I bash the Maloofs and GP all the time...because they ABSOLUTELY deserve it. The franchise as you see it today is 100% their doing, and the various excuses for how its not and living in the now distant past (hey, last century they made good moves!) is what is ridiculous.
But I bash them for their basketball acumen, or lack thereof. For their vomitous marketing department, their idiotic struggles to stay #8 baby!, their complete lack of appreciation and loyalty to the players, and yes it was the players, who put us on the map, their complete lack of understanding of the life cycle of an NBA team, for dumping Webber for "flexible contracts", canning Adelman because he wouldn't kiss thier butt, gold lame uniforms and giant cheesy gold #6s out on the front lawn, assuming we are idiots (or being idiots themselves) and forcing soft players down our throat marketed as saviors, favoring style over substance, pet college systems over results, pretty boy scoring over winners. We have met the enemy, and he is us. And this is relevant to this thread because the biggest hurdle the Kings have to overcome going forward is a complete change in their mentality. The Maloofs and GP created this mess by being idiots, they will only ge out of it by ceasing to be so (and the ray of sunlight is that there are signs that they may be turning the corner -- that they may have been humbled and are learning).
Now what I do not bash them for is that they are still there. After everything that has happened, all the insults, failed votes, being dragged through the mud, they are still trying to stay in the community. They do not get nearly enough credit for that, and people do not realize how lucky they are that they are not cold hearted businessmen, or they would have already left town. And they want to win. And again people confuse incompetence with lack of desire. They desperately want to win, too much actually for rational thought in many cases in the past. Unfortunately they do not get it, or have not gotten it, and while they have wanted to win, they are some of the last people in the world who should have been making decisions on how to do so. They are the enemy. they have screwd themselves over, and us in the process. But they still want to win, and going forward that might be as big as advantage as any over the meddling ownership messes in Golden State, Phoenix and Clipperland. The Lakers will always come back like a toenail fungus, but the other three teams are being visibly hamstrung by their front offices/GMs in a way that is hopefully past for us. I see nothing at all preventing us from being back in the mix 5 years now except the stupid mentality that got us into this mess in the first place. I see all kinds of things potentially holding back the teams in GS, LAC and PHX, namely meddlesome, cheap owners, and weak overmatched GMs.
