The Kings are Maddening

                         By: Patrick Crawley

 

Sacramento is Becoming a Madhouse

The Sacramento Kings drive me to madness. And I know I'm not alone in this sentiment. Attendance is down at Arco (except when the Lakers are in town). Fans are disinterested. Message boards are filled with venom. And Reggie Theus is voicing his disgust in post-game interviews.

A season that began with hope has now recoiled back into its dark cave, filled with despair and a sense of what might have been.

When a letdown of this magnitude hits, there's an instant desire to identify the source. We all want to know the reason behind this entrapment, no matter how tangled the web. Unfortunately, as a fan with no inside knowledge of the team, I can't offer reasons. So instead I offer symptoms. Consider me a doctor, or at least one who plays a doctor on TV. Ladies and gentlemen of Kings Nation, the symptoms of The Maddening.

 

1. Team Defense Has Gone Out the Window

Few things drive a fan up a wall faster than a lack of defensive effort. With that in mind, let's just say that Kings fans have been climbing a lot of walls lately. After beginning the Ron Artest portion of the season brimming with defensive confidence, Sacramento has descended back into defensive hell. The Kings have surrendured more than 105 points in 12 of the last 14 games. This includes 123 points surrendured to the Hawks, 116 points to the Clippers and 111 points to the Timberwolves (also known as the second-worst team in the NBA).

More convincing than even the stats is the visual evidence. A majority of Kings don't even try on defense; many others just weren't very good at it to begin with. And with Ron Artest baking on the bench (as always he's under heat, this time for faking an injury), the team is left without even one defensive stopper.

This is a problem; not just for the present, but also looking into the future.

Let's take an inventory of our defensive options.

Kevin Martin is a very talented player but, let's be honest, he'll never have the bulk to be a defensive factor. Same goes for Francisco Garcia. Neither are big enough to body up physical swingmen or shooting guards and neither has particularly quick hands, like say, Quincy Douby.

Moving to the forward spot, Mikki Moore is good for five fouls and one charge-taken per game. He has good lateral movement and his positioning is above-average inside. But how can a guy with Moore's build hold up against the elite PF's of the West? He's simply not up to the task.

Beno Udrih is a try-hard type of guy on D, but his talent is pushing the ball the other way.

Sheldon Williams can come up with an occasional blocked shot but, face it, he's short for a PF.

Spencer Hawes has yet to establish his command of the language of defense. Like a middle-schooler learning Spanish, there's room for growth here.

And Brad Miller, though he's enjoying a career season, leaves much to be desired in terms of interior defense. He's doing well on the defensive boards, but he's slow-footed and has a hard time getting over to help with weak-side defense. Brad's alright on D, but he's not exactly intimidating at 1.0 blocks and he's not quick enough to recover when he makes a mistake.

To have a top defensive squad, there needs to be not only a top-flight defensive coach in place, but also the correct personnel to execute that coach's defensive gameplan. With that said, none of the players mentioned above can be considered good defenders. And the majority of them are under contract for 2009.

The Kings are a miserable defensive club; in fact they're the seventh worst in the NBA. Unless there's a sudden infusion of good two-way players this coming offseason, we can all expect more defensive mediocrity in the near future. Despite Reggie Theus' best efforts.

2. In Sacramento, Indifference Reigns

The Kings are stuck in No Man's Land again. Too poor to make the playoffs, too rich to qualify for a top draft pick. In other words, the team finds itself alongside teams like the Hawks, the Nets, the Bulls and Trailblazers in the very small NBA middle class. A shrinking group of teams which make little progress, either forward or backward, from year to year.

Given this placement, the Kings seem to care very little about the outcome of recent performances. They are in an obvious tailspin in terms of effort. In recent games they've lost to league-worst Miami, second-worst Minnesota (at home, no less) and Atlanta (in a tailspin of their own). Following the home loss to Minny, Coach Theus ripped the team in an effort to stir up, well, effort. Theus said, "We've got a couple guys around here (who) aren't playing hard anymore." All indications point to Mikki Moore, Brad Miller and John Salmons as the culprits of this sound byte. These three sat out the fourth quarter in the losing effort to Minnesota.

Like many others in the Kings faithful, Theus' words induce terrible pangs of deja vu. Is this the same Quest for Effort that drove Eric Musselman out of Sac in 2007? I like to think it's different, in the hope that Coach Theus gets another turn at the helm in 2009, but in reality this apple (Theus) may not be falling very far from the last one (Musselman).

In the beginning of the season, I liked to say that the Kings reminded me of a successful college team. The talent may not have been there, but the team played with heart. Here was John Salmons taking a loose ball the other way for a mind-blowing reverse layup. Here was Brad Miller, both arms squared to the backboard, fighting off opponents for a defensive rebound. Here was Kevin Martin reading passing lanes on defense and using his quickness to swipe errant passes.

I loved to watch those early-season Kings; even if they didn't win, there was the opportunity to glimpse flashes of future greatness. But now the college-team packaging has been torn off to reveal a lackadaisical NBA product. Now, Indifference Reigns and I can't stand the output. Sure the team can turn it around (in Theus we trust) but the current reality is scary enough for doubts to creep in.

Whatever the outcome, the smell of surrender is all over the Kings' clothes. And the fans have very keen noses.

