A Light 17 Years in the Making - A Reflection on the Sacramento Kings' Long Road Back to the Playoffs
On Friday, May 5, 2006, George W. Bush was still President of the United States. The Iraq War was in its third year, making it the hot-button political issue of the moment as the midterm elections approached in November. (The “other” major war, Afghanistan, was even longer and about to turn half a decade old.) The economy was humming along, with house prices in the United States continually soaring as millions kept borrowing against their home’s value. This rapidly growing housing bubble seemed like it would never burst. (Spoiler: It did, in fact, burst in 2008. Badly.)
In the realm of popular culture, “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter was #1 on the U.S. pop charts, with the rest of the slots filled out by the likes of “Temperature” by Sean Paul, “Ridin’” by Chamillionaire (featuring Krayzie Bone), “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt, and “Dani California” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. The summer blockbuster season was starting to rev up at the movie theaters, with The Da Vinci Code, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Mission: Impossible III ruling the box office. In one month, Pixar would release its newest film, Cars.
As for the burgeoning field of social media, the biggest force of communication in the coming years was preparing its debut. On March 21, a new platform called Twitter was founded by a quartet of tech entrepreneurs in San Francisco. The platform officially launched a few months later on July 15, although the first tweet came courtesy of CEO Jack Dorsey back in March (“just set up my twttr”).
For at-home entertainment on May 5, you could flip on your television to watch fare like Deal or No Deal and American Idol, the latter of which was nearing the end of its 5th season and ultimately crowned Taylor Hicks as the winner. Nickelodeon debuted Book 2, Chapter 6 of its still-beloved animated masterpiece, Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the episode (“The Blind Bandit”), Ang’s beloved, poor-of-sight mentor Toph was introduced. If video games were your mood on this day, you could fire your console or PC up and play notable new titles such as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Okami, and Final Fantasy XII.
On that same day, at ARCO Arena in the Natomas area of Sacramento, California, the San Antonio Spurs soundly defeated the Sacramento Kings in Game 6 of the Western Conference First Round by the score of 105-83. With the win, the defending NBA champions ensured their (ultimately doomed) NBA title defense would extend into the second round. Veteran point guard Tony Parker led the way with 31 points, while franchise legend Tim Duncan accounted for 15. In a frustrating case of 2001-02 Western Conference Finals deja vu, former Lakers villain Robert Horry danced on Sacramento’s grave once again, chipping in eight points on the night.
The Kings’ roster, meanwhile, sported young names like Kevin “K-Mart” Martin, Brad Miller, and Bonzi Wells. Ron Artest (before he was Metta World Peace), acquired via trade from the Indiana Pacers, provided a key spark as forward. Mike Bibby and Peja Stojakovic, two integral members of the 2001-02 squad that was cruelly denied a championship by a referee fixing scandal that would be revealed one year later in 2007, provided crucial veteran leadership.
By the 2005-06 season, the heyday of “The Greatest Show on Court” was clearly in Sacramento’s rearview mirror. Nevertheless, with the consistent leadership of head coach Rick Adelman (who assumed his duties in 1999), the Kings remained an annual fixture in the playoffs. The elusive NBA Finals championship wouldn’t come this time, but the first round scrap with Gregg Popovich’s juggernaut did produce one lasting morsel for the highlight reel.
In Game 3 at ARCO, with the Kings predictably trailing 0-2 in the series and facing the prospect of an insurmountable 0-3 deficit, San Antonio’s Michael Finley nailed a three-pointer with 41 seconds remaining to put the Spurs up 93-92. The game seemed truly done when Ron Artest turned the ball over with 27.4 seconds left, setting up Manu Ginobli to make it official with 8 on the clock.
That is, until Mike Bibby picked off a pass Ginobli intended for Tony Parker. Bibby barreled down the court and flipped the ball just in time to an expectant Kevin Martin, who leaped and deposited the ball at the rim just out of the reach of Tim Duncan. The ball bounced back and forth on the rim in an almost cartoonish fashion before sinking in for a buzzer beating 94-93 Kings victory. ARCO Arena erupted in a voltaic frenzy, as if it were 2001-02 again in an instant.
It was an instant classic moment in Kings lore, the kind of dreamlike sports miracle seemingly destined to be immortalized in amber-tinged highlight reels on ESPN for decades to come. All the same, it wouldn’t be enough to spark a comeback upset for the entire series. After the Kings dominated Game 4 at home to even things at two games apiece, the Spurs reasserted control by taking Game 5 in San Antonio. The #1 seed, having entered the playoffs on the strength of a 63-19 regular season, handled their business accordingly with an equally sound win in Game 6 to seal the deal.
