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Kings vs Suns Preview: The End is The Beginning is The End

A new era of basketball in Sacramento is promised on the other side of this off-season. Again.
By | 12 Comments | Apr 10, 2022

Well, my friends, we have done it. Through summer league championships, early season hype, record breaking three point performances, trading away our former future and then-present future at the same deadline, a Fox resurgence and subsequent shut down… we meet again, at the end of the 2021-22 NBA season.

No playoffs berths, no representatives at the All-Star Game, no individual awards to be claimed and yet, no tanking or high draft picks either – just another season smack dab in the Sacramento-only circle of Basketball Hell. Our hearts have burned for wins, burned for losses, burned for any reason to care at all and now at the end of it we can see clearly, mostly, we’ve just mostly been burned. Here, 172 days since the start of a semi-promising season: we’re plain burnt out.

The days have been stacked, games won or lost, storylines completed or cut. It’s time to talk Kings basketball for the last time till October.

When: Sunday, April 10th, 6:30 PM PT

Where: Footprint Center, Phoenix, AZ

TV: NBCSCA – Kyle Draper (play-by-play)

RadioKHTK Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

The Sun-King Place: My soul drooped from a similar place last season as it does right now, though admittedly for a team in much different circumstances. Where it once dripped with apathy and clinging to the hopes of an honest-to-goodness rebuild, it’s now dry of most strong emotion, baked in the takes of geniuses and idiots alike, whipped around by a team seemingly so close to understanding the road out, only to pull the e-brake and yank the wheel with such force, the biggest hope for many got ejected from the team all together, landing with softness in Indiana. There is no strong feelings of hope for our new on-court overlords, nor is there much reason to despair. I like Fox, like Sabonis, see the building blocks of a team yet established and I don’t plan on giving Monte McNair and Company an inch of belief until they actually get the job done. We wouldn’t have given eleven thousand dollars plus in charity if they’d had done the job they claimed they had to begin with.

I said it last year at this point and I’ll say it again, louder for any decision makers who might wander into the last of my ramblings this year. You don’t get to hate the Kings unless you love the Kings and as I find myself falling out of love with the Kings, I also find the adage holds true. I hated much of this season too, but for everything they’ve done and the messes that they’ve caused.. I hated it even less, because they’ve taken away a lot of the love already.

What I don’t hate is this place. This community we’ve built. Sure, some of you McGenius-types get on my nerves and spout plenty of unreadable bullshit, but there is no growth without conflict, no sharpening of ideas without the blockheaded whet stones some of you choose to be. We have a podcast for another year that features Jerry Reynolds and without your support and listenership, I’d never get to the privilege of getting to have so many wonderful conversations with Tony and Jerry Legend. I’d never get to hear how stupid some of my ideas are either, but … hey, my pride can take those shots from a guy of Jerry’s reputation! Both men are an incredible addition to my life in recent years and are the best of all things The Kings Herald Show. You all are my second family. Now just like real life, I  avoid some of my family, but I love you all the same. Thank you for being there, making me better, showing me who I should and could be all these years.

To everyone on The Kings Herald staff: you’ve put up with me for, like, seven years now. Greg has had to read all but like four of my previews for almost a decade. He’s shaped me and my writing into the atrocity it is today and deserves so much credit for so many of the best (and worst) things I’ve written. The ownership group have all been incredibly supportive through everything this season. Tim, I’m literally never in the mailbag when you’d like me to be and your patience deserves a statue – your food takes deserve prison time though, so… you get what you get. So many ideas are bounced around with Richard, Omer, Kevin, Akis, Rob and they craft much of what I’ve come to believe about this team and franchise. Brenden is a special inspiration and a good reason I keep writing – he works harder than anyone I know and I’m so proud of where he’s come in recent years. Brad and Robby are two of the best people and minds that I know and they’re a constant reminder that the world is so much bigger and better than what one small team can give it’s community. Mirann is my partner-in-crime at this site and truly a queen in all things and I truly believe she’s just scratching the surface of her impact on this site, and this community and I look forward to our new basketball overlord someday taking her rightful spot on the throne. To those who have gone before us, like TJ and Sanjesh – I miss you being in our chats and lives daily, but I’m so proud of your blue checkmarks and advancements and I hope one day to embarrass you both with a take so bad you deny our friendship thrice from all social media.

