Welcome back to our off-season series, “Just Wait ‘til Next Year!” in which special guest Jerry Reynolds and I bring you our 147 combined years to bring you our recollections of past Kings years. In case you missed it, check out 1986 here.
Roughly three weeks prior to the beginning of the 1987 season, the stock market experienced “Black Monday,” losing 22% of its value in what is still the largest single-day percentage drop in U.S. stock market history.
(On the brighter side, some really weird, animated shorts began to appear on the Tracey Ulman Show. Everyone universally agreed that this very bizarre, crudely drawn animated family would go on to have a 35+ year, 750+ episode TV run (and more importantly, endless StR and TKH comment section gifs).
Let’s Kings basketball!
The big street cred move of the off season was hiring the legendary Bill Russell as head coach. Russell was the owner of eleven championship rings, including two as a player / head coach, and a Civil Rights champion. He was always part of the NBA GOAT conversation. This was bigger than any roster move. This was going to put Sacramento on the map. (Insert record scratch sound here again – man, we’re going to ruin a lot of vinyl as this series progresses.)
I’ll leave it to Jerry to chime in on the Bill Russell experience, as Jerry was right there in the trenches. Suffice to say that the 17-41 coaching record before getting kicked upstairs was not what anyone was envisioning when Russell first arrived in Sacramento. The versatile Mr. Reynolds once again came on to sweep up after the elephants, with a 7-17 record coaching a roster that knew that its season was long over.
The Draft
Kenny Smith was the prized pick of 1987 for the Kings, drafted right in between Scottie Pippen and Kevin Johnson. Smith would go on to become the greatest broadcaster of the bunch, and certainly his time in Sacramento elevated his “gone fishin’” game.
My favorite thing about looking back on Smith’s rookie season is that it lists him as finishing second in the Rookie of the Year voting. Upon closer inspection, one finds that Mark Jackson received 77 of the 80 votes, with Smith, Winston Garland and Greg Anderson getting one vote each. Ooh, so close!
Smith’s rookie season was actually encouraging, the team’s 24-58 record notwithstanding. He was third on the team in minutes despite missing 21 games, making him the first rookie in Sacramento’s brief history to truly crack the top of the core rotation as a rook. He overtook Reggie Theus for the team lead in assists per game (7.1 to 6.3), which I’m guessing did not thrill Reggie all that much (for all of Theus’ assists over the years, he was a much, much, much more willing shooter than passer).
The Rest of The Roster
The Kings also traded Eddie Johnson the summer of 1987 for former NCAA champ and slayer of Patrick Ewing Ed Pinckney. Pinckney under the tutelage of Bill Russell? I smell a championship run! Pinckney wound up fighting Jawann Oldham for the 4th slot in the front line rotation, behind Otis Thorpe, Joe Kleine, and LaSalle Thompson.
Thorpe’s last season in Sacramento was also his best season in Sacramento, a team best 20.8 ppg / 10.2 rpg. Thorpe would go on to make an All-Star game in Houston, win a championship in Houston, and play 17 seasons / 1257 games / 39,822 minutes. When the Kings traded Thorpe prior to the beginning of the 1988 season, they received Rodney McCray and Jim Petersen in return, both somewhat solid and unspectacular players.
Derek Smith suited for 35 games. The future of the franchise, the one that sent their impending #6 pick packing, was 10th on the team in minutes.
Fun stat: Mike McGee led the team in threes taken with 141, despite being 11th in minutes at only 886. The team (other than McGee) took a three every 12 minutes. McGee took one every 6 minutes. His 34% conversion rate was 20 percentage points better than the team average. It was fun to watch him chuck ‘em, but surely such shenanigans would not be sustainable in the rough and tumble NBA.
Reynolds’ Wrap: “This marked a very interesting time for me since Bill Russell replaced me after my interim coaching stint. What I was never told by owner Gregg Lukenbill or GM Joe Axelson happened to be the minor surprise of Russell being hired prior to my being inserted as Interim Coach. I didn’t blame Bill for that, but did feel resentment toward Gregg and Joe for a short period of time. I would have did my best regardless. Also, that marked the closest I ever came to leaving Sacramento. Del Harris of Milwaukee offered an assistant coaching job, but Axelson offered the same money to join Bill and Willis Reed to form the 3 R’s staff. Yep, huge money – a 75/85 two-year deal .Still living large and working with two of my heroes. A learning curve ahead!” – Jerry Reynolds
***
The new arena beckoned in the distance, and I was going in with two other guys on a pair of season tickets. Live, in-person NBA basketball on a regular basis awaited, as I readied myself for my next step in Kings fandom. All I had to do was Wait ‘til Next Year.
