Sacramento Kings

Team information

• Inaugural season: 1923 (semi-professional); 1948 (NBA)
• Home arena: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, California
• Owner: Vivek Ranadive
• Team colors: Purple, slate gray, and black

Overview

The Sacramento Kings is a professional basketball team that plays in the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Western Conference. By one measure, the Kings can lay claim to being the oldest franchise in the NBA, tracing their origin to upstate New York in the 1920s. One of the most well-traveled franchises in NBA history, the team has relocated three times and played in five different cities. Most of the success in franchise history occurred in its first two decades in the NBA. Then known as the Royals, the team was a playoff fixture from 1949 to the mid-1960s and won its only NBA championship in 1951. During the 1960s, the Royals also featured one of the NBA’s all-time greats, guard Oscar Robertson, who was legendary for his versatility on the basketball court. The Royals adopted the Kings name in 1972, and by 1985 had settled in their current home in Sacramento, California. However, after the move out west, the Kings were the picture of futility as they struggled to win consistently, making the playoffs just ten times in thirty-five seasons.

History

In 1923, basketball player Les Harrison founded a semi-professional barnstorming team in Rochester, New York. Barnstorming teams were independent squads that traveled across a region playing exhibition matches. Harrison’s squad was nicknamed the Rochester Seagrams because it was sponsored by the Seagrams liquor company. By 1943, the team had gained a considerable regional following and was renamed the Rochester Pros. Two years later, the National Basketball League (NBL), a professional league formed in 1937, was seeking to expand, prompting Harrison to pay $25,000 for the rights to a new franchise. The Pros were renamed the Royals and quickly became the class of the NBL, winning the league championship in 1946 and division titles in 1947 and 1948. Prior to the 1948–1949 season, Rochester joined the rival Basketball Association of America (BAA). A year later, the NBL and BAA merged, forming the modern NBA. Because the NBA only recognizes championships and statistics from the BAA, Rochester’s accomplishments before 1948 are not considered part of its official history.

Counting its one season in the BAA, Rochester made the playoffs its first seven seasons as an NBA team. In 1951, with Harrison as head coach, the Royals defeated the New York Knicks to win the NBA championship. Despite the early success, playing in such a small market began to hurt the team’s bottom line, especially when the Royals’ play began to suffer after 1954. In 1957, the team left Rochester and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where the Royals continued to have problems winning games and attracting fans.

The Royals’ play on the court began to turn around in the early 1960s following the drafting of point guard Oscar Robertson in 1960. Robertson was as skilled in passing and rebounding as he was in scoring. He won the 1961 Rookie of the Year Award and the 1964 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award. Led by Robinson, the Royals made the playoffs each season from 1961 to 1967. However, by the late 1960s, the team started having trouble winning games and Robinson was traded in 1970. Attendance had never been strong in Cincinnati, but with a losing team on the court, the financial woes took their toll. In 1972, the franchise moved again to Kansas City, Missouri, with the intent to play additional games in St. Louis, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska. The idea of playing in St. Louis never materialized, but the franchise did split its home games between Kansas City and Omaha. With a Major League Baseball team in Kansas City already named the Royals, the team had to come up with a new name. In sticking with the theme of basketball royalty, the franchise became the Kansas City-Omaha Kings. By 1975, the team was playing the majority of its games in Kansas City, so the franchise name was shortened to the Kansas City Kings.

Although the Kings did win their division in 1979 and made the Western Conference Finals in 1981—albeit with a losing record—the franchise once again struggled to draw fans and began looking to relocate. In 1983, the team was purchased by a group of California businessmen who wanted to move the franchise to Sacramento. The NBA approved the move and the Sacramento Kings began play in the 1985–1986 season. The Kings did not post a winning season in their new home from 1985 to 1998, although they did make two brief playoff appearances in that time.

