Ten years ago the Sacramento Kings were considered an elite NBA team, along with the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs.
They were loaded with superstars like guard Mike Bibby, power forward Chris Webber and center Vlade Divac. Role players like Doug Christie, Scott Pollard and Peja Stojakovic along with college basketball stars Mateen Cleaves from Michigan State and Bobby Jackson from Minnesota helped round out what may have been one of the best teams in NBA history to have never won a title.
After clinching not only the best record in the NBA and the Pacific Division with a 61-21 record, Sacramento rolled through the first two rounds of the 2001-02 NBA Playoffs with series wins over Utah and Dallas.
Up two games to one against the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers, the Kings poured 40 points in the first quarter of a crucial Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals on the road, in Los Angeles.
Little by little, the Lakers chipped away, outscoring the Kings 77-59 over the next three quarters and pulling to within 99-97 with just 11 seconds to play.
Then Vlade Divac or Robert Horry happened, depending which view you prefer.
Kobe Bryant took the ball, drove in to his right and pulled up for a one-handed jumper that fell short. After Shaquille O'Neal's failed putback attempt, rather than go for the rebound, Vlade Divac slapped the ball out trying to run the clock.
The only problem was that Robert Horry sat waiting at the three point line, where Divac's batted basketball just happened to fall right into Horry's lap.
A wide open three-pointer not only tied the series at two games apiece, but it also might have been the beginning of the end for the Sacramento Kings, who instead of being up 3-1, went on to lose in seven games.
The Kings would never again appear in the Western Conference Finals and by 2007, attendance began to drop heavily. From once being ranked yearly in the top 15 in team attendance over the season, the Kings fell to 27th overall and have remained near the bottom ever since.
Recently, attorneys representing the owners of the Sacramento Kings filed federal trademark registrations which would end the run of the Kings and begin the reign of the Royals.
The Kings actually were the Rochester Royals back in 1949, then moved to Cincinnati and again to Kansas City in the early 1970s. With the baseball team already in place three years earlier and also named the Kansas City Royals, the basketball team changed its name to the Kings and kept the name when they moved to Sacramento.
Now with a possible move to Southern California, some 35 miles south of Los Angeles, and with the hockey team in Los Angeles already being the Kings, the new team could once again become the Royals. The official team name has yet to be decided.
In the end, it's hard to fathom the thought that one game 10 years ago could have such a dramatic effect on one franchise. A team who was 2.5 seconds away from being up three games to one in the Western Conference Finals today finds itself closer to being what they once were back in 1949, the Royals.
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