Playoffs or bust: Will Kings end postseason drought? Here’s what they’re saying about it
This Kings team will either immortalize itself as the one that finally ends the city’s suffering after 15 consecutive losing seasons or live alone in infamy with a dubious record for the longest playoff drought in NBA history.
Some of the players were in grade school when Sacramento entered this staggering streak of futility in 2007, but now they’re here and this burden has fallen on them. The squad has been assembled. Training camp starts Tuesday. One way or another, the Kings are about to carve out a slice of history.
“I feel like we’ve got the pieces,” rookie guard Davion Mitchell said. “I feel like we’ve got everything to make the playoffs. … Defensively, I heard the past few years we haven’t been that good defensively, so if we turn that around, we can win more games, and we can easily get to the playoffs.”
Mitchell, the No. 9 pick in July’s NBA Draft, is new to Sacramento. Maybe he doesn’t know that nothing has come easy around here since Geoff Petrie was calling the shots, Rick Adelman was calling the plays and transcendent stars such as Chris Webber and Vlade Divac were leaving their calling cards for the Hall of Fame. The Kings made eight consecutive playoff appearances under Adelman from 1999-2006, but they haven’t been back since.
Only one other franchise has missed the playoffs 15 years in a row. The Buffalo Braves/San Diego Clippers/Los Angeles Clippers failed to reach the postseason from 1977-91, relocating twice and becoming an NBA laughingstock before returning to the playoffs under coach Larry Brown in 1992.
The Kings tied that record last season. Now, they are in danger of breaking it. Point guard De’Aaron Fox said the Kings have to stay focused on their preparation, not the pressure associated with their playoff predicament.
“Obviously, you don’t want to be part of that and be attached to that, but at the end of the day we just have to worry about what we can do,” Fox said. “When you’re out there, for me, I can’t worry about the five years I’ve been here or the 10-plus years before that. You just have to go out there and play, and obviously you don’t want to have that pressure, but everybody who enters the league wants to win a championship, so every given season, every game that you go out there, that’s what you’re shooting for, and that’s how you have to think about it.”
The Kings want to end this misery and give their beleaguered fanbase something to celebrate, but veteran forward Harrison Barnes said that won’t happen unless they lay the foundation from the first day of training camp.
“Obviously, making the playoffs is important for those who’ve been there and we know how special that is for those who haven’t,” Barnes said. “You want to be in that fight, but it starts with getting our minds right daily and putting the work in now.”
Kings coming up short
Sacramento went 31-41 in a shortened 72-game season in 2020-21. The Kings finished 12th in the Western Conference, missing the play-in tournament by two games. They stayed in contention until the final week of the regular season, but two nine-game losing streaks proved to be their downfall.
“If you cut both of those in half, we’re a totally different team,” Fox said. “We’re in a totally different spot. Everybody’s happy. People are talking about us making the play-in, possibly make the playoffs, so that’s a large chunk of the season. We just have to continue to do what we’re doing and not let those three-game losing streaks turn into nine or 10.”
Barnes agreed.
“We all want to make the playoffs and have aspirations that are higher than that, but it starts with what we’re building daily,” Barnes said. “Over the course of 82 games, if you’re not building, not only in the preseason, but during the season, if you’re not building in a progressive way, the foundation gets exposed, so I hope we’re in a better position this year to continue to build and not have those lapses.”
The West won’t be any easier this season. The Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers, Utah Jazz, Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets, Dallas Mavericks, Portland Trail Blazers and Golden State Warriors are considered strong contenders for the top eight spots. That would leave the Kings, once again, fighting with the Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans, Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs for one of the last two play-in berths. The Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder are not viewed as viable playoff contenders this season, although both teams added intriguing talent with multiple first-round draft picks.
The Kings added a little talent, too, providing reinforcements for a roster that includes Fox, Barnes, Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield, Terence Davis, Maurice Harkless, Marvin Bagley III and Richaun Holmes. General manager Monte McNair hasn’t been able to pull off a major deal that would bring an All-Star such as Ben Simmons or Pascal Siakam to Sacramento, but he drafted Mitchell, traded for Tristan Thompson and signed Alex Len. The Kings hope their defensive-minded additions will help a team that had one of the worst defenses in NBA history last season.
“That’s going to be what determines our season,” Barnes said. “We have plenty of people who can score the basketball. I don’t think we’ll have issues on that end, but, defensively, we have to get stops.”
Haliburton: ‘I want to win’
Haliburton was a 6-year-old kid in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, when the Kings made their last playoff appearance in 2006. He wants to bring winning basketball back to Sacramento, but he shrugged off the idea that the Kings will feel added pressure this season with a record playoff drought hanging over their heads.
“If I’m being completely brutally honest, I don’t think anybody or any statistic or any record can put more pressure on myself than what I put on myself,” Haliburton said. “I have a standard that I want to uphold in my athletic ability. I want to win. That’s been my thing. I want to be a winning basketball player. I think everybody agrees with that. They want to win as well. I think the pressure is more so from ourselves because of the accountability we have with each other that we want to be successful. I don’t think it’s (about breaking) the longest record or anything like that.”
Kings fans have waited 15 years to cheer for a winning team. Haliburton wants to end their suffering.
“Obviously, we want to allow our fans to make the playoffs,” he said. “We want to bring the Kings back to the playoffs. That’s obviously the biggest goal. I don’t think anybody wants that more than us. We’re the ones out there playing so hard and working every day to do that, and obviously we’d love to do that for the city of Sacramento and for the fans, but I do know that guys are holding themselves accountable and that’s what we want to do. We want to change it and that’s what I’ve said from the day I got drafted here. I want to get this team to the playoffs and help change the culture, and that’s what we’re working to do every day.”
This story was originally published September 26, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
