Resilience: The capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
I have never really applied “resilience” to the Golden Age Kings teams, opting for descriptors such as “fun” or “electric.” The teams of this era were underrated defensively, and more physical than the beauty of the offense would let on. But if one word could describe the early 2000 Kings and specifically the 2002-03 team, it might be “resilient.”
Let’s Kings basketball.
The Kings had a solid offseason, improving the roster around the margins. The Kings added Keon Clark for some needed length up front, Jim Jackson for a little wing depth, and Damon Jones as a “break glass in case of emergency” point guard. With Bobby Jackson, Hedo Turkoglu, Scot Pollard and Lawrence Funderburke already on the bench, the Kings now boasted the deepest bench in the league. So deep, in fact, that young Gerald Wallace was relegated to mostly garbage minutes (the Kings net rating of +6.8 did provide Wallace with more than a few opportunities).
What the front office could not have known but probably feared was that the injury bug might come sniffing around Sactown. Chris Webber missed games 2-4, a couple of games January, and then a 10-game stretch in late January – February. Peja Stojakovic missed 10 games, with 9 of them coming in late November – early December. Mike Bibby suffered a stress fracture in his foot during the preseason and missed the first 27 games of the season. Bobby Jackson missed all of January and half of February thanks to Shaquille O’Neal breaking his left hand on Christmas. B-Jax missed 29 games for the season. Jim Jackson missed the first 18 games of the season. Hedo Turkoglu was banged up for much of the season while missing 15 games. It was a lost season for Scot Pollard, as injuries to his back and core limited him to a total of 53 minutes over the Kings’ first 63 games. Pollard missed 59 games overall and logged only 325 minutes. And the knees that caused Lawrence Funderburke to fall to 51 in the 1994 NBA draft had seemingly had enough, as L-Funk played only 29 games and 229 minutes.
And the team went 59-23. 59-23! The team had a pair of three-game losing streaks, with one being all road and the other being two out of three on the road. In spite of the various injuries, Webber and Stojakovic made the All-Star team, Webber was second team All-NBA, Doug Christie (who played 80 games and led the team in minutes) made first team defense, and Bobby Jackson won 6th Man of the Year. Resilient! (Also, no 65-game minimum for awards!)
While the regular season was an absolute thing of beauty, the underlying focus was the post-season. The 59-23 record was a game behind the San Antonio Spurs and a game behind the Dallas Mavericks. But winning your division factored into the seeding back then. The Spurs got the one seed over Dallas due to their better Western Conference. The Kings would likely have to go through the Utah Jazz and the Mavericks to return to the Western Conference Finals, while the Spurs would have to deal with the Lakers after the NBA figured out a way to hand LA the first-round win over Minnesota.
And that’s how it played out, but not before Kings fans displayed the ultimate moment of class. On April 30, the Kings sent the Utah Jazz to their offseason, and John Stockton into retirement. And as Stockton came off the floor for the final time in the 111-91 Kings victory, Kings fans rose as one and loudly applauded and cheered the former villain. Stockton acknowledged afterward it meant a lot to him.
The Kings opened the second round in Dallas with a tidy 124-113 win. The Kings took the lead for good with eight and a half minutes left in the first quarter and never looked back. Boom! The homecourt advantage now belonged to the Kings.
And now, the moment that none of us have been waiting for, the worst on-court moment in Sacramento Kings history: With a couple of minutes left in the third quarter of game two, Chris Webber’s knee gave out, and he collapsed on the floor. Webber was done for the playoffs, and perhaps the following season. The Kings were down by 24 at the time of the injury and would go on to lose by 32. And for what it was worth, Nick Van Exel was Laker-level unlikeable, having scored 20 off the bench in game 1 and 36 (on 19 shots) in game 2.
Game 3 is largely overlooked when it comes to Kings history, but it was a classic. Unfortunately, the wrong team won.
The Kings raced out to a 13-point first quarter lead, but Dallas came back to close the gap to 2 points at the half. The Kings extended the lead back out to 9 at the end of the third, but Dallas tied it up and sent it into double overtime, where they eventually prevailed 137-141. Nick Van Exel hung 40 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists off the Mavs bench, and Steve Nash was good for another 31 / 5 / 11. Dirk Nowitzki notched 25 points / 20 boards. Peja Stojakovic’s 39 points were heroic but not enough. And yes, the Kings shot poorly from the free throw line (24-36), including 6-10 from Peja and 6-12 from Vlade Divac.
The Kings came back in game 4 and evened the series with a 99-83 win. Van Exel finally threw a turd (2-11), and it was now heading back to Dallas tied at 2-2.
The Kings again jumped out early in game 5, but were outscored 32-58 on their way to the 93-112 drubbing. The series returned to Sacramento for game 6, where the Kings took the Mavs down 115-109, overcoming another big Van Exel performance (35 pts.).
And then Dirk did Dirk things in game 7 (30 pts. and 19 rebounds), Nick the Dick added 23, and the Kings were done, while the Mavs would go on to lose the Western Conference finals in 6 games to eventual World Champ San Antonio.
Reynolds’ Wrap: ‘This was a season that established Rick Adelman (in my opinion) as a HOF coach. Injury upon injury and constant mixing, matching of player combos all season. It was the Kings deepest most talented team when healthy which was never. 59-23, remarkable. Sadly, the playoff loss and C-Webb injury proved devastating but with better health and a Webb recovery plenty of reason for optimism ! Also, it was established that Dallas was no.1 in press room food, Kings mired near the bottom. Just sayin!”
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And Kings fans were left thinking, is that it? Did the window close? Wronged by refs a year ago and by a meniscus tear a year later, was there a path forward for this team, or had the best already come and gone? Could this team be…resilient? Or were they already yesterday’s news? With a combination of anticipation and dread, we would all have to wait ‘til next year.
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