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There Is No Rational Reason To Be A Fan Of The Sacramento Kings

By 1951 on Jan 16, 2020, 12:27pm PST 

I am insane. I know this because I am still a fan of the Sacramento Kings.

Let’s think about it for a minute. We have a lot of evidence on the performance of this franchise and this latest front office leadership structure. Any conclusion other than the FO has been a total and complete failure in virtually every aspect of its decision-making process is illogical. It’s not rational at all to think things are going well. Having a positive or hopeful view of the future is downright crazy! Seriously, I found myself asking this question: Would any sane living being willingly be a fan of the Sacramento Kings? Any analysis of the factual data leads to the same conclusion: you have to be absolutely and unequivocally insane to root for this team because rationality has nothing to do with being a Kings fan.

I will try not to beat dead horses or belabor the point but let us take a quick survey of the current structural status of the organization in order to better understand the data set with which we are working.

The top: Vivek Ranadive is still the Chairman of the Organization and there is no indication that he is going anywhere. Vivek’s tenure got off to a rocky start here (followed by a rocky middle and rocky present, but still, let’s be linear for a moment). As with other new owners, Vivek was eager and excited to take what made him successful in other business ventures and apply that with gusto to the Basketball Operations division of the Sacramento Kings. As a result, his tenure has been marked with impulsive, trend-bucking, and impatient decision making. Vivek’s public explanations for some of the more bizarre and destructive moves have been dripping in Silicon-Valley-esk gobbledygook, which certainly has not endeared him to the fans through the years. And while Vivek talks about never making the same mistakes twice, the Kings FO during Vivek’s tenure as chairman has been remarkably consistent in making the same type of short-cut style errors. Errors that are born of the impatience and trend bucking mentality that has been evident from the get-go. Indeed, we just saw the second perfectly good head coach fired by a GM for largely personal reasons – rather than basketball ones – and both times this has led to a total collapse of any positive moment gained on the court.

Now, while none of us in the general fan public are privy to the ownership contract itself, there has been enough evidence made available to us to conclude that Vivek is not going anywhere, short of him simply deciding to step down as Chairman of the organization. So, when evaluating the logic of your fandom and considering whether or not Vivek is a positive or negative force on the BBOPs (no one is questioning the success of the Kings on the business side mind you) then you need to ignore a lot of data to stay positive with Vivek continuing on as the Chairman and ultimately maintaining control of the Kings BBOPs. Remember, “anything is possible” and “maybe [insert name here] has learned from his/her mistakes and will suddenly make choices vastly different from all their prior ones” is not a rational argument, it is an emotional plea for blind hope.

So, with Vivek firmly in place let’s move on to the next top layer, the General Manager.

The other top: Vlade Divac is still the General Manager of the Sacramento Kings. It is hard to understate how truly remarkable a collection of words that is when analyzing his NBA executive career to date.

First, there is the big stuff. The independently firable offences. The Philly trade. The management of the Boogie/Karl dynamic. The firing of Dave Joerger for .. um reasons. The hiring of Luke Walton without engaging in any process to even consider other candidates. Luke forking Walton! And oh yes, that little thing about passing that obvious choice for with the number two overall pick. What is his name again? Yeah, that minor little mistake. I mean, pick any one of these insanely destructive decisions during his GM tenure and it is so bad that it is an independent fireable offense. Pick two and you are Pete D’Alessandro (Firing Malone and trading IT for nothin’). Pick all five and you get a four-year contract extension because … remember what we are talking about here again, the insanity that is the Sacramento Kings!

Let’s look past those massively destructive blunders for a second, because why not? This is the Kings after all. Just analyzing his draft picks, trades, etc. It’s just a forking mess! What other GM in the history of the NBA has been able to survive such a sad resume? It’s simply mind boggling to attempt to fit it into a puzzle where the rules are governed by reason and logic.

Now, the counter point we heard towards the end of last season was something to the effect of “but Vlade has put this team in the best place it has been in over a decade.” While there was (for a fleeting moment) some truth to that, let us start by acknowledging what a depressingly low bar that is with which to evaluate a GM (but again, Kings discussion here so let’s go with it!). How quickly did Vlade destroy what was once a great notion? I mean, dynamite is less impressive and efficient in demolition work! The dude decided to fire the coach who helped get us there and run out and hire Luke Walton to be his Steve Kerr! Worth repeating: Luke Forking Walton! That’s just nut balls crazy GMing there!

So, did you skip the part about the four-year extension? Yeah, Vlade has one of those. So, I am not sure this organization even has the fortitude to do the right thing at this point. We may just be left hoping that the same guy who made all the prior destructive decisions is going to make a bunch of better ones to fix all his bad ones. So again, logic and reason have no place here. This is Joseph Heller-esk quagmire stuff.

I’d like to point out that Vlade is still one of my favorite Kings ever, like EVER ever; however, I long ago gave up hope that GM Vlade would turn into anything other than a pumpkin. And right now, that is one large squash and we have no recipe or functional kitchen to do anything with it.

The coach: Luke Walton. I have nothing else to add. Luke Forking Walton. That is our coach. That is who we are hoping is going to lead us to the next level. Yikes. The tools at his disposal in this roster are almost all being criminally misused. The only guy thriving in the chaos is Holmes and that is just because Holmes is a chaos style player. Not much evidence from this season to give someone anything other than irrational hope, but at least we can evaluate his performance in LA. [Pokes around the internet] Yeah, nevermind. Wait, why did we hire this guy again? Oh yeah, because the Kings are insanity materialized into the form of a sportsball company.

The players: There is a problem with trying to discuss the potential of this roster collectively or individual in a rational way: It does not matter because the rancid toxicity of the organization is seeping into the locker room and the play on the court. Fox (and if you squint really, really hard Bagley) may have it in him to become a franchise altering star but I don’t see how anyone can rationally believe the organization has the acumen to assist him in getting there. The bottom line is that the roster assembled by the FO isn’t working. It may not be the players fault individually, but it is their problem. Further, they are not young. They are mostly veteran players and very few are still “development players (really, just Bagley at this point since the GM passed on Giles). It simply isn’t logical to objectively look at this roster and think that we are moving towards some massive positive result two to three years from now. That was last year. This year was supposed to be the next step. This year was about playoffs and winning games. The results are clear: the team just sucks.

So, if you are a fan of the Sacramento Kings, like me – and make no mistake, the historical inertia of my fandom has its grip on me and, like a pitbull, is never going to unclench its jaws for eternity – then let’ stop trying to have discussion and debate based on evidence, statistics, projects, etc. because we just aren’t normal people. We are bat-shit crazy and stupid as all get up. And since we are talking about human beings here we should have already know that we are nuts but as Kings fans we are talking about a special kind of insanity. It’s super nuts, just oldish and never rewarded. This organization’s place in the NBA landscape is evident: It’s a toxic cesspool situated in the middle of a desolate wasteland. If you have any sense of reason or free will left in your spleen, then get out! Run away! Find something rewarding to love!

Ye who willingly wants to hang out with fans of and otherwise invest in a toxic organization are nothing other than a self-loathing masochist! Sane people need not apply! This is the Sacramento Kings, where wading in despair and being a pessimist is the only way for an insane person to not go completely crazy!