The Sacramento Kings are the joke of the NBA. They have the longest playoff drought of any NBA team. This drought has lasted 16 years, which is the longest playoff drought in NBA history.
- 2004 NBA Playoffs: Sacramento Kings Defeat The Dallas Mavericks 4-1
- Next
- The Top 10 NBA Players With The Most To Prove In The 2022-23 Season
- NBA Small Forwards Who Won The Finals MVP Award: LeBron James Has Won 4, Larry Bird Won 3
- The Best NBA Players Drafted In Every Decade
- 1996 Chicago Bulls vs. 2017 Golden State Warriors: Who Would Win A 7-Game Series?
- The Biggest X-Factors For The Last 10 NBA Teams That Won The Championship
Why have the Sacramento Kings been so bad for so long? It starts with the front office not being willing to spend the necessary dollars on players like some of the other franchises do.
Also, Sacramento isn’t necessarily a hot spot for attracting big-name players. It’s not Los Angeles, Miami, New York, or Chicago.
An interesting but sad fact about the Kings is when Rick Adelman coached the Kings for eight seasons, the team had a winning record in each season. In the 29 seasons where Adelman was not the coach, the Sacramento Kings remarkably had zero winning seasons.
Another remarkable fact is that since Adelman left the Kings after the 2005-06 season, the Kings have now had, since the hiring of Mike Brown, 12 coaches.
The last time the Kings made the playoffs was in the 2005-06 season, where they lost 4-2 to the San Antonio Spurs in the first round. But the question I ask is, when was the last time the Sacramento Kings won a playoff series?
2004 NBA Playoffs: Sacramento Kings Defeat The Dallas Mavericks 4-1
The Sacramento Kings have been so bad in the NBA that you have to go all the way back to the early 2000s to find the last time the franchise won a playoff series. The year was 2004, and the Kings were led by Chris Webber, Mike Bibby, and Vlade Divac.
As NBA fans, we all remember the battles the early 2000s Kings had against the Shaq and Kobe-led Los Angeles Lakers in the playoffs. Fans especially remember the controversial 2002 Western Conference Finals between the two teams. The fourth quarter of Game 6 saw the Lakers attempt 27 free throws while the Kings only attempted nine free throws.
Fans of the Kings believe 2002 was their best chance to win a title, and that they were, in fact, robbed of it. By 2004, the team was still together and trying to get back to the Western Conference Finals.
The Kings finished the 2003-04 season with a 55-27 record. This was good enough to earn them the fourth seed in the playoffs.
The Kings played the fifth-seed Dallas Mavericks in the first round. The Mavericks were led by a young Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash.
Despite the Mavericks having two future Hall of Famers on their team, they were no match for the more experienced Kings. Sacramento defeated the Mavericks 4-1 in the series, but it wasn’t a cakewalk.
Game 4 came down to the final possession, where Steve Nash had a chance to tie the game for the Mavericks, but he missed an off-balanced shot at the buzzer, and the Kings escaped with a 94-92 victory.
The final game of the series, Game 5, went down to the wire once again. This time, Dirk had the final shot for the Mavericks as his team trailed 119-118. Dirk’s shot would miss at the buzzer, and the Kings would escape with the victory and the series win.
The Kings celebrated their victory against the Mavericks, but they’d quickly have to move on to face Kevin Garnett and his Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round. Here, the Kings would lose a hard-fought series in seven games.
Now you know the last time the Sacramento Kings won a playoff series. Maybe in this upcoming season, not only can the Kings make the playoffs, but hopefully for Kings fans, they can get their first playoff series win since 2004.
