooting guard Kevin Huerter from the Atlanta Hawks before inking Fox’s college teammate and best friend Malik Monk to a multi-year deal.

After selecting Iowa product Keegan Murray with the fourth-overall pick in the NBA Draft, McNair had surrounded Fox and Sabonis with plenty of three-point shooting–something that the team greatly lacked following the deal that sent Haliburton and Kings’ franchise three-point leader Buddy Hield to the Pacers.

The offseason moves sent a jolt through the Sacramento fanbase, giving fans plenty of storylines to be excited about as the 2022-23 season tipped off.

How will Murray, the NBA Summer League MVP, fare in the regular season? Can Fox and Sabonis form an elite duo? Will the Kings’ offense be a strength this season?

An 0-4 start to the year quickly cast some doubts on any positive momentum Sacramento had built following an undefeated preseason. Although the Kings were winless through the first week of the season, Brown wasn’t fazed.

“This is gonna be a great thing for me to watch us go through to see how we handle it as a group,” Brown said of his team’s 0-4 start back on October 28th. “To see if we’re gonna fight or to see if we’re not gonna fight. And if I had to bet, at least what I experienced with this group so far, we’ll come out swinging.”

And come out swinging, they did.

Sacramento won nine of their next 11 games, including a seven-game winning streak–the franchise’s longest winning streak since 2004.

From November on, the Kings just kept winning.

De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis took turns collecting Western Conference Player of the Week honors. Keegan Murray won back-to-back Rookie of the Month awards. Sacramento continued to hold a firm grip on a top-six spot in the standings.

Once the All-Star break arrived, the Kings had already surpassed its 2021-22 win total as they held a 32-25 record and third spot in the West standings.

Fox and Sabonis represented Sacramento at All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City, becoming the first set of Kings teammates to make an All-Star team since Peja Stojakovic and Brad Miller did so in 2004.

Sacramento’s chemistry was a noteworthy part of the team’s success, as you could find a postgame group photo on the team’s social media accounts following every win. One player would be named Defensive Player of the Game by the Kings’ coaching staff, while the rest of the roster fired up the smoke machine and pointed purple laser pointers–mini beams.

The word ‘chemistry’ seemed like a foreign concept for Sacramento, something that you would see other winning teams around the league display as they marched into the playoffs every year.

One of the things that made the Kings’ engine go was the fact that this team truly loved to play together. You could see it in practice. You could see it in games. You could feel it in the player’s voices when they talked about one another.

That type of camaraderie hadn’t been present in Sacramento in a very long time.

A storybook season continued for the Kings over the final weeks of the season as they finally clinched a playoff berth for the first time since 2006, an incredible accomplishment for a fanbase that had waited nearly 20 years for a reason to celebrate.

Murray broke the NBA rookie three-point record after drilling 206 triples and was named to the All-Rookie First Team. Sabonis lead the NBA in double-doubles. Fox took home the first-ever NBA Clutch Player of the Year Award. The Fox-Sabonis duo became the first Kings teammates to be named to an All-NBA Team in the same season in over 50 years.

‘The Beam’, the franchise’s bat signal, fired off 48 times during the regular season, giving the Kings its winningest season since 2005. Everything the Sacramento Kings did during the regular season seemed to be historic of milestone-worthy, and it didn’t stop there.

Sacramento’s biggest critique coming into the NBA Playoffs was that they lacked postseason experience, and that narrative was put to the test against the reigning champion Golden State Warriors.

Fox quickly proved that he is built for the big moment, scoring 38 points during the Kings’ Game 1 win over the Warriors at Golden 1 Center–the second-highest scoring playoff debut in NBA history.

The Warriors ended up taking the series in seven games, but there is a strong feeling that this is just the beginning for this current Kings core.

Coming into this season, the elephant in the room was the 16-season playoff drought. Now that those demons have been exorcised, the fun can really begin.

How can McNair round out this roster and address weaknesses that hindered the team in advancing into the second round? Can Murray make the leap to become a top option in Sacramento’s offense? Will Harrison Barnes and Trey Lyles return?

Now that a winning culture has been implemented, other changes–ones that seemed impossible for Sacramento just a year ago–can follow in suit.

Barnes and Lyles both have expressed a strong desire to remain in a Kings jersey as they enter free agency, while past free agents seemingly sprinted for the door once the final game of the regular season had passed. Sacramento’s incredible atmosphere, Coach of the Year, Executive of the Year, and All-NBA talents provide plenty of pros when it comes to free agent decision-making.

The offseason used to be my favorite part of every Kings season, because I could talk myself into a variety of possibilities. Now, it’s fun for a whole new reason as Sacramento turns the page from feel-good underdog story to becoming a contender.

The 2022-23 season will be remembered for a long time in the 916. Now, it’s time to see if this core–Brown, McNair, Fox, Sabonis, and company–can channel the early 2000s teams and make this past year the start of an incredible run.

Sacramento Kings Offseason Schedule

• Thursday, June 22– 2023 NBA Draft
• Friday, June 30– Free Agent negotiating period begins
• Thursday, July 6– Free Agents can begin signing deals
• Friday, July 7–Monday, July 17– NBA Summer League in Las Vegas
• August TBD– 2023-24 NBA regular season schedule release
• September TBD– Sacramento Kings training camp begins

Thank you for reading SactownSports.com. Follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Follow @FCartoscelli3

Newsletter