A Royal Subject

In recent NBA history, there were three great teams. Two won titles. This is about the third.

It’s a new era for the Sacramento Kings, the reign of Ron Artest, however long it lasts.

Gone are their old monarchs, Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Peja Stojakovic, Bobby Jackson and Doug Christie, who averaged 55 wins for five seasons and twice beat the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant Lakers in the Pacific Division.

Their wizardry is a memory. Their highlight reel ran out and is on the shelves under “Requiem for the best NBA team that didn’t win anything, 2000-05.”

“It was a special team, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” Coach Rick Adelman says. “Those guys won a ton of games. They were so much fun to watch play, but the way they got along, the way they interacted with each other, was, I think, really unique. That’s what I really enjoyed about it.”

Great passers, they eschewed the two-hand chest variety. They were more into looking away, going behind their backs or over their shoulders and topping each other.

O’Neal called them “Queens.” In Utah, fans wore dresses and fake beards for Divac, the noted flopper. Webber, who was talking the talk long before he could walk the walk, might have been the most derided great player of his day.

Nevertheless, Brad Miller’s arrival in 2002 gave them three big men who’d been All-Stars. With O’Neal and San Antonio’s Tim Duncan and David Robinson, contenders had to be huge as well as good in the West, but the Kings were big enough and good enough.

They just weren’t lucky enough. Their entire history led to May 26, 2002, two days after they beat the Lakers by 13 points in Staples Center to go up, 2-1, in the Western Conference finals.

The Kings blew the Lakers away in the first quarter, taking a 20-point lead. With nothing working, the Lakers spent the rest of the game clawing their way back, trailing all the way, until Robert Horry’s three-pointer, launched just before the clock went to 00:00.0, dropped on the Kings’ heads.

Tied, 2-2, instead of being behind, 3-1, the Lakers went on to win in seven games and sweep New Jersey in the Finals for their third consecutive title.

The Kings wound up ... here.

“We’re still going through it,” says personnel director Jerry Reynolds, former King coach, assistant coach, general manager and still the beating heart, or at least the emcee, of the franchise. “I’m telling you, we’re still going through it. I know it sounds hokey but it was a crusher, just an absolute crusher.

“And it was still a bad basketball play! The Lakers are down two, they need two to tie. Kobe goes baseline, shoots a 12- or 15-footer, misses. Shaq gets the rebound, misses.

“And where’s your power forward? Standing 25 feet away from the basket. What’s he doing back there, guarding the backcourt?”

Of course, Horry was waiting for the rebound to come loose and Divac to bat it out -- right to him -- so he could put up the shot that changed a lot of destinies.

Reynolds was going to put a new roof on his house with his playoff share if they won the title. He has called Horry “Robert Roof” ever since.

Westward Ho

Talk about humble beginnings. The franchise started in Rochester, N.Y., and headed west, stopping in Cincinnati, moving on to Kansas City (with games in Omaha) before arriving here in 1985.

Owner Gregg Lukenbill built Arco Arena on an empty plot north of downtown, where it seemed to pop out of the plain like Rock Hudson’s mansion in “Giant.”

Despite selling every seat for their first 12 seasons, the Kings operated on shoestring budgets and never posted a winning record. When Spud Webb arrived in 1992, his new teammate, Bobby Hansen, greeted him with, “Welcome to hell.”

At decade’s end, seeking money for a new arena, Mitch Richmond told the City Council, “If we lose the Kings, the city goes back to what it’s always been, a dead city.”

Improbably, with things bleak all over before the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, the franchise’s fortunes took a turn, or a lurch, for the better when Joe and Gavin Maloof, who owned a Las Vegas casino, bought the team. No shrinking violets -- they had their own public relations firm -- they were great owners: enthusiastic, willing to spend tens of millions but not meddlesome.

They retained General Manager Geoff Petrie, who signed Divac, traded Richmond for Webber and drafted Jason Williams. The team not only put on a dazzling show but posted Sacramento’s first winning record, 27-23. By the Maloofs’ third season, the payroll was $65 million -- $6 million higher than the Lakers -- and their wins went to 55-61-59-55-50.

“We were playing Phoenix, I never will forget this, we were down 17 or 18 at the half, and came back to win by 17 or 18,” says Reynolds. “And it was just one of those total Showtime Kings at their best -- Webb, Divac, making plays and Jason Williams in the open court just taking your breath away.

“That was early in the year when we broke through and became a 55-win team and it was like, ‘Boy, we’re good. We’re really good.’ ”

But “good” didn’t mean much in the presence of the greats in the West. The Lakers won titles in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and the Spurs in 1999, 2003 and 2005, but the Kings were right there with them.

