:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/27145509/jmwturner.0.png)
Sactown Royalty launched back on October 20, 2005. For the last eight years plus, y'all have joined me watching a usually awful team thrill us with potential and stab us with failure. And all along, the worst thing was the fear that we would miss all of that , that we would lose our team.
We didn't. We survived the Maloof era, and we're closer than ever to a new arena. There's still massive work to be done; you'll need those fingers for crossing^. But compare this to any point in the past eight years, and you'd take it. The fear never really leaves, but thanks to KJ, Vivek and, well, ourselves, we've packed it away in the darkest corner possible.
Since StR launched, the Kings have gone 245-434 with one playoff berth. (That was a 4-2 series loss ... in StR's first season.) Despite that, this community has grown leaps and bounds. We have some the best commenters in the basketball world, and we're one of the biggest NBA team sites on the planet. The StR community is in many ways a reflection of Sacramento and the Kings fandom itself: smart, passionate, funny and, more than anything, resilient. There is never any Kings bandwagon to jump on. When you're with us, you're with us for good.
I'm really proud of what we've built here, and rare is the day I don't learn something in the comments. Never is the day I don't laugh at something in the comments. For that, I thank you.
***
The reason for this post: I am stepping down as editor of Sactown Royalty. Akis Yerocostas is your new fearless leader. You know that he's brilliant; I don't need to belabor that point. He's played a huge role in building the site to this point, and only good things will continue to happen. He has some wonderful ideas to grow the site and improve the whole StR experience for you all. Greg Wissinger, Rob Hessing, Blake Ellington and Kevin Fippin will continue in their roles as awesome contributors. Each of them, including Akis, immediately raised StR's status upon joining the team. In addition to them, we have some newer contributors in the fold, including Adam Beddawi and Brad Geiser. There's also The Ghost of Robby Biegler; we actually have a bet on which one of us will write more pieces for StR in 2014 beginning February 1. We both bet on me, of course.
I will be writing an occasional piece over here, especially when things settle in with my new project. And that new project: Good Morning It's Basketball, a daily NBA newsletter curated by me for SB Nation. The first edition actually went live today. If you want to keep up with leaguewide news and, well, me, I'd encourage you to sign up.
[Brief aside about Good Morning It's Basketball, since there's no better place to put it: email newsletters are pretty old school, but so are high-top fades and that's not stopping Nerlens Noel. There's a growing consensus that email newsletters are pretty valuable tools in publishing. Email is the original digital social network, after all. Shout out to Compuserve chat rooms, though. Anyway, I read a ton of NBA stuff every morning. The newsletter is my way of sharing that with anyone interested. I find that I get a lot of utility out of the personally-written newsletters I subscribe to on politics and media. And we've seen some great examples of useful morning roundups in sports, even if they aren't exactly newsletters: see Dan Shanoff's Daily Quickie and the wonderful Curious Index of Every Day Should Be Saturday. I hope to be able to strike the right tone to make something NBA fans find useful, and I'll always be receptive to feedback.]
I'll still also be doing The Hook most weekdays. You can find that on SBNation.com/NBA, next to all of the great stuff the SB Nation team puts together. And, of course, I'll be a Kings fan until I die, so I'll still be writing and tweeting about them regularly.
***
Housekeeping:
* I'll probably be doing a few previews and quick recaps through February 1. Don't be alarmed if you see a ghost stalking the halls.
* All Zillerbucks currently in circulation can be redeemed for Akis drachmas at a 1:1 exchange rate. See your local Bank of Akis branch for details.
* Much love to ItsCarl and pookeyguru, who have been StR readers/commenters since before there was a Sactown Royalty. I know, right?
* Much love to every single other person 'round here. Even the jerks. You're our jerks. And yes, that means I've shouted-out pookey twice in this section. (I am spiritually obligated to note that I am joking.)
* Special love to the longtime contributors, too: Rob -- who does yeoman's work behind the scenes keeping the community as civil as can be expected, and Greg -- who is as funny as he is smart and hard-working, which is a deadly combination.
Alright, y'all. Be good.