As Sacramento fans left ARCO Arena for the last time that season on Friday, May 5, 2006, there was little, if anything, to regret or worry about with regards to the Kings. For starters, the team had barely finished the regular season above .500, finishing 44-38, their smallest win-loss record since they notched the exact same tally in the 1999-2000 campaign that signaled the team’s then-forthcoming status as a championship contender.
That the weakest Kings team in years had not only still made the postseason, but also taken the mighty Spurs to six games, was an accomplishment in and of itself. Head coach Rick Adelman had once again demonstrated that he could get the most out of any collection of talent he was given on the court. No era of dominance for any pro sports franchise, no matter how eternal it feels in the moment, can last forever. Yet there was plenty of reason to believe the Kings had plenty of time left in their playoff window.
As it turned out, our team was about to drop off into one of the most grueling, humiliating voids in recent sports history.
It started with a baffling decision that fans would rue for years: the decision not to renew Adelman’s contract, one officially made just four days after the team’s elimination at the hands of the Spurs. While Kings basketball operations president Geoff Petrie was tight-lipped in explaining why Adelman was relieved of his duties, it was widely believed that the team’s mercurial owners, brothers Joe and Gavin Maloof, were behind the move due to Adelman’s inability to win a championship.
As it turned out, a decision that was ostensibly made as a reaction to purported underachievement ironically ensured the Sacramento Kings would become one of the most underachieving - and outright embarrassing - franchises in professional sports. The folly of firing Adelman became evident just months later in October 2006 when Adelman’s successor, Eric Musselman, was arrested on DUI charges just hours after his team’s exhibition victory over the Utah Jazz.
Musselman wasn’t fired for his (admittedly human) mistake, but there would be no redemption arc in the Kings’ performance that season. Sacramento stumbled to a 33-49 record, their worst season since the rebuilding 1997-98 team went 27-55 on the cusp of eight consecutive playoff appearances for the franchise. Musselman was out after the season ended.
Over the next 15 years, the Kings cycled through new coaches on an almost annual basis. Reggie Theus, Kenny Natt, Keith Smart…each one bounced into the void almost as quickly as they arrived. Even those that lasted more than one season, like Paul Westphal and Dave Joerger, failed to return Sacramento to the playoffs.
Perhaps most disappointing of all was the return of the venerated George Karl, coaxed out of retirement and ballyhooed as the answer to the franchise’s ailments in 2015. Despite inheriting a team with playoff promise in the first half of the season, he too fizzled out within a year. Rather than for any winning on the court, Karl’s abbreviated tenure in Sacramento instead is famous for a still-simmering beef with the team’s talented (albeit difficult) superstar, DeMarcus Cousins.
Year by year, the role of Sacramento Kings head coach practically became the NBA equivalent of the “Bum of the Month Club” lineage of inferior challengers that heavyweight champion Joe Louis dispatched with ease in the 1930s. Just as even the most devoted boxing historian would be hard-pressed to name every single palooka Louis quickly sent to the showers, even the most knowledgeable Kings fanatic could be forgiven if they struggle to remember a handful of failed Sactown skippers.
If anything, the unstable coaching carousel became the on-court embodiment of an organization that quickly went from one of the most stable in the NBA to one of comical dysfunction. Year after year, the once-mighty Sacramento Kings became one of the association’s most risible punchlines. Or, as the popular YouTuber UrinatingTree termed them in more blunt terms, “Professional Basketball’s Shitshow.”
All the while, the Kings not only accumulated a ghastly playoff - and winning season - drought, but also lost their stature as Northern California’s preeminent NBA franchise. As they slogged through one losing season after another, they became a comically distant afterthought to Steve Kerr’s revolutionary Golden State Warriors dynasty out in Oakland. As Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and company racked up 3-pointers and championships year by year, the once uncontested sight of purple and white in Sacramento was crowded out by fresh jerseys doused in gold and blue. That the Warriors’ historic success came after four decades of their own ineptitude made the envy run that much deeper.
Before that particular slice of acrimony, the Kings’ void came dangerously close to becoming a permanent one in 2013, when the franchise came within an inch of being moved to Seattle to replace the recently departed Sonics. It was a move whose possibility circulated through the rumor mill as far back as the team’s last playoff year in 2006, and by early 2013, the deal seemed all but officially done.
