The Spirit of Giving Is Dooming the Kings

Unhappy in your present job? Looking for greater opportunities? Call the Sacramento Kings Executive Placement Service and ask for a trade.

The basketball team that can’t help itself has become expert at helping others.

Some companies suffer from mistrust between management and the work force. Not the Kings. They are positively charitable toward their employees.

The Kings also are nice to the competition.

Most NBA teams hate to make trades within their own conference. They don’t like to feed the competition.

Such selfish concerns don’t trouble the Kings. In the spirit of cooperation, they help their Western Conference brethren year-round. They lose in the winter and give away their best players in the summer.

Thanks to the Kings’ generosity, Rodney McCray and Danny Ainge will be able to compete for championships in Dallas and Portland.

The Kings gave away 35 points per game while advancing the careers of McCray and Ainge. The Kings left their cupboard bare, but they made friends in Dallas and Portland.

Pervis Ellison was discouraged by the demise of his patron, Bill Russell. To soothe Ellison, the Kings sent him to Washington, where his agent lives and can hold his hand.

The Kings made it easy for Vinny Del Negro to research his Italian roots. They declined to bid against Benetton Treviso for Del Negro’s future. Harold Pressley can go, too, they said.

The Kings are crying for help at point guard. Don’t worry. When things get desperate, they can walk into a fire sale and throw good money at someone like Nate McMillan of Seattle, Michael Adams of Denver, Mark Jackson of New York or Brian Shaw of the Roma/Boston Il MessaCeltics.

After a whirlwind of trading, the Kings have produced another lineup for the upcoming season.

The club’s public relations staff will try to pass off the new look as “exciting” and “unique.” In truth, it’s an old story, featuring less talent than ever.

Habitual rebuilding caused the Kings’ decline. Stability -- the hallmark of every good franchise -- is a concept the Kings don’t fathom.

Charter members of the Kings fan club will recall that Joe Axelson broke up the last playoff squad in 1986.

One year later, Russell came along and tore apart Axelson’s handiwork.

Now Dick Motta is having his turn at the canvas, brushing on yet another layer of whitewash.

Axelson and Russell had reasons for their trades. Motta has reasons, too. There’s always a reason, something like, “Well, we weren’t getting anywhere with those other guys, so we wanted to get guys with a fresh outlook.”

The team that Motta and player personnel director Jerry Reynolds are building this summer will have a fresh outlook for a while. New teams always enjoy a respite from past failures.

There was a time when Pressley and Kenny Smith had fresh outlooks. Joe Kleine certainly had a fresh outlook, as did Ed Pinckney, Derek Smith, Jim Petersen and Brad Lohaus. Not long ago, Ainge’s outlook was fresh.

Losing has a way of making fresh outlooks stale. One miserable season does the trick.

The 1990-91 Kings have little chance of winning 20 games, a reality Motta acknowledged when he traded Ainge.

“By the time we’re ready for our push, Danny will be too old to help us,” Motta said.

Everyone will be old when the Kings are ready. The club will resemble the Children’s Crusade marching on the NBA.

At center, the Kings have one arthritic malcontent (Ralph Sampson), a veteran who rarely left the bench in Dallas (Bill Wennington), a youngster from Utah who did most of his work in practice (Eric Leckner) and an unsigned rookie who played 2 1/2 seasons in college (Duane Causwell).

At forward, they have two rotund scorers who dislike rebounding and are never without double coverage (Wayman Tisdale and Antoine Carr) and two unproven, unsigned rookies (Lionel Simmons and Anthony Bonner).

At guard -- their weakest yet most important position -- the Kings have a 32-year-old point man whom the Miami Heat considered expendable (Rory Sparrow), one aging defensive specialist (Bobby Hansen) and two novices who aren’t really anything yet (Byron Irvin and Travis Mays).

Motta can’t wait for training camp to start. He promises dogfights at every position.

They’ll fight like dogs until Nov. 2, when the season starts.

Then the Kings will play like puppies--all bark, no bite.