As a long suffering fan of the only REAL game in town(siddown, rivercats), I have been priveleged to cheer for criminals, half-assed coaching, broken down losers who can't play. Most of all, I have been PRIVELEGED, to watch a team, 8 YEARS RUNNING, implode like Clay Aiken's colon after a date with a Marine barracks. But this my friend,  this city's torture is nothing compared to one poor man I'd like to call...Gregg. Y'see, Ol' Gregg was once a well known and prosperous man about town, prone to flannels and denim, unshaven but jovial, and crucially ,a sports fanatic. Now, at the time of this story, I had no idea who, nay what he was. I was in the 4th grade, and had an eye for a striking blonde girl named Molly.  As it happened, Molly's dad was announced as a guest for show n tell, and most of us snickered. Quickly, I stood corrected and chagrined. Ol' Gregg comes in with a big-ass model of a building and says: "I just bought the Kansas City Kings for 10 Million, and I'm going to bring them to Sacramento". Mind you, this was a town, where you could still find a car on blocks parked on J street, Confederate flags were still sprinkled around downtown, & the only thing to do in town was leave. The model was of the old Arco Arena, 10,000 side-car seats in a cow barn. My eyes wide and gleaming, I stared at the damn thing. I was already a fan of basketball. Sure, who the hell were the Kansas City Kings, but who the hell cared? We had a team. Immediately, I went home to spread the gospel of all things NBA coming to town, and damn near got pimp-slapped. "Liar. Dumb-ass. Idiot. Fool." All that garbage I took for a year, never fearing, never doubting. How was I to know that faith in an NBA team would be so crushing?  After the formal announcement and move from KC, a whole city stood with me solidly like Joe Kleine in the paint(yes, thats a joke). and though our teams were rank, horrible, and not worthy of discussion we still came in droves. every night. even on the road, damn us. So, through horrible drafts, snide holdout players and insane salaries, ol' gregg held on valiantly. finally, in '89 or so, his poor wallet gave out and the team was sold to some a-hole named Jim Thomas. Now, I bet ol' gregg was feeling pretty quixotic himself, after bringing the nba to sacramento, getting out of a deal that nearly ruined him, selling it to a non-local, and then having to watch the fruit of his labor run further into the ground as the nba exploded with money and talent. not until a bunch of  "cancers" got together,  (i.e., christie/webber/williams/B-Jax/V-Max and many other players later on) was there ANY success in the land of the rising smog. And yay, the cancer was good. Scary good. I would imagine gregg smiling at the fortunes of his local legacy, and I thanked him in my mind after every game. but like his quest to bring the grail of sophistication to SAC and prosper for 1000 years on, the attainable, was simply not. Heart-breaking shots. gut-wrenching injuries. Mafioso diguised as refs. With each final defeat over 8 seasons, my thoughts have all been with one man: courageous, innovative, and probably suicidal by now, Gregg Lukenbill. We're sorry buddy. maybe next year...

It comes to this. Petrie's power is diminishing and the Aloofs rely more and more on Nevada influences. Reggie Theus is a UNLV alum, and well loved there. The Tark's name was thrown about in the discusssion on Theus, an even bigger name than Theus'.

The Kings are gone.

The Kings are gone.

I hated writing that, with all my heart. It can't be true, It shouldn't be true, but it is.

It's over.

What do we do now, huh? Are you going to make this long and painful, or will you at least make it quick and give us a chance to start over with the supersonics?

We love you more than anyone Kings, but we are tired of trying when you've already checked out.  You don't talk to us anymore, these VEGAS people are coming around, the constant demands. Please if you're going to go, just go. We could still have a shot with the Supersonics.