| 18 March 2009
For all the talk about Wade versus LeBron versus Kobe in the MVP race, home-court advantage in the playoffs, injuries that may affect playoff seeding and numerous other storylines, the Sacramento Kings' quest to go 0-30 against the East should be the most talked about story in the league.
The Kings are currently 0-27 against a very mediocre Eastern Conference and are poised to be the first team in NBA history to lose every game to an opposing conference. That may be the most dubious record in the history of the league. It is Joe DiMaggio 56-game hitting streak unbreakable. It is Rasheed Wallace 41 techs in a season unbreakable. No team has ever done it nor should any team ever be capable of doing it. Yet the Kings are three losses away from pulling it off.
Let's just put this record into perspective. The Washington Wizards are currently 16-52, and 2 of those wins have come against the Kings. We're talking about a Wizards' team that has only managed 14 other wins this season and hasn't won a game against its own division, yet they swept the Kings in their season series.
And it isn't as if the Eastern Conference is a dominating force this season. For the second year in a row, a team with a sub-.500 record is poised to make the playoffs and five other teams are vying for the same playoff spot despite their poor records. The Clippers, Thunder and Grizzlies (awful teams in their own right) have all managed seven wins against the East. The Timberwolves have racked up ten wins.
Which brings me to my next question: Are the 2008-09 Sacramento Kings the worst team in the history of the league?
Looking at records alone many would point to the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers or the 1986-87 Los Angeles Clippers as teams worse than this season's Kings. But let's take a closer look at how this team compares to the awful teams of the past.
The league itself is watered-down compared to how it looked in 1973. Expansion has led to the talent pool being diluted and head coaching jobs going to young and inexperienced coaches because there aren't enough viable candidates. The league had Tiny Archibald, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Pete Maravich, Dave Cowens, Spencer Haywood, Walt Frazier, and Elvin Hayes all playing for different teams and in their primes. At least the Sixers were losing to phenomenal teams. If this Kings' team played in that version of the league, they wouldn't have cracked double-digit wins.
The comparison to the Clippers is actually much more appropriate. That Clippers' team managed only one win against the East in 1986-87. The league had expanded much more in the 80s. There were dominant teams that seemed to suck up the talent pool just like today. That is where the comparison ends. The Eastern Conference overall was much better and only had four teams with losing records. One of those teams with a losing record was the eighth seed Chicago Bulls (Michael Jordan's team in case you forgot). Once again the Kings of this season would have been man-handled by the league.
So what lead to this atrociously bad team?
It was almost a perfect storm. They have been just bad enough to miss the playoffs for the past few seasons while being just good enough to not get a high draft pick in past two drafts. They had a young head coach that was in over his head and couldn't put them in the best position to win. (Just to save time I only wrote that once, but it has happened twice in the past 3 seasons.) They traded away talented players to shed cap space and accept the fact that they needed to rebuild. Their best players are young, inexperienced and don't know what it takes to win. Their leading scorer missed 22 games due to injury. They have no leader on the court to offset the lack of experience in their coaching staff. They are a poor defensive club (Last in the league) and inefficient on offense (25th). They can't win on the road (4-30) and are very beatable at home (10-23).
Reading this and knowing I'm a Kings' fan, many would assume that I must be pretty upset with how this season has progressed, but I actually love how this season is going. It's one thing if your team is playing poorly and losing games. It is quite another if they are historically bad.
I knew the Kings were bad and at best would win 25-30 games, but I never expected them to be this bad. Any team can have a losing record, but it takes a special team to lose like the Kings have. If you're going to lose at least do it with flair and go down in flames.
So let's hear it for a loss in Charlotte tonight, a loss in New York on Friday and a loss to Philly (how appropriate) on Sunday, and the Kings will lose their way right into the record books.
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