The season after Horry’s shot, they bandaged up their hearts and won the Pacific at 59-23, nine games ahead of the Lakers. The Kings had just taken a 1-0 lead in Dallas in the second round, seemingly headed for another West finals showdown with the Laker-Spur winner, when Webber’s left knee blew out.

He’d never be the old Chris Webber. The Kings were 43-15 the following season, 2003-04, when he returned. But his explosion was gone and they split their final 24 games. They haven’t been past the second round since.

Petrie cut his losses last season, trading Webber, who was due $20 million a season through 2008. Divac, whose amiable presence held them together, signed with the Lakers. Christie was traded. Jackson, the game’s best reserve when their bench might have won 40 games on its own, left last summer.

At 17-24 with this season’s generic team and nothing left to lose, they traded Stojakovic for Artest. So much for the days when they thought Jason Williams was wild.

Have Issues, Will Travel

“Being in Sacramento is one of the highlights of my career.”

-- Artest

Of course, by the time he got to Sacramento, being anywhere was one of the highlights of his career.

There was never anyone like Artest, which can be a good thing -- but wasn’t in Chicago and Indiana. At 6 feet 7, 250 pounds, he’s as big as a young Wes Unseld, a Hall of Fame center, but quick enough to play guards. In the day of the “lock-down” defender, there are only a few, or one, and Artest is one of them, or it.

Former teammate Reggie Miller says a lot of players were scared of Artest, who broke two of Michael Jordan’s ribs in a pickup game before Jordan’s 2001 comeback. Far from being upset, Jordan spoke glowingly of Artest’s toughness.

Artest is also capable of scoring 20 points while scattering opponents in the post with his locomotive body. Nevertheless, the Bulls thought he was more than they, or anyone, could handle and traded him to Indiana, where he became a star and really got in trouble.

“When we first got to Indiana, we had Isiah [Thomas as coach] that first full year,” says Brad Miller, now on his third team with Artest. “I was [number] one and he was two in the league in flagrant fouls.

“We were really putting people on their butts, but then we got too many points and we were getting close to suspension so we had to slow down.”

Actually, Artest was suspended for six games, smashed a TV in Madison Square Garden and squared off against Miami Coach Pat Riley. That was nothing compared to his 2004 charge into the Auburn Hill stands, setting off the melee that got him suspended for 85 games, costing him $6.3 million of his $6.8-million salary.

Given one more chance this season, he lasted 16 games before asking to be traded. Pacer GM Larry Bird, who fought to keep him, said he’d been “betrayed” and put him on ice (with pay this time) for the month it took to accommodate him.

“Maybe I thought a couple of things were spiraling down,” Artest says, “but it wasn’t like anything I couldn’t bounce back from.”

His reputation notwithstanding, Artest has wowed everyone in Sacramento. Pleasant as ever -- his issues surface only in competition -- he talks to the media before and after every game and practice, making him one of a kind. His new teammates already follow his lead. The Kings are 8-5 with him, winning six of their last eight as he got in shape and recovered from a hip injury.

Even Pacer officials, seeing Adelman give Artest the ball in crunch time, think this might work. In Indiana, he didn’t like sharing the ball with Jermaine O’Neal or the fact O’Neal was paid twice as much. Here, Artest has Miller, who is more his idea of a teammate.

Waiting for Artest to acknowledge he did anything wrong is another matter. He recently told ESPN it was “just politics ... just people trying to bring me down” and “can be race.”

“I’ve never said I’m trying to revamp my image or change for everybody,” Artest said. “I don’t want no Coca-Cola commercial, you know what I’m saying?

“I’m ‘hood. That’s how I grew up. I grew up around thugs and gangsters. I didn’t grow up around Donald Trump. I’m not Donald Trump’s nephew.”

So much for the honeymoon.

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Best team without a title?

Sacramento has won 50 or more games in the regular season and reached the NBA playoffs each season since 2000-01 but has not made it past the conference finals:

*--* Season Record (Place in Division) Playoffs 2000-01 55-27 (second in Pacific) Lost to Lakers in Western Conference semifinals, 4-0 2001-02 61-21 (first in Pacific) Lost to Lakers in Western Conference finals, 4-3 2002-03 59-23 (first in Pacific) Lost to Dallas in Western Conference semifinals, 4-3 2003-04 55-27 (second in Pacific) Lost to Minnesota in Western Conference semifinals, 4-3 2004-05 50-32 (second in Pacific) Lost to Seattle in Western Conference first round, 4-1

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