3. The Kings Don't Have a Team Identity

Mediocrity would be more bearable had we, as Kings fans, not witnessed flashes of brilliance from the team earlier in the season. Horrendous losses alone aren't enough to drive me insane. I've seen bad Kings teams before. But a team that bounces around with the inconsistency of a five-sided bouncy ball drives me absolutely out of my mind. I can't get my head around their idiosyncracies; I can't figure out if they're good or not, worth supporting or dumping in the middle of the street.

With bad teams, you accept the losing ways and wait for better times. There is no hope attached, no weighty expectations, just losing. But when you have home victories over teams like San Antonio, Detroit, Utah (twice) and Dallas, it's much harder to accept the kind of pitiful losses the Kings have endured lately. The constant tipping of the scale is enough to drive anyone batty. And that's when the questions come out. Questions like:

How does a team decimate the former league champs on November 26, take out contenders Dallas and Detroit in the month of January and then lose to chumps like the Heat and the Timberwolves in late February/early March?

What happened to the Kings of January? The team that moved the ball with effortless efficiency, helped teammates to get effective shots and played cohesive team defense. Where'd that team disappear to?

Are we a rebuilding team or a team trying to be competitive? Will this team even reach 35 wins? Will next season be the same?

These are the kinds of questions that the pestering mind of a Kings fan produces. We ask them because our team doesn't have an identity. There's nothing for us to hang our hat on. We've experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows and neither has felt like home.

Which brings us to our final symptom...

4. The Future is Uncertain

One of the reasons it is so maddening to follow the Kings is the smallness of the light waiting at the end of the tunnel. As fans, we struggle through the muck in the hope that, what? Ron Artest returns next season? Kevin Martin somehow morphs into a terrific two-way player? Spencer Hawes becomes a Top 5 center?

The truth is that the near future may be quite bleak for the Kings.

Besides the Artest Soap Opera, there are quite a few looming clouds over the Kings heading into 2009. Kenny Thomas and Shareef Abdur-Rahim are owed a combined $14.1 million next season and it is likely that neither will see a minute of action. Salary cap restrictions will limit the Kings' front office to an offseason re-signing of Beno Udrih and perhaps one other mid-level free agent. The Kings are slotted for a pick in the 10-12 range and this draft class looks shallower than your nephew's kiddie pool. O.J. Mayo, a potential steal in the draft, has said that he will return for a sophomore season at USC. Spencer Hawes is a year or two away from starter status. John Salmons' game has an eery, bipolar quality to it. And Coach Theus, under near-constant fire, could be gone if the Kings continue to stager around like a bunch of punch-drunk boxers.

On the positive side, Brad Miller has returned to form (14.1 pts, 9.6 reb, and 1.0 blk per game), Kevin Martin has added an inside dimension to his scoring repertoire (9.1 FTA per game), Francisco Garcia continues to improve from beyond the arc (41% from 3pt) and Beno Udrih has blossomed into quite a good point guard (2:1 A/T ratio). These successes nurture a sense of hope in the fan base, but it will take more firepower than Miller, Martin and Udrih to fuel future playoff runs. I don't see that trio intimidating anyone in the West down the stretch.

As I said before, nobody knows whether we're in a rebuilding stretch or aiming for a championship in 2009. There's such a mishmash of players in Sac-town that even fans are divided about which ones to keep and which ones to toss back. In 20 years of following the Kings, I've never seen such a divisive squad in terms of fans support. Other than Mini-Mart, and perhaps Beno, each player elicits a different reaction from each individual fan. Just look at our roster, it's full of question marks and uncertainties.

We have a gang of overpaid veterans who don't play ('Reef & KT), a rejuvenated center who may or may note play hard for the rest of the season (Miller), a top-flight scorer who can't play D (Martin), an above average point guard who always gives 100% (Udrih), an incredible athlete who happens to be a lightning rod for negative attention (Artest), a skinny 7'0" power forward who doesn't seem to have a role (Moore), a streak-shooter with a penchant for throwing the ball away (Garcia), a promising rookie center who complains about playing time (Hawes), an undersized PF known best for dating The Future of the WNBA (S. Williams), a young guard with the size of a PG but the mentality of a SG (Douby) and a talented finisher/defender who has an unshakeable case of "bipolar game" (Salmons).

What do you do with a roster like that? There are some pieces of value there but, for the most part, it's an unfortunate collection.

With all apologies to Kevin Martin, there's no cornerstone in Sacramento right now. Just a shaky foundation (Artest) with a makeshift frame (Miller, Moore and Salmons) and a creaking rough that threatens to collapse everything at any moment (the bad contracts of Thomas and Abdur-Rahim). I don't know about you, but there's not much desire on my part to invest in a house built like that. You listening, Geoff Petrie?

Uncertainty is certainly a symptom of madness and the Kings have loads of uncertainty to contend with heading into 2009. It's up to Petrie and the front office administration to ease this uncertainty; something they have not been able to do in the past three offseasons. If that doesn't happen ticket sales will continue to decline, press hounds will continue to grasp at straws (a.k.a. the latest Ron Artest development) and fans will continue to toil under the weight of this mess.

The fans in Sacramento are a dedicated bunch. We have stuck with the team through times of feast (the Playoff Years) and times of famine (the 80's and early 90's). As such, we are owed a direction, a foundation, a move to the better. We are owed more than a 45% win percentage through February followed by a complete breakdown through March and April.

We need to put an end to all of this madness.