Kings Of Nothing

By Brad Hubbard | @bradhubbard

While the NBA world has marveled at the skill and domination of the defending champion Golden State Warriors this season, 90 minutes east of Oakland (give or take how bad traffic is) is one of the NBA’s biggest head scratching franchises, the Sacramento Kings. The same franchise that will soon be on it’s ninth head coach since the ’06-’07 season. It’s time to say that it’s not the coaches fault.

The Kings has a good run under in the early 2000’s under head coach Rick Adelman and owners Joe and Gavin Maloof. There were some legendary playoff series between them and LA Lakers that really got the Central Valley of California revved up. Those days are long gone and the Kings have yet to be back to the playoffs since Adelman was the coach.

The Maloof’s sold the team to Vivek Ranadivé back in 2013 and it’s gotten worse despite the fact that Ranadive was able to get a new downtown arena built that will open next season. This season was marked by, well, a lot. The star player hates the coach, the coach hates the front office and the front office is in waaaay over it’s head.

Other than that things are fine.

The sad thing is that it doesn’t have to be this way. The Warriors were almost as bad for a very long time. Between the RUN TMC days until a few years ago with the arrival of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, being a Warriors fan was nothing to brag about. But unlike the Warriors who finally put all the pieces together, the Kings seem to grab nothing but round pegs for square holes.

All is not lost for the Kings. They have talent on the roster in DeMarcus Cousins, Rudy Gay and Rajon Rando just to name a few. They were within arms length of a playoff spot this season despite the drama. The real problem is is that the front office is asleep at the wheel….or driving from the backseat.

Vlade Divac has no business being a GM of an NBA franchise at this point in his career. He is a great guy and an icon of the franchise but the Kings need a serious GM with some experience. Once they find that then they can go get a head coach. Since Ranadive took over as owner, the front office and head coach have not been on the same page and the results on the court reflect this disfunction. That is a must if you are to be a playoff team in the NBA…or any sports franchise for that matter.

So while the Warriors break NBA records and have the star player of the NBA on their roster, the Kings fans will have to wait another couple season before they will see playoff basketball in the River City. But on the bright-side, at least they get a new arena next year.