Still early in the birth of a new location. So much hope and excitement. ARCO I was there to produce the thunder of us local fans.
I know there are a lot of first round draft picks around the corner.
The League had 23 teams at that time. Sacramento was still in the MidWest Division! Sacramento had the 5th worst record in the Association with 29 wins, the LA Clippers (Donald Sterling at his cheesiest worst) had 12 wins. Recall, one of the reasons for the draft lottery was because his LA Clippers were perennially bad – purposefully bad, and rather than have the top talent likely land there, Commissioner Stern found the work around with a lottery. BTW, the Knicks had 24 wins, New Jersey Nets 25 wins and San Antonio Spurs just 28 wins. RoY was The Rifleman (that’s Chuck Person to those who don’t know) MVP – Magic Johnson, and the LAL won the championship.
Great Stuff Rob and The Great Jerry Reynolds! Keep it coming. I am looking forward to each and every episode.
Since I wasn’t a fan yet at the time, how was the Russell hiring thought of? Was he a legit option at head coach or was it viewed as a flashy big name hire in a small basketball town?
Did you start following the team before the Webber era? At least you didn’t have to endure as many years of losing basketball before that got good if that’s the case. 😉
1989 was the year for me. My family moved back from Hawaii and we ended up in Roseville (talk about a culture shock). My neighbor took me to a Kings game against the Bulls and I was hooked, mainly on Jordan, but also began to follow the Kings. My fandom at that time consisted of radio and Sac Bee articles and boxscores.
Huge news! Great hire! Did not work out as expected.
A very enjoyable look back at a bad team when most were truly happy just to have a major league team to compete with the New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles big markets of the U.S. . Even though didn’t compete very well . Also, not a major league arena .
I remember my Dad mentioning Bill Russell, and he said something like he would just pass out the balls at practice and then go up to his office, lol.
it is the interesting difference between the great player (and Bill Russell is inarguably the games’ greatest winner) and the usual players and modern star players.
Magic Johnson, as charismatic a player that the game has seen, likewise, was not a successful NBA head coach.
The star (HoF level) players with Head Coaching success are few.
Larry Bird and Lenny Wilkins are
my first thoughts, Former All-Star players (but not “superstar” levels IMO) lauded Head Coaches would be Jerry Sloan and KC Jones. Maybe add Paul Westphal, Dick McGuire, Larry Brown, Jason Kidd, Doc Rivers and Mo Cheeks to the list as at least very good or good, if not great NBA coaches. I don’t know where to put Mark Jackson. Not an NBA coach, but John Wooden was a collegiate star and in the greatest ever discussion as a coach, of course.
On the not successful – Bob Cousy, Steve Nash and Isaiah Thomas are there for me.
Willis Reed and Patrick Ewing and Tim Duncan remained in the assistant coach ranks, I believe.
The non-star players – Pat Riley, Phil
Jackson, Steve Kerr, Red Aurbach, Red Holtzman, Don Nelson, Rick Adelman, and George Karl are household coach names.
My question fornJerry Reynolds, Wasn’t Bill Russell involved in the (soon to be mentioned) Pervis Ellison decision? Or is that information for a future mention?
Reed was a 2 time head coach for Knicks and Nets . Bird was a true superstar that was coach of the year and exec of the year !
If there’s anything these looks back in time should illustrate, its that this fan base will support bad basketball. I was going to add a qualifier to that and expound a bit but…
Barring a comeback from Denver, it’s looking like 3 of the 4 final playoff teams will be small markets.
Would love to see a Indy/OKC final . Silver would not be happy .
If Indy wins the Finals, the salt in the wound for Kings fans will not be going away anytime soon.
OT: Looks like Bobby Jackson is being brought in as an assistant coach.
https://bsky.app/profile/mikeascotto.bsky.social/post/3lpifh7dh222k
Bobby has put in the work in the coaching ranks. Will he be called a nepo hire? Will he improve our defensive schemes? The answer to both questions is “Most definitely”.
Hey, we got a PG!
The public voicing is for defense-
yet the legacy Kings of 25 years ago with BJax and DC and Bibby and Vlade was known for their offense. Specifically, it was Pete Carrill and the Princeton offense.
Any idea if they are going to bring that back as well?
Based on the current roster, I don’t think they have skills to run that offense. Hopefully they move some guys and bring in players that to run the Princeton offense.
Never got the credit they deserved for their D, because we led the league in pace and advanced stats weren’t a common thing yet. 01-02 team led the league in pace(95.6), NRtg(+7.9), 3rd in ORtg(109.0) and 6th in DRtg(101.1)
Pace would be 30th, ORtg 28th and DRtg 2nd this season. Times have changed a bit.
I’m still pissed we took Smith over KJ.
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