Return of the Kings

Everything’s up to date in Semi-Civilized Redneck Country, where they now have all the modern inventions such as indoor plumbing, mechanical milkers for their cows and best of all ...

Talk radio!

“I don’t care if Kobe [Bryant] is out, I don’t care if Shaq [O’Neal] is out, they’re weak and we’re going to show them how weak they are Friday night,” said a caller to the Sacramento Kings’ flagship station, preparing for the Lakers’ arrival -- three days ahead of time.

Said another caller: “If Shaq’s there, we need to slap him around Arco Arena and put ‘em in their place. We’re the best team in the league and we need to send a little message. It would be good to see the Kings go out and run the Lakers, no matter who’s in those sorry-looking yellow jerseys, run them out of the gym.”

It’s only Tuesday, not that that diminishes the local obsession. As the last seconds ticked away in that night’s victory over Miami, fans began chanting, “Beat L.A.!”

It’s not only the fans. If the Lakers are fat cats, the Kings are as hungry as junkyard dogs.

“I’ve been put on Earth for only one real purpose, to be there when we beat the Lakers,” said personnel director Jerry Reynolds, who also has been coach and general manager. “Whatever it takes, however long it takes, I’m here for the long haul.”

In Southern California, this is only basketball and the regular season, at that. Even if the Lakers have been mailing it in again, their fans aren’t too upset, having seen them pull it together at the end often enough.

In this rabid outpost in Northern California, however, they don’t take NBA titles for granted, never having won one.

Everything is upside-down here, or right-side up. The Kings have a superstar of their own, Chris Webber, but not enough of them for Laker-style star wars.

Nor do they mail in seasons. Webber, recovering from knee surgery, has yet to play, but the Kings have the league’s best record, a remarkable 27-9.

As the Lakers can tell you, even with four future Hall of Famers, nobody loses their best player without noticing it. But that’s what the Kings are doing.

“If somebody would have told me we would have the best record in the league right now, I would have said, ‘You’re crazy,’ ” Coach Rick Adelman said.

“I did not know what we had. We’re in the same boat with some of these other teams. We had five new players. Five of our top 10 last year aren’t here.”

It turned out that they still had the same old offensive juggernaut, only better.

The Lakers are the glitziest team and, if inspired and getting along, the best. The San Antonio Spurs are the best defenders. The Kings are the highest scoring and most entertaining.

With no better option in crunch time than throwing the ball in to 35-year-old Vlade Divac, the Kings are now No. 1 in the league in scoring, No. 2 in shooting, No. 1 in three-point shooting and No. 1 in assists.

“That’s a great offensive team,” Miami Coach Stan Van Gundy said after losing to it. “If you didn’t have to play against them, they could actually be fun to watch. From where I sit, they’re actually miserable to watch.”

From where the Lakers sit, the Kings are no day at the beach either.

But then, they’ve all been to this point before, haven’t they?

As Chick Once Said, ‘Heartbr-r-r-eak!’

“For months I’d get up and just be depressed, just about the losing. And then once I got over that, I realized how much money it cost me. It’s definitely personal.”

-- Reynolds, on losing to the Lakers

in the 2002 Western Conference finals

No matter what, the Kings show up and play ... and get their hearts broken.

Two seasons ago, they were about to take a 3-1 lead in the West finals, but Robert Horry’s shot shattered that dream in Game 4 and the Lakers escaped in Game 7 here.

Last season, the Kings lost Mike Bibby until Christmas and on the day he returned, lost Bobby Jackson for six weeks. Webber missed 15 games and Peja Stojakovic 10, but they were first in the Pacific Division, nine games ahead of the Lakers.

The Kings then breezed through the first round and turned the home-court advantage around on Dallas in the second, winning Game 1 by 11 points after leading by 28.

In Game 2, Webber blew out his left knee. Five games later, another King season came to a miserable end.

“We had as good a chance as anybody,” Adelman said. “I really thought we were going to beat Dallas. They had never been able to guard Chris. Whatever happened with the Lakers and San Antonio [in the other West semifinal], we were right there with those teams.

“We had so many things happen and so many injuries, to win 59 games and then get to the playoffs and suddenly, everybody was healthy. Then to have him go down, that was a little bit difficult.

“But I wasn’t as disappointed last year as I was the year before. Last year, there were just things that were totally out of our control, with the injuries we had and Chris going down. Our guys gave it everything they had, we just didn’t win.

“But the year before, [if] we make some free throws in the fourth quarter [of Game 7] against the Lakers and [if] Horry misses a shot [in Game 4] ...

“That’s the year I really felt we were right there. That’s the one you look back on and say, ‘I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.’ ”

Even in the Kings’ new elite-team state, with the hated Lakers in their division, heartbreak is only relative. Summers are hard in Sacramento and not only because you can fry an egg on the sidewalk at midnight.

