I'm offended at this insinuation / suggestion outright statement.
8 years+ of patience and support amid utter embarrassment and frustration is not long enough?
You negatively ascribe a youth's precocious impatience with the segment of the fanbase that sees the opportunity window now and understands the dangers of waiting another year for the required success to take the next step in this franchise?
You, of all people, should remember what happened with the Kings' window of opportunity.
I'll refresh your memory (and I won't ascribe a negative elderly characteristic):
The year is summer 2002 -
Many people (here included) decided to look at the bright side after the tragedy that was the Western Conference Finals of 2002 vs the Lakers. They said "We will grow stronger together from this loss and grow and get our championship next year" etc etc etc.
The next year, Chris Webber's knee happened. That was the end of the Kings getting better, moving forward.
It's been a painful slide of down for TWELVE years since then.
For some psychological reason, some fans want to assume that the good things will stay (or get better) and the bad things won't creep (back) in.
Who's to say (God forbid) Demarcus has another 3 years of excellence left in his body?
Who's to say the NBA is OK with Sacramento being an upstart and goes back to not giving them ANY fouls (the Kings are currently leading the league in FT attempts)? What if the media decide they want to go back to demonizing Demarcus? What if the refs decide to go back to persecuting him on the floor and make it so he can't play 20 minutes a game?
Who's to say good players continue to play hard here? Remember J.J. Hickson? Dude could play, but wouldn't play for us. Sat on his butt and collected money until we were forced to trade him, then proved he was good elsewhere. Oh, wait - that was also this year, with Jason Terry.
Your optimism and patience is simply (IMO) not warranted for a longtime Kings fan.
But I understand us longtime fans take different approaches with our fandom, and different ways of psychologically self-medicating the traumas we've endured. As long as one side does not dictate to the other how to approach their fandom, or stifle their voice/approach, our fan-ness may survive.
We are getting exponentially more calls, that's for sure.
I think Boogie's play on the court (not attitude) is on par with last year's.
DMC/Gay/IT were over .500 when they all played last year, as well, IIRC, so not exponentially different.
If you give this year's team the same number of free throws that last year's got, and I'll bet they're a .300 team.
Ruminate on that.
And take your time, and have patience. We wouldn't want to be impatient - because of course this Kings team has lots of time and can wait an entire year more to be competitive in the NBA. Nothing bad can creep in/happen.
8 years+ of patience and support amid utter embarrassment and frustration is not long enough?
You negatively ascribe a youth's precocious impatience with the segment of the fanbase that sees the opportunity window now and understands the dangers of waiting another year for the required success to take the next step in this franchise?
You, of all people, should remember what happened with the Kings' window of opportunity.
I'll refresh your memory (and I won't ascribe a negative elderly characteristic):
The year is summer 2002 -
Many people (here included) decided to look at the bright side after the tragedy that was the Western Conference Finals of 2002 vs the Lakers. They said "We will grow stronger together from this loss and grow and get our championship next year" etc etc etc.
The next year, Chris Webber's knee happened. That was the end of the Kings getting better, moving forward.
It's been a painful slide of down for TWELVE years since then.
For some psychological reason, some fans want to assume that the good things will stay (or get better) and the bad things won't creep (back) in.
Who's to say (God forbid) Demarcus has another 3 years of excellence left in his body?
Who's to say the NBA is OK with Sacramento being an upstart and goes back to not giving them ANY fouls (the Kings are currently leading the league in FT attempts)? What if the media decide they want to go back to demonizing Demarcus? What if the refs decide to go back to persecuting him on the floor and make it so he can't play 20 minutes a game?
Who's to say good players continue to play hard here? Remember J.J. Hickson? Dude could play, but wouldn't play for us. Sat on his butt and collected money until we were forced to trade him, then proved he was good elsewhere. Oh, wait - that was also this year, with Jason Terry.
Your optimism and patience is simply (IMO) not warranted for a longtime Kings fan.
But I understand us longtime fans take different approaches with our fandom, and different ways of psychologically self-medicating the traumas we've endured. As long as one side does not dictate to the other how to approach their fandom, or stifle their voice/approach, our fan-ness may survive.
We are getting exponentially more calls, that's for sure.
I think Boogie's play on the court (not attitude) is on par with last year's.
DMC/Gay/IT were over .500 when they all played last year, as well, IIRC, so not exponentially different.
If you give this year's team the same number of free throws that last year's got, and I'll bet they're a .300 team.
Ruminate on that.
And take your time, and have patience. We wouldn't want to be impatient - because of course this Kings team has lots of time and can wait an entire year more to be competitive in the NBA. Nothing bad can creep in/happen.
2. I said nothing about " a youth's precocious impatience " as I know fans of all age-groups who fall into the category I was describing.
3. I'll ignore the passive-aggressive attempt to stifle my comments because I also serve as a moderator on this forum (which is totally irrelevant to about 99% of my posts).
4. My optimism and patience is MINE. If you do not subscribe to it, that's also fine. What's not fine is for you to turn it into a straw man argument. I didn't specify a period of time in regards to my comment about instant gratification.
5. The doom and gloom of some posters around here is beyond depressing. And, in some instances (I'm speaking in generalities here so don't get your panties in a bunch), it appears as though they enjoy taking the devil's advocate view - which is barely distinguishable IMHO (as a fan, not a moderator) from trolldom.
6. The snark at the end of your post tells me everything I need to know. We will never agree because we have a totally different view of life in general. And that too is fine.
7. GO KINGS!