To amplify the impending heartbreak, an attempt to build a new arena in the famed railyards of downtown Sacramento the prior year had fizzled out. Sacramento was now on the precipice of losing the only NBA/NFL/MLB/NFL franchise in its proud history. Even if another franchise were created or moved to Sacramento, the unfulfilled promise of the Kings would haunt the River City eternally.
That eternal void was staved off by Vivek Ranadive, a Mumbai, India-born tech giant who joined an initiative led by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson to save the team. Ranadive’s group bought the team from the Maloofs in May of 2013, ushering in a new era. The elusive new arena, Golden 1 Center, would finally take shape in the K Street Mall area, opening its doors in 2016. “1985-Forever” read new marketing material, a succinct, powerful assurance that Sacramento’s boys in purple were truly here to stay after dancing on the razor’s edge of leaving for good.
Even then, the grace period following Vivek’s buzzer beater (so to speak) rescue didn’t last long. Ranadive quickly showed that his business acumen was not paired with an equally strong understanding of the game of basketball, constantly meddling in team affairs (even going so far as to suggest a ludicrous 4-on-5 defensive scheme). Headlines referencing the man who saved Sacramento basketball frequently labeled him as the source of the franchise’s dysfunction. Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated bluntly declared him one of the worst owners of all-time.
Ranadive was far from the only person to perpetuate the Kings’ pathetic reputation in their new arena. His hand-picked new general manager, Pete D’Alessandro, put more effort into starting feuds with owners, players and coaches than building a winning team. The coup de grace came when D’Alessandro fired head coach Michael Malone after a promising start to the 2014-15 season slowed down due to an injury to DeMarcus Cousins. Karl was dragged out of retirement, and a potential playoff appearance vanished into the ether thereafter.
Not helping matters was Ranadive’s next pick to serve as general manager, Vlade Divac. The beloved Serbian star of the team’s early aughts glory days had no prior executive experience, and it quickly showed. His biggest failure was his still utterly baffling decision to not grab surefire superstar Luka Doncic in the first round of the 2018 draft. Doncic immediately distinguished himself as one of the game’s most exciting players with the Dallas Mavericks. It’s a “what if?” that could very well haunt the Kings forever.
Recounting any one of these humiliations singularly, let alone all at once, is draining. Moreover, they feel almost unreal when juxtaposed with the pride, cohesion, and alacrity that defined the Sacramento Kings for so many years back in Natomas. The embarrassment seemed, almost without hyperbole, like it would never end.
Until now.
Kings fans can take those 17 years of futility to the banks of the Sacramento River and toss them into its overflowing currents. Thanks to a reenergized roster powered by the likes of Domantas Sabonis, De’Aaron Fox, and Harrison Barnes, the Kings have done more than simply win. They do it with a level of aplomb that has Golden 1 roaring like the cowbell-powered din of ARCO Arena so many years ago. If head coach Mike Brown doesn’t attain NBA Coach of the Year honors for what he’s done this season, one has to question the validity of the award’s very selection process.
Of course, any miraculous season needs a gimmick to really tie it all together. (Remember the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals’ “Rally Squirrel” that was etched into their World Series rings?) The 2022-23 Kings’ motif came in the form of a single ray of purple light that first shot up from Golden 1 into the night sky after an October 29 win over Miami. Many laughed at the admittedly simple, silly move…only to unironically love and beg for the arena’s personnel to “Light the Beam” as quickly as possible after every victory.
Especially during Sacramento’s historic winter storm of the past few months, the “Beam” frequently knifed through thick nighttime clouds in a manner similar to the signal from a Batman film. “Light the Beam” became more than a clever marketing ploy and hashtag, and instead became an anticipated ritual. Whatever you were doing while out and about in Sacramento, even the most important engagement had to be intertwined with the sight of a single ray of light.
Night after night, that anticipation amongst fans to see the skies turn purple was rewarded. The wins this season were not only frequent, but also wildly entertaining. Sacramento often entered the win column on the wings of a nail-biting comeback win, whether at the tail end of the fourth quarter or overtime. The scores were often comically bloated, game after game turning into a veritable wild west shootout. Best of all was a double-overtime epic with the Los Angeles Clippers, a 176-175 Sacramento victory that now stands as the second-highest scoring game in NBA history.
It all culminated on Wednesday, March 29, 2023. Rather than another nail-biter, Sacramento punched their ticket to April (and maybe beyond) with a 120-80 rout of the lowly Portland Trail Blazers. It was fitting for the Kings to earn their trip to the dance in such dominant fashion, given the baffling underachievement they had done without respite for nearly two decades. Fans that had congregated all season at DOCO didn’t miss out on the moment.
