If Milwaukee can do it, so can Sacramento. Seize the moment, and the Kings hoist a trophy
READ MORE
The Kings and downtown Sacramento
As the Kings prepare for the 2021 NBA draft, Sacramento is counting on the Golden 1 Center reopening for full capacity events to help revitalize the city’s downtown economy.
Expand All
Golden 1 reopens. But can Kings’ arena spark post-pandemic revival in downtown Sacramento?
Ready for change? Kings hope to overcome NBA draft mishaps and build a playoff team
If Milwaukee can do it, so can Sacramento. Seize the moment, and the Kings hoist a trophy
Video: Kings insider tells you what you should know for the NBA Draft
How big would it be for downtown Sacramento, the city, and the region if the Kings reached the NBA Finals and won?
I pondered that question last week when another small-market NBA team with a similar population size to Sacramento won the NBA title while an overjoyed community in Milwaukee gathered in celebration by the hundreds of thousands.
Milwaukee had already done so before the Bucks defeated the Phoenix Suns to win the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Trophy at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum. In all six games of the NBA Finals, downtown Milwaukee resembled Mardi Gras, whether the Bucks were home or away.
As I watched each game, I imagined Downtown Commons brimming with people packed shoulder to shoulder until they spilled out onto L Street like a delirious snake with thousands of heads. I imagined the K Street Mall resembling a flash mob of Kings fans, young and old, celebrating an end to the futility of their team and the trying times of a region laid low by COVID, fear, trauma, and economic distress.
If the Kings reached the NBA Finals, restaurants and bars would be packed downtown, in Midtown, all over the Sacramento region. The economic shutdown that caused Sacramento to dip into its general fund to cover loans to build the Kings arena would be a distant memory.
Those of us old enough to remember 2002 know this is possible because we witnessed the Sacramento community become the most entertaining city in the NBA in the early 2000s. For a moment, we held the dream of an NBA title at our fingertips, only to watch it slip away – or get stolen? – by horrible officiating and luck.
It was right there and then it wasn’t: International acclaim, a parade down J Street, a visit to the White House, immortality, economic opportunity, community pride, memories to last a lifetime.
Overcome bad bounces
Who knows how different the Kings or Sacramento would be but for one bad break here, one freak occurrence there – and then it was gone. Then the Kings fell apart, and became what they have been for the last 15 years – a perpetual also-ran.
As another NBA draft looms on Thursday, the question is: Is an NBA championship out there for a franchise as dismal as the Kings and a region as hopeful as Sacramento?
Don’t laugh.
Not long ago the Bucks were as dismal as the Kings. Starting in 1991, they missed the playoffs seven seasons in a row. Then they had one really good season 20 years ago, just missed the NBA Finals, and then fell right back in the tank.
For the next 17 seasons, the Bucks failed to post winning records in all but three of them. They didn’t win a single playoff series in that time. They won fewer than 30 games three times. In the 2013-14 season, they hit rock bottom when they finished with a record of 15 wins and 67 losses. That was the worst record in the NBA that year, a worse record than the Kings have ever posted in Sacramento. It was only seven years ago.
Could the Kings duplicate what the Bucks just did and win the NBA title?
Yes, they could.
Their best player, point guard, De’Aaron Fox, is a budding superstar and he is only 23. Their second-best player, guard Tyrese Haliburton, fell in their laps in a stroke of good luck in last year’s NBA draft. He is only 20 and, quite frankly, the Kings never used to be lucky enough to draft someone as gifted as Haliburton with the 12th pick of the draft.
The Kings have had bad luck in the last 15 years, but Haliburton is a departure from that sad narrative. The Kings can build around Fox and Haliburton for years to come, while virtually every other player on their roster could be traded – some within days or weeks.
New Kings leadership
Last week, I met with Kings General Manager Monte McNair, and while there are some details I can’t share from our “off-the-record” conversation, it was clear to me that McNair is unburdened by the weight of recent Kings history.
McNair has built the deepest front office team the Kings have had since their early 2000s glory days. He understands how deeply invested Sacramento is with the Kings – how the city floated bonds to help pay for Golden 1 Center. How the fans have stuck with the team through decades of futility.
The Kings could win with him at the helm if owner Vivek Ranadivé resists his worst impulses and lets McNair and his team make the smart decisions that have eluded the Kings for years.
Did McNair look me in the eye and give me the impression that he is up for this task? Yes. But McNair’s predecessor, Vlade Divac, also looked me in the eye and tried to give that impression. And Divac’s predecessor, Pete D’Alessandro, also looked me in the eye and tried to give that impression.
What happened? Divac and D’Alessandro were in charge of the Kings basketball operations until they weren’t, until Ranadive undermined them not long after empowering them.
You can’t win that way and the Kings won’t win that way until this dynamic finally changes.
Keeping the Kings in Sacramento was the right move for Sacramento. It prevented the region from losing its best-known business. It replaced a dying downtown mall with Golden 1 Center and DOCO. It meant the city still had control over the old Arco Arena and the land around it, control it would have lost if the team had relocated.
And, under Ranadive, every other part of the Kings business has been successful except the most important part – the basketball.
Now is the time to change that narrative, the moment is here. Everything is in place for Sacramento to explode one day in joy as Milwaukee did last week. It would do wonders for a city and a region in need of a break.
It would be beautiful.
