Let's Look at the Bright Side (Sacramento Kings' Journey)

We human beings tend to be such that we remain the same like forever.  In other words whatever habits you develop as a child, whether they be beneficial or detrimental, tends to stay with us throughout our entire lives, unless some conscientious effort is made to change.  The same cannot be said for organizations and especially, in the case of this article, NBA teams.  The only team who, relatively speaking, has maintained a standard of excellence throughout the entire modern era of basketball (i.e. from the 1980s going) has been the LA Lakers.  But as for every other squad, they tend to go through notable periods of being really competitive but at other times the exact opposite.

Take the Sacramento Kings for instance.  Believe it or not, at the turn of the century the only team that was more must-watch than the Kings was the Shaq-Kobe Lakers.  That is to say that the Kings were also a very-talented team that featured a number of fascinating personalities and playing styles.  But you wouldn't know that looking at them now, whereas they haven't been to the playoffs in nearly 20 years, and the only time anyone ever seems interested in watching a Kings' game is when they're playing against one of the more-popular teams.

And honestly, I've never been sold on De'Aaron Fox.  Now let me say that I've only seen him play sparsely.  But the way he has been placed at the top of Sacramento's roster kinda reminds me of that part of the Bible where the Israelites demanded that God give them a king because everybody else has one.  There's no actual rule that an NBA team must have a franchise player.  But since all of the big-name squads tend to have one, it's like the Kings had to also make Fox their de facto head honcho, sorta reminiscent of the Shai-Gilgeous Alexander situation out in OKC (though I'd probably take Shai over Fox).

And I'm not trying to diss De'Aaron, who is more or less unanimously considered a borderline All-Star.  But every time other writers get to extolling his virtues, the main thing they tend to mention is his speed.  And of course speed is very important when you're playing a sport like basketball that's like 90% running.  But on the other hand, it's like so what?  Or look at it this way - if basketball were all about speed, than someone like Usain Bolt would be dominating the NBA.

BUT, LET'S LOOK AT THE BRIGHT SIDE

The Kings are considered to be the biggest underachievers in the NBA.  That's a roundabout way of saying that no one would deny that this team is talented.  They aren't like, say the Orlando Magic.  If the Magic misses the Playoffs, people are like 'well what did you expect?'  But when the Kings miss the Playoffs, it's more like 'how do they keep failing despite having all of that talent on the roster?'

Back in the old days, that phenomenon would be attributed to the fact that the West was so stacked.  But it ain't like that these days - fuck around and even the Rockets will make it to the Playoffs this year.

The good thing about the Kings' situation though is that they have a deep roster of undeniably talented players, i.e. those, such as whathisname, who may prosper on other teams.  Or put differently, they have plenty of tradable players.  That means for this squad, the missing piece(s) to the equation is at least theoretically attainable.  However the challenge that lies ahead is identifying that piece or pieces.

I personally believe what this team needs is not a standard above-average player or players.  Rather the Kings could benefit from having a superstar, like a truly undeniable franchise player, on their squad.  But there isn't a lot of those floating around these days.  So even if Sacramento, hypothetically speaking, are in a position to make an appropriate roster change and flip the switch at any given moment, then the question becomes who is it exactly they should target if they decide to make a major power move?

CONCLUSION

Now that there's actual mainstream talk of De'Aaron Fox potentially being traded, I wish I had published this article two weeks ago when I actually wrote it.  But conclusively, the Kings are hands-down considered to be the most individually-talented losing roster in the NBA.  So it's only seemingly a matter of time before they make some kind of massive trade.

Knowing the Kings recent luck/history, said trade still may not move the needle.  But at least, unlike other perennially-mediocre teams, the fact they possess that flexibility gives them palpable hope.