The Sacramento Kings have been the most consistent – and worst – NBA franchise this decade
The Sacramento Kings enter this year’s All-Star break in a familiar position: on pace to log about 25 regular season wins.
No NBA team has been more consistent this decade than the Sacramento Kings. They’ve won between 22 and 33 games each year since 2009-10. The NBA regular season runs for 82 games.
The Kings’ consistency is apparent in the standings each year. Including the current season, the Kings have logged the 21st- to 28th-worst regular season record since 2009-2010. The team’s average end of season ranking is 25th, worse than any other team in the league. (The Minnesota Timberwolves come close, but they have the fifth-best record in the league this year.)
To put this in technical terms, no other NBA team has a lower standard deviation in wins or end-of-season rankings this decade. (Standard deviation is a measure of how spread out numbers are from each other.)
It is rare for a team to be as consistent as the Kings in the modern NBA, where the worst teams each season usually get the best draft picks. The only team that comes close this decade is the San Antonio Spurs. Unlike the Kings, they’ve been consistently successful, logging between the first- and ninth-best record in the NBA since 2009-10.
Phillip Reese is The Bee's data specialist and teaches at Sacramento State. Reach him at 916-321-1137 or 916-278-5420.
This story was originally published February 17, 2018 at 12:00 AM with the headline "The Sacramento Kings have been the most consistent – and worst – NBA franchise this decade."