[Game] Kings vs. Blazers Game Thread 3-2-11

Who will get Bricky's highest grade for this game?

  • Beno Udrih

    Votes: 2 8.3%
  • Marcus Thornton

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Demarcus Cousins

    Votes: 16 66.7%
  • Omri Casspi

    Votes: 3 12.5%

  • Total voters
    24
Question -
would this kind of stupidity in the last few minutes of the game that repeatedly leads to losses in tied games somehow magically go away if

a) everyone was healthy
b) we had a free agent signing or 2
c) had a new arena
d) had a new coach

How many games have been tied in the last few minutes this year, and the team has fumbled away turnover after turnover that led to the loss?
 
Right now i'm not even sure if sacramento wants the kings to stay...i mean we had a great game in front of a sold out crowd against the clippers and now we're back to 12000...wtf???
 
Question -
would this kind of stupidity in the last few minutes of the game that repeatedly leads to losses in tied games somehow magically go away if

a) everyone was healthy
b) we had a free agent signing or 2
c) had a new arena
d) had a new coach

How many games have been tied in the last few minutes this year, and the team has fumbled away turnover after turnover that led to the loss?

Coach waited too long to to get Cuz back in and then subbed him for the guy who was playing better (JT) on the floor instead of the guy playing like crap (Sammy).
 
12286 very nice Sacramento :(

That is a VERY generous number. You gotta know it was much lower than that. Just about the whole upper deck was empty. There's no way that good ol PB Arena was 2/3 full. It's been like this for over two years now.

You just really CANNOT blame the Maloofs for leaving!! You can't! It's simple math! Why on God's green Earth would they stay in a place where their bleeding money? The fans around here didn't have the guts to stomach a rebuild, and support the team through it.

I'm happy for the Maloofs. God bless em. It looks like they might be able to find a way out of this financial ****storm they're in. You know they do own the team you know. That means they can move it if they want.
 
That is a VERY generous number. You gotta know it was much lower than that. Just about the whole upper deck was empty. There's no way that good ol PB Arena was 2/3 full. It's been like this for over two years now.

You just really CANNOT blame the Maloofs for leaving!! You can't! It's simple math! Why on God's green Earth would they stay in a place where their bleeding money? The fans around here didn't have the guts to stomach a rebuild, and support the team through it.

I'm happy for the Maloofs. God bless em. It looks like they might be able to find a way out of this financial ****storm they're in. You know they do own the team you know. That means they can move it if they want.

They're not bleeding money, they're making a small profit because they pulled a Donald Sterling and have had the lowest payroll in the NBA. When Sac had a halfway decent team(IE above 30 wins), they had something like 700 straight sellouts. Then the team tanked and people aren't going to spend their money in a recession to watch a team get blown out 30 times in a 41 game season. If they had actually spent money on the team the place would still be full.

Any fincancial mess they got into in Vegas is their own fault and they deserve the consequences.
 
No, what they did was pull a rebuild. Just like just about every good team in the league did at some point to get good. They have all been where we are now. Except maybe the Lakers, and even they had a few years down. But this is how its done. And I have tried and tried and TRIED to get people to understand it. And at a certain point...I can't help. Those who don't want to see aren't going to see. And this franchise is now in all ways poised to pour salt in Sacto fan's wounds by pulling the OKC -- leaving and blowing up for their new city.

What the Kings have done in the last 3 years of so has been nearly textbook rebuild 101. It was all done right. Sacto fans aren't alone in not understanding that -- even the wannabe afficionados here in New York held back their team for a decade with the same idiotic whining about not spending enough to chase #8 seeds every year. But the stakes for Sacto fans not understanding it were so much higher. You had to get it, had to hang tough, or you might never get to experience the good years that almost always follow a well executed rebuild.
 
No, what they did was pull a rebuild. Just like just about every good team in the league did at some point to get good. They have all been where we are now. Except maybe the Lakers, and even they had a few years down. But this is how its done. And I have tried and tried and TRIED to get people to understand it. And at a certain point...I can't help. Those who don't want to see aren't going to see. And this franchise is now in all ways poised to pour salt in Sacto fan's wounds by pulling the OKC -- leaving and blowing up for their new city.

What the Kings have done in the last 3 years of so has been nearly textbook rebuild 101. It was all done right. Sacto fans aren't alone in not understanding that -- even the wannabe afficionados here in New York held back their team for a decade with the same idiotic whining about not spending enough to chase #8 seeds every year. But the stakes for Sacto fans not understanding it were so much higher. You had to get it, had to hang tough, or you might never get to experience the good years that almost always follow a well executed rebuild.

Last year or the year before someone sagely said the same thing you just wrote and I agree 100%. They also said, "they need to do what Seattle is doing." Someone came back with a comment that Seattle is moving.

And here we are. Two teams rebuid in a classic way. When the rebuild is darn near guaranteed, they leave. That's quite an accident of timing.
 
It sounds like this was inevitable, except for one thing:

The rebuild leading to terrible record, lots of losing, and bad product on the floor for years at a time.
This inevitably leads to lower attendance, year-to-year, which leads to less interest in the team by the fanbase.
This leads to the team looking to move to an area that will support them better, just as the rebuild takes shape and the new location/fanbase gets to reap the rewards of years of pain and Take (little Give to the fans these past years).

The thing is - Sacramento USED to support the Kings even when the team was crappy for much longer!
They used to fill that arena to see bad product, and gave and gave and gave.
Then, the success happened, and changed Sacramento's basketball approach forever.
No longer were they content to support a lovable loser. They expected return on their support investment.

But what irrevocably changed this fan-support dynamic?

THE TICKET PRICES.