One potential downside to a sports team’s success after such a long period of irrelevance is how quickly it can cause one to forget the pain of losing. Make no mistake: this is, and should be, a moment of unperturbed joy for all Kings fans. Even better is that the Kings did it not by eking in as an 8th seed, but instead barging into April as a truly elite team. As such, this joy comes with no caveats.
That being said, never forget the tribulation that led to this very point in time. Remember every last one of the previously mentioned embarrassments, and the others I didn’t even mention in this article. Remember every single misstep, every semi-annual coach firing, every failed draft, every executive blunder, every embarrassing episode of drama. Remember the fetid bog of losing records that felt less like year-by-year results and more like one interminable abyss.
Most of all, remember the dread of nearly losing the team altogether to the Pacific Northwest, thus creating a gaping hole in Sacramentans’ hearts that would assuredly never have healed. Even after that rescue, the pain of the franchise’s failure continued so much that one could have legitimately wondered if they were even worth keeping at times.
Just as soon as you remember all of these humiliations, put them behind you. As of this moment, they feel distant because they are distant. That’s the beauty of a sports team ending a playoff or title drought: all the years of pain that preceded it, no matter how numerous and fraught with peril they were, make the payoff that much sweeter when it finally arrives. Ask any Chicago Cubs fan if those 108 years between 1908 and 2016 were worth suffering, and they’ll tell you “yes.”
From a historical perspective, the passage of time that separates Game 6 of the 2005-06 playoff and the day the Beam Team clinched their playoff spot is staggering. In the 6,172 days in-between, the United States has had four different Presidents (one of whom was the host of The Apprentice in 2006). Both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars officially ended. Twitter, a novel social media tool launched in 2006, is now perhaps the most powerful form for all communication in the world. A handful of epidemics was far overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-onward, which has claimed over 1,000,000 lives here in the United States.
Sacramento Kings fans, the franchise itself…the whole human race…has lived what feels like 170 years instead of just 17. Now, thanks to a hungry young roster, a dynamic head coach, and that towering ray of light, the Sacramento Kings have made California’s capital city feel like it’s 2001-02 all over again. The team is an omnipresent source of iconography throughout the Sacramento region, just like “The Greatest Show on Court” was two decades ago.
From downtown Sacramento to Natomas, from Citrus Heights to Orangevale, from Roseville to Folsom, it is time to celebrate and relish this moment. Remember where you were, how you celebrated, and who you shared the moment with. Get your playoff gear, as well as your savviest “Beam Team” swag at Arden Fair Mall. It is well earned, and then some.
For the first time in 17 years, the Sacramento Kings are on their way to the NBA Playoffs. What will their fate be in the “Second Season”? We don’t know. A deep playoff run, all the way to the Western Conference Finals? Given their prolific offense and high seeding, definitely a possibility. Winning the NBA Finals? It’s possible, but not probable. The team’s porous defense (which has admittedly made for some thrilling shootouts and comeback wins) makes them unlikely to usurp elite teams like Milwaukee or Boston for the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
But you know what? Don’t burden yourself with extra expectations and playoff stress. At least, not yet. All that matters in this beautiful, long-awaited moment is that the Sacramento Kings are even in the playoffs to begin with. For almost a decade straight, that fact was practically a birthright for Sacramentans. Almost overnight, it became a fantasy, one that ossified the 1999-2006 run in distant nostalgia. A nostalgia made all the more bitter than sweet given there was no NBA Finals title to really tie it all together.
In March 2023, that fantasy finally…FINALLY…became reality once again. Whatever the fate of the 2022-23 Kings is from April 15 onward, Mike Brown’s sky-scraping, heart-stopping, high-scoring gang have done more than simply attain the first postseason qualification for one of the most beleaguered franchises in all of professional sports.
They have done something far greater than just that: they have reignited an entire city’s pride in its team once again. The Kings are, after all, the only “major league” sports franchise we’ve ever had. Despite the proud, oft-overlooked history of baseball in Sacramento (including the terrific River Cats), they are all technically minor league teams. The Kings are, and always will be, our true team, the one who exemplifies the city’s complex identity. For too long, they felt like they didn’t exist. Now, they have reclaimed their prestige unconditionally.
Savor it. Love it. And most of all…shine a towering light of your own in salute. The past is gone, its acidic wounds salved by this one magical season. The present is all that matters.
As for the future?
Well…hopefully, just hopefully, there will be some especially ardent beams coming our way in April and May.
With love, and light,
Marshall Garvey