Two months after Webber was injured in Dallas, the Lakers signed Karl Malone and Gary Payton. That didn’t lift spirits around here, either.

The Kings seemed to be out of moves, with the deepest roster in the NBA and a $62-million payroll that reportedly cost them $10 million in luxury tax, making even the free-spending Maloof brothers nervous about further expenditures.

Nevertheless, General Manager Geoff Petrie, who assembled this team from the rubble of the early ‘90s, spotted an opportunity in the talks dragging on between the Indiana Pacers, who were over budget and had to move Brad Miller, and the Mavericks and Denver Nuggets, who wanted him.

It turned out that only Petrie had a spare big man the Pacers would take, Scot Pollard. The next thing you knew, Hedo Turkoglu was going to San Antonio in a three-team trade, Pollard was going to Indiana and Miller was a King.

Now they had a 27-year-old seven-foot All-Star to back up Divac, who also would come in handy until Webber got back.

Not that the Kings were expecting more than that. Miller had only been an All-Star in the East, after all.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

This might be hard to believe for Laker fans who are so used to their favorites squabbling that they don’t pay attention any more, but that’s not how it usually works.

The Spurs get along famously. David Robinson, a future Hall of Famer in his own right, accepted Tim Duncan so gracefully, Sports Illustrated just named them sportsmen of the year.

The Kings coexist happily. The acknowledged leader in the dressing room is the good-natured Divac, who mentors the foreign players and is beloved by the American-born ones.

Vlade was born to be a King. The game for him isn’t sumo wrestling with baskets, but an art form. In their fledgling power days with Jason Williams, the Kings were like a nightly highlight reel, with everyone trying to make a more spectacular pass than the one that had just come to him, often on the same play.

Now, without Webber, Adelman’s motion offense runs as fluidly because Miller is much better than they thought, especially as a passer, and Stojakovic, who was already a two-time All-Star, has risen to a new level.

“Rick’s done a great job,” Van Gundy said. “He’s built a tremendous offensive system around the talents of his guys. It’s a very unique system. You couldn’t run it with everybody....

“It’s a little bit like [Utah Coach] Jerry Sloan when he had [John] Stockton and Malone. Because when you have good players, people discount what you do coaching-wise.

“But it’s not easy. There’s a lot of guys out there who need touches and that style of play -- every time I look at it, as much as I admire the way they play, that’s a hard thing to coach. It’s easy to coach structure. It’s a hard thing to coach freedom.”

Webber’s return might get pushed to the All-Star break, and when he returns, they’ll have conditioning and assimilation issues that could last weeks or months.

Nevertheless, the Kings are making the most of the situation. Stojakovic is no longer an apprentice but a full-fledged star, third in the league in scoring at 25.1.

Reynolds, the French Lick, Ind., native and close friend of Larry Bird, says Stojakovic is a better shooter. Indeed, Bird was a career 38% three-point shooter. Stojakovic is at 39% and moving up, making 42.5%.

When they started 4-4, King officials worried that the greatest homers of them all (the Kings are 20-2 here, pending the Lakers’ arrival) might not get home-court advantage in the playoffs.

Now, things look more promising. Stojakovic may be even more effective alongside Webber, who’s the only King who can command double-teams. Miller is a giant upgrade over Pollard, who did zany things with his hair but was limited on the court.

“It’s a lot different,” said Miller, now with his fourth team, “because the offense, to be successful, you have to have that chemistry. The way the ball moves and pops....

“It’s always loose around here. I’ve never been in an environment where you can be this loose and still play at such a high level. I’ve been on loose teams but they’re not playing at that high a level. They’re having fun but they’re not able to play at that high level.”

What could go wrong now?

It’s only January, which, the Kings understand too well, is not the Lakers’ best month. Reynolds likes to quote the old sage, Cotton Fitzsimmons, who once told him, “I was coach of the month in January and fired in April.”

Of course, the sun doesn’t always shine on the same dog’s back, even if it feels like it does and nowhere more than here.

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Stopped Short

Where the Kings have finished in the last five regular seasons in the Pacific Division and postseason result. Kings qualified for postseason once in five previous seasons, as sub-.500 team in 1995-96, when they lost 3-1 in the first round to Seattle:

*--* SEASON W-L PLACE PLAYOFFS 2002- 2003 59-23 1st Lost 4-3 to Dallas in conf. semifinals 2001- 2002 61-21 1st Lost 4-3 to Lakers in conf. finals 2000- 2001 55-27 2nd Lost 4-0 to Lakers in conf. semifinals 1999- 2000 44-38 5th Lost 3-2 to Lakers in first round 1998- 1999 27-23 4th Lost 3-2 to Utah in first round

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