2009-10 NBA preview: Sacramento Kings
The Sacramento Kings only won 17 games in 2008-09, worst in the NBA. They were also last in attendance, they play in the NBA’s oldest building and despite having room to operate underneath the NBA salary cap, and this team did little to improve itself in the off season. In fact this might just be the NBA most affected by the recession. Sacramento saw its gate receipts fall 23% last year, thus the team lost 9.7 million dollars in revenue. This is the classic catch 22 for sports teams, build a winner and fans come out, however to build a winner requires a huge financial investment. The Maloof family doesn’t seem prepared to make that investment.
Of course it is not like the Kings roster is totally devoid of NBA talent. 2009 first round pick Tyreke Evans is raw but has star potential, Kevin Martin can score, and Sergio Rodriguez may be the passer this offense needs. While the Maloof’s spent the off season slashing season ticket prices, they also rubbed enough pennies together to land 6-9 forward Sean May. The big knock on most of the Kings players are they are soft and oft injured.
The Kings need to turn their luck around 58 year old, new Head Coach Paul Westphal is the man charged with doing so. Of course this is his third gig as a NBA head man after being fired from Phoenix and Seattle. Paul may have landed this job, but that wasn’t because he was in demand. In all reality he was the guy who would coach for the least amount of money.
What else can you say, this is a bad team owned by a family that will not or cannot make the decisions that will help rebuild the team. It seems like it is going to be a very long season for Kings fans, but I don’t feel sorry for them, I have been rooting for the Detroit Lions my whole life and as bad as the Kings were last year they still managed to win one game.
