The Kings weren't even supposed to be here today
The Sacramento Kings were the worst team of the 2010s. At least they had the 2010s.
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“The Apotheosis, or, Death of the King” by Bernard Baron
No team lost more games in the 2010s than the Sacramento Kings. Well, it depends on how you define the decade and whether you include playoff losses. (Seems wrong when you’re grading the worst teams.) It seems like most folks are considering the NBA decade to be the 2009-10 season through the 2018-19 season, primarily because that’s a whole lot easier to suss out than to split both the 2009-10 and 2019-20 seasons in half.
Per basketball-reference.com, no team lost more regular season games than the Sacramento Kings in the decade spanning the 2009-10 to 2018-19 seasons. The Kings are at 517 losses, the Timberwolves are at 516 and the Nets are at 504. Those three teams lost more than twice as many regular season games as the Spurs (245) over that decade.
The Wolves made the playoffs once during the decade. The Nets had four playoff berths and one series victory. The Kings haven’t made the playoffs since 2005-06. If they don’t make the playoffs this year (Sacramento is currently in 12th place) or next, they’ll tie the record for longest playoff drought in NBA history.
Here’s another way of looking at it: in the NBA, more than 50 percent of the teams (16 out of 30) make the playoffs every single year. The Kings have not been able to crack into the top 53 percent of the league though, not for more than a decade.
Clearly, the Sacramento Kings are the worst NBA franchise of the 2010s.
But also, whew, thank the Basketball Gods the Sacramento Kings are the worst NBA franchise of the 2010s, because at the beginning of this decade, it really looked like there would not be a franchise called the Sacramento Kings this decade.
The decade began with the moribund Kings bleeding money under the Maloof family. Unable to work with local elected officials to pass a public bail-out, the Maloofs started hunting for a new home with a subsidized arena. There were flirtations with Las Vegas, with Virginia Beach. A deal with Anaheim got pretty far before Dr. Jerry Buss put up a purple and gold stop sign. (People forget how far along that deal was before the NBA league office realized it was going to get messy and stopped it.) A deal with Seattle was struck and looked to be fait accompli, until David Stern put up a stop sign with help from Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson and a grassroots fan uprising.
That saved the Sacramento Kings in a strictly substantive sense, but nothing could save the Sacramento Kings in the also-important basketball sense. Not Geoff Petrie, not Pete D’Alessandro, not Vlade Divac. Not Keith Smart, not Mike Malone, not George Karl, not Dave Joerger, not Luke Walton (yet). Not Tyreke Evans, not DeMarcus Cousins, not Isaiah Thomas, not Jimmer Fredette, not Thomas Robinson, not Nik Stauskas, not Ben McLemore, not Willie Cauley-Stein, not De’Aaron Fox (yet), not Marvin Bagley III (yet). Not Vivek Ranadive (yet).
The Sacramento Kings are the worst NBA franchise of the 2010s. But the alternative was not to be a good NBA franchise the decade. The alternative was to not exist. Fans will gladly take this dishonor instead.
Now, to avoid 500 losses in the 2020s …
Weekend Scores of Note
On Mondays, instead of just dropping a laundry list of the 30 or so weekend scores, I’ll select a couple of note from each day with a sentence or two about why it was notable.
Friday
Cavalier 117, Celtics 129: Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum each scored at least 30. These dudes are reaching their potential right now.
Sixers 97, Magic 98: Smash the Bucks on Christmas, lose two days later in Orlando? Philadelphia remains pretty untrustworthy outside of the biggest games.
Pacers 112, Heat 113: Bonkers finish.
Saturday
Pacers 98, Pelicans 120: Three brothers share the court during an NBA game for the first time ever. Happy Holidays!
Sixers 116, Heat 117 (OT): Tyler Herro — greatest Miami Heatian of all time?
The game got even wilder from there.
Jazz 120, Clippers 107: Huge game for Donovan Mitchell. So, um … does Mike Conley have to come back? Just asking.
Sunday
Thunder 98, Raptors 97: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander broke the record for points scored by a Canadian against the Raptors, which is not a record I had ever thought about before.
Rockets 112, Pelicans 127: New Orleans has won four straight and is 7-9 when Derrick Favors starts this season (4-14 when he sits or comes off the bench).
Mavericks 95, Lakers 108: LeBron has played both games since Christmas, and L.A. has won them both. Those opposed to LeBron lore will say this proves he wasn’t that injured on Christmas. Others will say this proves how resistant to injury his body is.
Heart-Warming Moment of the Indeterminate Time Period
The Heat’s Chris Silva moved from Gabon to the United States to chase his basketball dream in 2012 as a teenager. He has seen his mother once since then, on a two-week visit to renew his visa three years ago. The Heat and NBA surprised Silva by flying Ma Silva in from Gabon. Beautiful.
Schedule
All times Eastern. Games on League Pass unless otherwise noted.
Hawks at Magic, 7, NBA TV
Heat at Wizards, 7
Bucks at Bulls, 8
Nets at Timberwolves, 8
Pistons at Jazz, 9
Suns at Blazers, 10, NBA TV
Links
Here’s a wonderful way to spend 25 minutes: the NBA put up a top 100 dunks of the decade video. Spoiler alert — they are all good. I knew Blake Griffin would have a dozen or so jaw-droppers on there, but am I the only person who’d forgotten how many incredible jams J.R. Smith had? Sheesh.
After the Lakers’ Christmas loss to the Clippers, Kyle Kuzma’s trainer had a Spicy Social Media Take that Kawhi Leonard works harder than LeBron to add elements to his game. Kuzma tweeted something cryptic around the same time that could absolutely be read as support of this take if you inclined to drooling over Lakers and/or LeBron drama. PUT IT RIGHT INTO MY VEINS! And then … nothing. Kuzma apologized to LeBron, LeBron kind of dissed the trainer — “I wish him the best” — and it all fizzled within the weekend.
I greatly enjoyed Marc Stein’s brisk run through the NBA’s decade.
Each NBA team’s signature moment of the decade.
Part 4 of Henry Abbott’s series on player injuries looks at the incredible science P3 is developing to predict (and prevent) injuries.
Some cheery Monday morning content: all of your favorite meme animals from the 2010s are dead.
Zach Randolph has officially retired. What a wild career.
Some Knicks want to be traded. Some Knicks fans probably want to be traded, too.
James Wiseman signed with Excel and will start prepping for the draft. He has a big enough profile that it probably wouldn’t make financial or draft stock sense to join the G League for the next few months, which is unfortunate for the G League.
Michael Pina on why Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis are a perfect pair.
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