Welp, it’s the last home game in Sacramento for the season and they’re facing a team that started 1-12 and is currently the 9th seed in the Western Conference and absolutely deadset on keeping it.
The Kings, with literally nothing to lose but time, have gone .500 over their last 10 games and slipped to the 7th slot in the lottery. I don’t have much to say about that.
Okay. Let’s get it over with.
When: Friday, April 5th, 7:00 PM PT
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: NBCSCA – Mark Jones (play-by-play)
Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
McCollum Like You See ’em: I’m glad to see this season come to a close. The fierce, unearned hype coming out of summer league and pre-season, the really nice surprising start, the inevitably crash, the limping along, the discourse around the direction the Kings chose at the deadline and now, whatever these last 15 games have been. It’s been an exhausting, unpredictably predictable season and I count every moment till it flatlines Sunday evening for good. Bury it 12 feet deep, Monday morning. Encase it in concrete, cordon off the area and build terrifying monuments on top of it so that future generations far removed from our language and customs know never to approach what happened this season.
Obviously the big news out of the other night is that not only are the Kings officially and mathematically failures to their stated goals this season, but they’ve locked up the streak for longest playoff drought in NBA History. Good. We own it. Now the Kings can stop making decisions based on avoiding it, like a driver who pinballs themselves between oncoming traffic and the guardrail because some squirrels in the road. The Kings hit the squirrel, it’s guts are all over the windshield and the car is still driving. Collect yourselves, go wash all the viscera off if necessary and get this franchise where it belongs. As a tank guy, I’d have said they could have avoided the squirrel if they slowed down about 4 years back and took their time, but ever the speedsters, here they are, with a sporty engine in Fox and a…I don’t know cars…fantastic cam shaft in Sabonis, flying by the seat of their pants, on a collision course with a true disaster two years from now. Umm… I’ve stretched this metaphor far too long.
The Kings are bad, historically so, and I really can’t muster up more than crappy car/road kill metaphors anymore. I’d have quit if a bunch of you hadn’t decided to just randomly donate close to ten thousand dollars to charity (and getting close by the day), but I can’t help but see the end in sight for me, for us all really. Did our collective apathy drive the Kings to make a rash decision? Maybe. Is it true they felt they didn’t have the support from the city to go through a true rebuild? Sure, I guess so. They were wrong, but I get it.
Young teams like OKC are bad and building great camaraderie and culture while doing so. Teams like the Pels are vet ladened and went from struggling to flying high, even without their best player. The Grizzlies have seemingly achieved the best of both worlds, combining youthful exuberance with a winning style, regardless of whether or not MVP candidate Ja Morant is playing. The Kings aren’t doing either.
I don’t want to hype up this last game at the G1C till October. I want it to go away, disappear into the record books and be forgotten. I don’t want to think about our pre-season “Can Davion Mitchell win a DPOY?!” discussion or Tristan Thompson’s press conference answers, that game against Charlotte or either game against the Celtics, Fox’s mysterious foot injury, trading Tyrese Haliburton, Fox exploding post-trade, Domantas Sabonis having two years left on his contract… consign it all to the briny depths of our collective memory hole.
We deserve better, from every single person in the org. And yeah, me too, if I’m being honest. But I’ll follow their lead.
Prediction
Neemias Queta plays 1 minute or more. Hot one today.
Kings: 111, Pels: 109
3 more servings
The Pels grabbed a spot in the play-in.
Without Zion, still found their way in.
Though that was our goal,
We kept digging a hole,
And did not have a team that could stay in!
I have to admit it, I’m not gonna watch, but I may tune into the Lakers vs. Phoenix game in hopes of seeing the Lakers implode on themselves. That may bring me more joy than anything that’s happened with the Kings this season.
Agreed, nothing is finer than seeing the Lakers get their asses kicked.
A Kings win is finer to me. When the two coincide then babies get made.
Isn’t it rather sad. We’re worrying about the Lakers fate. They are no longer relevant. The Kings future looks quite bleak. While teams like OKC and Detroit are building a sustainable winning organization for years to come.
Instead, the Kings are praying for draft position, In dire need of Fox to make that Tatum jump, and deluded into thinking Sabonis/Fox is the next great combo in the NBA.
To be fair, Detroit is going to need a lot more than just Cade to have a sustainable winning organization.
I am quite jealous of OKC though.
A top 3 pick could change things for them rather quickly. I’d take a nice young core of Cade, Bey, and whoever of Paolo, Smith Jr. or Chet
Bey doesn’t really move the needle for me. Maybe that changes if he gets kicked down the “option” chart by drafting another high-level prospect, though. That way he doesn’t have to take so many shots, and hopefully improve his efficiency (also work on his defense).
Exactly, he trends as that perfect 3rd to 4th fiddle on the wing on a good team, kind of like OG, De’Andre Hunter, or Mikal Bridges.
FWIW, I’d think he’d be the 3rd most valuable piece on the Kings current roster.
Hockey teams do teddy bear tosses onto the rink sometimes, right?
Sacramento’s the Big Tomato, maybe the fans can throw tomatoes on the court to end the season.
Please don’t throw produce onto the court, I don’t care about fans protesting, I just hate food waste.
That’s Sacratomato (or Sacred Mens Toes as Federated like to quip before they went bankrupt) to you buddy and who says it’s a waste?
I wasn’t expecting being against wasting food in a country that wastes 40% of its food supply annually to be a controversial take.
Food is going to become waste no matter what you do with it.
If anyone wants links to my study, including over four thousand hi-res images, please feel free to message me.
I was going to post a train falling into a chasm pic but you changed my mind.
Awe, what the hell
I mean, it was a poop joke.
Since I have league pass I have decided to watch teams that are good tonite and that means on the floor and broadcast booth . Just a selfish treat to maintain my interest in the NBA . No season tix for next year however just league pass ..
I’d call Domas the transmission, personally.
And then Vivek’s the crank(shaft).
or Air-D-bag
Hey now, airbags are actually useful.
Fan blade, Choke Cable 😀
Wow, I never took you for a Grant Napear fan.
Vlade was the driver who downed a bottle of cheap vodka an hour ago and says: “Watch what I can do”.
“Hold my cigarette.”
This season –
We just need the right kind of assistance to improve our shooting next season.
*runs to YouTube to rediscover this incredible Conan segment*
At the front office
And, y’know, put up a couple of signs warning people to not dig trenches there.
These are the retread bench vets that will lead us to the playoffs.
That previously led us to one or both of the back to back 31-win seasons coming into this one.
You can’t come back if you’re not down…
l’ll let myself out. go kings?
Badge Legend