Sacramento Kings can’t win without opportunity to grow

October 20, 11:28 AMSacramento Sports ExaminerPatrick Ibarra

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Tyreke Evans should help the new-look Kings this year.

AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

The only way the Sacramento Kings will get a chance to win this year and next is if they are given time to grow. With the right grooming and preparation, the future could be bright. But in the toughest conference in the NBA, that won’t come easy, and for a franchise begging for change, it’s going to take a whole lot of help for the Kings to improve.

It can’t just be a change in personnel. Although the Kings have made such a move, ridding of nearly every highly touted athlete on the team the past three years, such personnel changes haven’t made any difference on the court.

The Kings of old, who made it to the playoffs eight straight times from 1999-2006, were whisked away from Sacramento one by one, several still in the league making strides with other teams. But even their departure isn’t really the problem. It isn’t that the Kings let them go; it’s that the Kings still cannot let them go.

Fans and media still pine over the days when Chris Webber was the focal point of an explosive offense, how Peja Stojakovic could hit any clutch shot, and how Mike Bibby played like a man possessed. Those days are gone, and everyone in and around Sacramento needs to let them go for the Kings ever to see success again.

Like a family with a mother crying over her first born going off to college, the rest of the kids at home are being neglected, and lashing out because of it. They can never compare to their older brother or sister in mom’s eyes. They shouldn’t have to, because in their own way, they are just as special, and they are here, now, waiting for their chance to shine.

The Sacramento Kings don’t need a savior to come in and walk on water. They need a city to embrace them once again, and a little slack to grow to their full potential before being buried alive.

What has dragged the Kings down more than anything else has been expectations. As Sacramento’s sole professional male sports team, the city focuses its heart and soul on the wins and losses of the franchise, giving it no time to rebuild. So when a new coach comes in with high hopes and loses, he carries a burden and blame above and beyond what others in the league have had to bear. Reggie Theus had the potential to be a good NBA coach. One bad season and the start to another and he was canned as quickly as the coach before and after him. That’s not loyalty, that’s a witch hunt.

And so enters a 2009-2010 team desperate for a chance to redeem itself. Most of the roster is new, but a few classic faces remain, including the team’s best player in Kevin Martin. All he and the Kings want is an opportunity to get better. Fans should give them that chance.

Instead of expecting the emergence of the prodigal son, fans should be excited to see the birth of a new team in Sacramento. They should help nurture it through the stumbling years of adolescence and into maturity, where a team developed could possibly be a contender again.

This new-look Sacramento team is a crying baby in the middle of the night. All it needs is a little love.