NBA

The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The Kings are the only team in the major North American professional sports leagues located in Sacramento. The team plays its home games at the Golden 1 Center. Their best seasons to date in the city were in the early 2000s, including the 2001-02 season when they had the best record in the NBA at 61-21 (a winning percentage of .744).

The franchise began with the Rochester Seagrams (a semi-pro team) of Rochester, New York, which was formed in 1923 and was home to several teams there over the next 20 years. They joined the National Basketball League in 1945 as the renamed Rochester Royals, winning that league's championship in their first season, 1945-46. They later jumped with three other NBL teams to the Basketball Association of America, the precursor to the NBA, in 1948. Like the Royals, the team was often successful on the court, winning the NBA championship in 1951. However, the team found it increasingly difficult to make a profit in the relatively small Rochester market and moved to Cincinnati in 1957, becoming the Cincinnati Royals.

In 1970, the Cleveland Cavaliers were established. This brought a new rival for the Royals, as well as a new team in Ohio. This rivalry did not last, and the Royals moved to Kansas City just a few years later. Although the NBA previously had a team in St. Louis, Missouri in the form of the St. Louis Hawks, that team moved to Atlanta in 1968, thus avoiding a possible new rivalry for the Kings. This made the Kings the first team in the state in four years. Thirteen years later, the Kings moved to California, leaving Missouri without a team.

In 1972, the team moved again, this time to Kansas City, Missouri, and was renamed the Kansas City-Omaha Kings because they initially split their home games between Kansas City and Omaha, Nebraska. In 1975, the Kings stopped playing home games in Omaha and in 1977 simply became the Kansas City Kings. The team again failed to find success in their market and moved once again to Sacramento in 1985, where they continue to reside today.

The Kings moved to their current home of Sacramento, California, in the 1985-86 NBA season, and their first season in Sacramento ended in the first round of the 1986 Western Conference NBA playoffs. The starting lineup was Reggie Theus, LaSalle Thompson, Mark Olberding, Terry Tyler and Mike Woodson, with Larry Drew, Eddie Johnson, Otis Thorpe and Joe Kleine coming off the bench. However, despite fan loyalty, the Kings had little success in subsequent seasons, and the team did not make the playoffs again until the 1996 NBA Playoffs in the 1995-96 NBA season. Some of their failures were attributable to misfortunes such as the career-altering car accident suffered by promising point guard Bobby Hurley in 1993, and the suicide of Ricky Berry during the 1989 offseason; some were attributed to mismanagement, such as the long tenure of head coach Garry St. Jean and the selection of "Never Nterious" Pervis Ellison with the first overall pick in the 1989 NBA draft. Former Kings television broadcaster Jerry Reynolds (1987, 1988-90) and NBA legend Bill Russell (1987-88) were the first head coaches.

During the 2018 NBA draft, the Kings selected Duke center Marvin Bagley III. The team was criticized after the draft for not selecting Luka Dončić, while Divac continued to say he had confidence in Bagley. Prior to the 2018-19 season, several analysts picked Sacramento to finish last in the Western Conference, calling their recent draft a "missed opportunity to build" and their lack of a veteran presence to offset their rookie lineup.