Prior to the 1998–1999 season, the Kings radically reshuffled their roster in hopes of finally discovering a winning formula. Sacramento hired veteran coach Rick Adelman, who had made two NBA Finals appearances with Portland, and built around forwards Chris Webber and Peja Stojakovic. For the next eight seasons, the Kings were a Western Conference power, making eight consecutive playoff appearances and winning two division titles. In 2002, the Kings advanced to the Western Conference Finals and led the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers 3–2 going into Game Six. The Kings lost the game in controversial fashion when several questionable fouls were called against the team. In the decisive Game Seven, Sacramento and Los Angeles went to overtime before the Kings fell, 112–106.

During the team’s run of success in the early 2000s, the Kings experienced something that had been mostly lacking throughout their history: enthusiastic fan support. That support began to falter in the early 2010s as Sacramento’s fortunes began to shift. After making the playoffs in the 2005–2006 season, the Kings posted losing records in each of the next thirteen seasons. With no playoff appearances during that time, the franchise owners began to look for an opportunity to sell the team. In 2013, a potential group of new owners announced plans to move the Kings to Seattle. However, the NBA rejected that bid and instead sold the team to a group led by software entrepreneur Vivek Ranadive for $534 million. Ranadive agreed to keep the team in Sacramento.

In 2016, the Kings moved into the new Golden 1 Center in downtown Sacramento. That same year, the franchise updated its look by drawing on the original Kings’ logo from its days in Kansas City. That logo had featured a red crown with the word Kings on top of a blue basketball. The new logo included the word Sacramento in a purple crown and the word Kings atop a grey basketball.

Notable players

The first star in franchise history was point guard Bob Davies, who joined the Rochester Royals in 1945 and won the NBL MVP award for the 1946–1947 season. Davies was part of the Royals’ 1951 NBA championship team and was a four-time NBA All-Star. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1970. His teammate on the 1951 squad, center Arnie Risen, also made four All-Star appearances and was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1998.

In 1955, the Royals drafted imposing center Maurice Stokes out of Saint Francis University in Pennsylvania. Stokes made an immediate impact by leading the NBA in rebounding and won the 1955–1956 Rookie of the Year Award. After two more All-Star appearances, Stokes suffered a hard fall to the court late in the 1957–1958 season and hit his head. He lost consciousness but returned to the game. Three days later, Stokes had a seizure and was left permanently paralyzed and unable to speak. His fall had caused a traumatic brain injury that went undiagnosed. In the aftermath of the injury, Stokes’ teammate Jack Twyman stepped in to care for him, raising money for medical expenses and becoming his legal guardian. Twyman continued to help his friend until Stokes’s death in 1970. Many of his contemporaries remember Stokes as having had the potential to be an all-time great player. In 2004, he was posthumously honored with a spot in the Hall of Fame.

Twyman was drafted by the Royals in 1955, and in 1959–1960, became the first NBA player to average more than 30 points per game. He was second on the franchise list in points scored with 15,840 and entered the Hall of Fame in 1983. Oscar Robertson spent ten seasons with the Royals from 1960 to 1970. Robertson became the first player in NBA history to average a triple-double—double digits in points scored, assists, and rebounds—over the course of a full season. In 1961–1962, he averaged 30.8 points per game, 11.4 assists per game, and 12.5 rebounds per game. Only one other player in NBA history has accomplished the same feat. Robertson’s 22,009 points and 7,731 assists are both franchise records. His career mark of 26,710 points was twelfth in NBA history, and his career 9,887 assists was sixth all-time. A twelve-time All-Star, Robertson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980.

Jerry Lucas played for the Royals from 1963 to 1970 and made six All-Star appearances. He was second on the franchise list with 8,876 rebounds and was named to the Hall of Fame in 1980. Nate “Tiny” Archibald was the team’s first star on its move to Kansas City. He made three All-Star teams from 1970 to 1976 and was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1991. Guard Mitch Richmond was a King from 1991 to 1998. The six-time All-Star was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014 and was third on the franchise scoring list with 12,070 points. Peja Stojakovic made three All-Star games with the Kings from 1998 to 2006, while teammate Chris Webber made four All-Star appearances with Sacramento from 1998 to 2005.

Bibliography

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