Ranking the Top 50 Sacramento Kings, Pick No. 1

After all, we don’t need these guys, we have Hassan Whiteside.

I’ll go with CW of course!

If his feet where about one inch smaller, he would have averaged 3 more PPG…

Haven’t played NBA Live for a long time—Do they have the prime versions of each player? If so, can we put them on different teams and see who wins?

Both guys were the team’s best player for multiple years. Webber’s years turned out a bit better. The stats are so similar in terms of impact that the wins — no fault of Mitch, of course — take the cake.

Without Webber, this team might have moved long ago. With Richmond we were playoff contenders once. With Webber we were Championship contenders, for a few years. Granted, Mitch didn’t have near the supporting cast of C-Webb, but its telling to me that once Webber went down with injury we weren’t the same. He was the driving force of this team, and should have been the centerpiece for one or two titles.

…but I had to go with Mitch. I’ll admit that I’m biased because Richmond is the reason why I became a Kings fan in the early ’90’s: watching him score on double- and triple-teams on a nightly basis while also playing tough-nosed defense was special.

I’ve written about this before, but I think Richmond doesn’t get his fair due. For instance, he scored the most points of any guard in the ’90’s (seven of those years were obviously in Sac), and his 22.5 points per game over the decade are well ahead of Reggie Miller (20.6) and Clyde Drexler (20.4). Richmond also rarely missed any games (aside from the one season when he fractured his wrist) and those Sac teams weren’t even as terrible as you might remember (32 wins on average, which would be a nice improvement over the last few years).

As for Webber, there’s no question the Kings don’t become a title contender without him. His numbers are phenomenal and he’ll almost certainly make it to the HOF. But it’s also not fair to ignore the supporting cast he had around him in Sac. If you really want to play the devil’s advocate, the Kings were 43-15 in 2003-04 before C-Webb returned. All I’m saying is that it’s not as easy as “Webber made the team great” and “everything went downhill after the knee injury.”

It’s not his fault that he played with a large number of scrubs, and for years he was the guy that the other team built their entire defensive scheme around. Webber benefitted greatly from playing with superior talent around him. Switch the two guys, and I have my doubts that C-Webb could have survived his time in Sacramento surrounded by the “talent” that shared the floor with the Rock.

All of this said, I’m not surprised that Webber is winning (though the margin is surprising). There are a ton of Kings fans that never saw Richmond play, and if you never saw him play, you have no idea exactly how good he was. And C-Webb probably also benefits from being the better retired Sacramento King, as he has been very vocal in the efforts to keep the Kings here. If all of that is helping to tip the scale in Webber’s favor, I have no problem with it.

210 players have suited up for the Sacramenton Kings, so this list will comprise nearly the top quarter. And fewer than 80 players have logged the equivalent of a full season (82 games) with the Kings.

Richmond joined the L*kers…

As great as Mitch was, at the end of the day the vast majority of his points were scored on horrible teams that accomplished nothing, compared to C-Webb turning the fortunes of the franchise around overnight.

His stats on a bad team might be inflated but if you saw him play and you saw every defense of every team realize that the Kings were Mitch Richmond and Co. and nothing much else,, you respect those stats even more, not less.

Webb was great and realized the best of his game here in Sacramento. But his greatness was manifested with a stellar supporting cast – Vlade, Peja, Bibby, Christie, JWill – guys who would be starters on other teams.

WIthout Mitch those awful Kings teams would be dismal. The icing on the cake is that Mitch was also the piece that brought Webber to the Kings. Wonderful when he was here, wonderful in what he became via trade. Richmond is the King of the Kings.