We're Still Here

I’m a Kings homer …. always have been, always will be.

I’m too young to have truly suffered during those drought years. But we are all Kings fan in a basketball world that covets the Lakers and Celtics. Being a Kings fan will always be a bit painful, but also that more rewarding when we do win.

Hell, I’m a SF Giants fan going back to the 70’s and a Kings fan back to the 80’s. I’ve seen this movie before, but there’s always room for optimism. I still have faith in Petrie to put a respectable product on the floor.

Who’s with me?

I don’t have anything better do, so I guess I am

(In no significant order)
1. Hawes dunks, rebounds, precise passes, and defensive rotations.
2. Thompson not traveling, offensive rebounds, dunks over people(do it, we know you can!), getting a better rhythm on the floor.
3. Brown running the team well, not turning the ball over, finding the open man, nailing BJax style 3’s.
4. Greene getting burn, revealing his defensive ability(he’s bigger than Peja!), dropping 3’s and adding minutes to his career.
5. Martin coming back.
6. Udrih not turning the ball over [everyone not turning the ball over, we should have a drinking game based on possessions that are not turnovers].
7. Good offensive ball movement and overall team decisions.
8. Losing games [while giving good effort] as that gets us closer and closer to a better pick.

…there was something in the inside breast pocket. It was a ticket stub from a Kings-Vancouver Grizzlies game from January of 1998. My parents had season tickets in Section 114 Row P for almost 10 years. They didn’t give up their tickets because of the economy or the team’s play; they just got older and as soon as the Maloofs started airing every game on TV, it was more convienent to watch from the comfort of home.

I got to enjoy the benefit of those season tickets all the time. I watched Stockton hit the shot at the buzzer to send the 1st round best-of-five back to Utah. Heck, even back then, my parents would travel to road playoff games. They’ve been on camera in the crowd at SLC and Phoenix. They were featured on the season ticket holder tickets for a game the year they started doing that. I’ve been to so many games at ARCO thanks to their tickets.

When the time came to give up the tickets, I wasn’t in a place financially to inherit the seats. I wasn’t poor; I just didn’t have the budget for $2,000 a seat for a season. So what do I do now? My brother-in-law and I go to the games via the $10 tickets. We watched K-Mart’s buzzer-beating layup in Game 3 from the nosebleeds, and I truly thought ARCO was going to collapse from the ensuing frenzy.

I still get excited every game day. My wife is a bandwagon fan who probably wouldn’t know Shock or Hawes or ééé if she saw them, but I still watch games on TV or go to the home games. Sure, it’s difficult to watch poorly played basketball or lack of effort showings, but I’m an optimist at heart and I believe each new game brings a shot at redemption — even on a miniscule scale.

I’m originally from San Diego and I also root for the Padres and Chargers — so, hard-luck losers and franchises that get close but not over the top are the status quo for me. Call it self-masochism if you will, but I will root for the underdogs with unbridled passion for hundreds of years before I jump on another (a.k.a a currently-winning) team’s bandwagon.

Sorry for the long reply, this probably belongs in the “Where You From?” post, but it seemed relevent to this post too.

Reporting for duty, Sir!

Jim Rome has already named Sacramento as the “City with the most bandwagon fans per capita” so are we all going to jump ship sooner or later?

Just like it implies, I won’t stop watching until I die. Been a Kings fan since 1985 and I’m not stopping now!

and I still would be a fan. Die hard since the team arrived and if the stretch of teams from the late 80’s and most of the 90’s couldn’t beat the fan out of me then nothing will. Even as bad as those teams were with much less talent than the current team at least they would put up a fight at home and not roll over and get blown out at much as the current “team” does. This is the most frustrating part of it all…

I don’t think I could add anything to that, even if I really wanted to, which I don’t. I’ve been thinking draft all day after spending many hours in the morning time reading through a Kingsfan draft thread about whom the Kings should pick up in the 09 draft. (Interesting names and points were mentioned I dare say.)

Ready to kick some LA ass (even if it’s just the Clippers)

although, I do turn the game off late 3rd, early 4th if it’s completely out of control and:

a). yes I’m here
but
b). I’m not mad.

I believe that where we are now is part of the process of developing a contender, so I have no problem with where we are because I also believe we are finally heading in the right direction. I think the Peja for Artest trade was a mistake, hanging on to Bibby was a mistake and hanging on to Brad is a mistake, all prolonging our path to this point and to the future upturn.

But I’m not mad about where we’re at, if anything I’m mad that it took us 2 years too long to get here.

and doing the Polynice (premature) celebration dance from the Sonic’s series.

The Kings will be back and I, along with all of you, will be with them every step.

We had season tickets in the 90’s. We watched game after game at ARCO where we paid dearly for the priviledge of watching the Kings lose to bad teams.

Then we got good. Then we got great.

And now we’re bad again.

But we’re going to be good again, maybe even great.

You think I’m going to miss that because of a few bad games now?

Our struggle made the success so much more meaningful.

Fans need hope like plants need sunshine. Good stuff.

you have to be very loyal, which this year will prove us to be. Though we fell painfully short in ’02 (and it still hurts), when the day comes that we do win it all it will be all the sweeter!

So stay loyal Sacramento. Go Kings.