I’ve gone into every last preview for a couple seasons now not knowing if I’d be back. Even with Operation:MCNAIR saving me from quitting mid-season this year (a post on that particular venture will come later), life gets busier, the world and all of its wonders more attainable with free time more and more sparse. Only the Kings and their unending mediocrity remain unchanged. I’m running out of ways to skin this cat with less and less patience available to me to deal with the hissing and howling that comes with it. When the day does come that someone else is here, fresh eyed and hopeful, with heart and mind unbroken, all I want you to remember of me is that I loved you all first, loved the Kings as long as one could, and most importantly, that I never watched Lady Bird and all the delightful things Grilla Gerkhin had to say about Sacramento.

Prediction

We raise $100k for charity next year and Vivek has me banned from all WeWorks job sites for the rest of my life. The Kings win 36 games next year and Bryant has to write 15 draft previews to cover anyone that might get picked. They pick someone else. Jerry predicted the pick a month earlier.

Kings: Seventh pick jumps into the Top 2, Suns: Finals Appearance

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Jman1949
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April 10, 2022 1:29 pm

Last game, and just like ev’ry year
The playoffs for us—nowhere near.
Who will the Suns rest
To protect all their best?
Kings could win, but don’t think I’d cheer!

Jman1949
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April 10, 2022 1:30 pm
Reply to  Jman1949

And that’s a wrap!

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Kingsguru21
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April 10, 2022 4:32 pm
Reply to  Jman1949

Do you have limericks planned for the lottery or offseason by any chance?

Jman1949
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April 10, 2022 5:19 pm
Reply to  Kingsguru21

No, I generally don’t post limericks outside the preseason and regular season game previews unless something in the news or in a particular thread strikes my “poetic” fancy. Something like Vivek stepping away from his Kings position, for example, might trigger me to wax poetic.

SMF-PDXConnection
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April 10, 2022 1:58 pm

comment image

Carl
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April 10, 2022 2:10 pm

 ‘Basketball Hell’: How Vivek Ranadive turned Sacramento Kings into NBA’s biggest losers
https://www.sacbee.com/sports/nba/sacramento-kings/article260250635.html#storylink=mainstage_card3

Not much has changed in how the Kings are run. Forgive me if when hearing “But it’s different with McNair” I throw up in my front row seat.

Last edited 1 year ago by Carl
Kingsguru21
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April 10, 2022 2:55 pm
Reply to  Carl

This is going to be an interesting conversation. There’s alot to dislike about Ranadive from this article.

TerzoM
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April 10, 2022 2:58 pm
Reply to  Carl
Last edited 1 year ago by TerzoM
Mike120
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April 10, 2022 4:03 pm

Will, thank you for the time you put in to craft these write ups. I can barely scratch out two sentences.

Kingsguru21
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April 10, 2022 4:12 pm

Well, I enjoyed your previews at least Will. But the season, as it always seems to, ended up being another wasted 172 days.*

* = I’m hoping the Sabonis trade changes this

Last edited 1 year ago by Kingsguru21
TerzoM
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April 10, 2022 4:51 pm

Thank you TKH staff put putting up with us for another year. We can only hope when the purgatory ends and Kings crawl out of BB hell.

Bluejohn
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April 10, 2022 6:04 pm

Will. Thank you. I was thinking your wife could fill in for 15 games. I don’t know what the trade offs would be accommodating her demands though.

Seriously, hope you mention this in article about Operation M.C.N.A.I.R. but I’m hoping there will be an option for us who haven’t donated yet but would still like to.

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