This Just In: The Sacremento Kings Are Really, Really Bad

With two fantasy league starters and the promised goodness of a matchup against the worst team in the league, I tuned in to the Sixers-Kings game.

And, um, hoo boy, are the Kings awful.

How bad are they? Well, the Sixers gave Kareem Rush playing time tonight. In fact, a good amount of it, the most he's had since December. Rush has played in two other games in the last two months. And it's not because the Sixers were having injury concerns, or that they didn't need the game; it was just because they could, and with a game looming tomorrow night in Portland, there was no reason not to.

The lead was 28 a little more than a minute into the second half, and it was closer than it should have been, because the Kings' "offense" of dribbling it up court and having a player shoot a crazy long three pointer was more effective than you might imagine. And yes, I know, what else was I expecting from a 15-54 team and all, but good grief, they are terrible. Philly set a new record for points in the first half for this season with 69... beating their previous record which was set on, you guessed it, the Kings.

(The Kings actually made it a game late behind Spencer Hawes slowly accumulating triple double numbers and Francisco Garcia getting a season high from made threes, but I never felt compelled to rewrite the lede here. Make of that what you will. Your final score was Sixers 112, Kings 100.)

There is a palpable feel and stink to a bad pro basketball team. The lifelessness of the defensive rotations, the abandon in which the opponent drives to the hoop, the zeal in which opposing star players start working, because they know that tonight is the night that you are not going to have to pace yourself, and that if you are going to get numbers, you will need them in the first three quarters, because your ass will likely be bench-bound in the fourth; it's all very recognizable to someone who came up in the Doug Moe Era in Philadelphia. Andre Iguodala had been struggling with his shot in the last couple of games; tonight he hit his first 10 in a row. Bad teams have a way of doing that.

But for this all to happen in a wildly enthusiastic setting like Sacremento, where the locals care way too much because they are the only game in town, and the team won 55 games just a couple of years ago... well, it's hard to imagine, really, that a franchise could fall this far, this fast, without some sort of catastrophe happening on the court or in the owner's box.

Sheesh, even last year, they had 38 wins and were in the playoff hunt.

There's also the *way* in which the Kings lose. Bank shots that miss the rim entirely. Turnovers are common, and not from attempts at spectacular passes; just from the routine, day-in, day-out kind of throws that you never see sail in to the stands from a decent team. They must have hit the sideline monitors a half dozen times tonight. No player stands out as a plus offensive or defensive player, and they don't move the ball in any way that might convince you that Pete Carill is drawing a paycheck.

Of course, they don't defend worth a damn, and didn't even in the glory days. The most speed I might have seen from a Kings employee tonight might have been from the mascot. He had hops, too.

Word has it that the Kings aren't long for Northern California, with the Maloofs looking to take them to Vegas or Anaheim or God knows where else. The next place will get a team with no real signature player. Kevin Martin gets numbers, but has no game that puts fear into any opponent. Rookie Jason Thompson may be tolerable, but they need a lot more than that. Hawes wound up with 17 points, 11 boards and 9 assists tonight, and for the life of me, I can't remember any of his points.

More telling about the Kings is that the owners seem to have lost their taste for this sort of thing. How else can you explain locking up Beno Udrih, a career mediocrity as a back up point guard, to a five-year, $32 million deal? Or failing to get anything meaningful in trades that moved veterans John Salmons and Brad Miller? Is anyone even still trying here?

But at least they beat the Knicks the other night, which means that they won't be the first team in the history of the league to lose every game they played against the opposing conference. So there's that. Oh, and they also will have the most lottery balls in next year's hopper, which is shaping up to be one of the worst drafts in recent history; maybe they'll wind up with Blake Griffin, who looks like another meh pro to me. Plus, they'll have lots of money under the cap to try to lure a premier free agent to a one-team cow town that might be on the move. Good luck with all of that.

For the Sixers, the win gives them a 2-2 road trip so far, with wins against the Lakers and Kings, and losses to the Suns and Warriors. Realistically, it's what you'd expect from the trip. if not quite the order you'd predict. If they can somehow pull out a win on the fourth game in five nights in Portland against the rested Blazers, they have a winning trip.

And despite the de facto bye they got tonight, I'm not really expecting it. Portland, unlike the Kings, are actually trying to win games.