When the Kings were lovable losers, the tickets were affordable. A family wouldn't be paying $200+ for a couple hours of "entertainment".
When the Maloofs rolled into town, they started ratcheting up the ticket prices to match the success on the court.
Problem was - they didn't ratchet them DOWN to match the bad play on the court.

This led to an extreme inequity between what the fan was paying for, and what he was getting on the court for his support investment ($ and emotional).
This inequity has inevitably led to decreased fanbase, since less and less people can afford the investment for years to support a crappy team.

So the ticket prices staying way too high, and the taste of success spoiling the fanbase, combined with the economical devastation in the area, made this rebuild unsustainable and this move unavoidable.
The only thing that can save it is if all the other areas are less attractive/sustainable than here - a small chance.
Heck, you might conclude that if the Kings stay in Sac, it shows that the majority of NBA franchises are unsustainable at their current levels of expenditure.
 
It sounds like this was inevitable, except for one thing:

The rebuild leading to terrible record, lots of losing, and bad product on the floor for years at a time.
This inevitably leads to lower attendance, year-to-year, which leads to less interest in the team by the fanbase.
This leads to the team looking to move to an area that will support them better, just as the rebuild takes shape and the new location/fanbase gets to reap the rewards of years of pain and Take (little Give to the fans these past years).

The thing is - Sacramento USED to support the Kings even when the team was crappy for much longer!
They used to fill that arena to see bad product, and gave and gave and gave.
Then, the success happened, and changed Sacramento's basketball approach forever.
No longer were they content to support a lovable loser. They expected return on their support investment.

But what irrevocably changed this fan-support dynamic?

THE TICKET PRICES.

When the Kings were lovable losers, the tickets were affordable. A family wouldn't be paying $200+ for a couple hours of "entertainment".
When the Maloofs rolled into town, they started ratcheting up the ticket prices to match the success on the court.
Problem was - they didn't ratchet them DOWN to match the bad play on the court.

This led to an extreme inequity between what the fan was paying for, and what he was getting on the court for his support investment ($ and emotional).
This inequity has inevitably led to decreased fanbase, since less and less people can afford the investment for years to support a crappy team.

So the ticket prices staying way too high, and the taste of success spoiling the fanbase, combined with the economical devastation in the area, made this rebuild unsustainable and this move unavoidable.
The only thing that can save it is if all the other areas are less attractive/sustainable than here - a small chance.
Heck, you might conclude that if the Kings stay in Sac, it shows that the majority of NBA franchises are unsustainable at their current levels of expenditure.

Until reaching the inevitability portion of your conclusion, you might have been more accurate for a longer stretch of this post than any other I have seen you make on the board to date, although I have alwauys been inclined more to the spoiled side of the explantion for the loss of the "greatest fans on Earht" more than the ticket prices. After getting used to success, even if the prices had been reduced back to '99 levels I dpoubt the fans would have still continued to sell the place out. In a lot of ways the success, and also critically the fingerpointing and blame tossing (led by the local media I might add) when the success ended without a title was liek biting the forbidden fruit for Sacto's fanbase. They may have come out of it wiser and more sophisticated, but what they lost was incalcuable.
 
You can't afford a high level team on the cheap. I wrote a note in November that said the main problem of the Kings was money. The team doesn't have enough money and the area doesn't have enough money. This is where things stand. I believe the Maloofs lost money or came darn near losing money when the ticket prices were high. The fans in this area are normal people and there aren't a lot of corporations that can afford the ticket prices necessary to afford a great team.

I'd love to be proven wrong but that November note is still available to be read and actually things turned out worse than I thought.
 
You can't afford a high level team on the cheap. I wrote a note in November that said the main problem of the Kings was money. The team doesn't have enough money and the area doesn't have enough money. This is where things stand. I believe the Maloofs lost money or came darn near losing money when the ticket prices were high. The fans in this area are normal people and there aren't a lot of corporations that can afford the ticket prices necessary to afford a great team.

I'd love to be proven wrong but that November note is still available to be read and actually things turned out worse than I thought.

If the Kings stay, and after the new CBA is in place, we'll see where the money lies. If the new agreement has better revenue sharing, especially in television revenues, and salaries are significantly reduced along wiith the length of contracts, the Kings could be in a very good position to make major changes in the roster. There are so many unknowns right now that its difficult to predict anything.

The Maloofs have said that each of their enterprizes stands on its own. In other words, there's no taking from Peter to pay Paul. If true, that would mean that whatever happens in Las Vegas shouldn't have any influence on what happens with the Kings. So although the Kings may have lost money in some of the past seasons, it would pale by comparison to the money being lost in Las Vegas. Hell, the Palm's electric bill for a year would probably pay a couple of players salaries.

Hopefully next year at this time, the Kings are still here. An arena deal has been agreed on, and the Kings are battling to hold on to the 6th spot in the playoffs.. Hey, I can dream, can't I?
 
If the Kings stay, and after the new CBA is in place, we'll see where the money lies. If the new agreement has better revenue sharing, especially in television revenues, and salaries are significantly reduced along wiith the length of contracts, the Kings could be in a very good position to make major changes in the roster. There are so many unknowns right now that its difficult to predict anything.

The Maloofs have said that each of their enterprizes stands on its own. In other words, there's no taking from Peter to pay Paul. If true, that would mean that whatever happens in Las Vegas shouldn't have any influence on what happens with the Kings. So although the Kings may have lost money in some of the past seasons, it would pale by comparison to the money being lost in Las Vegas. Hell, the Palm's electric bill for a year would probably pay a couple of players salaries.

Hopefully next year at this time, the Kings are still here. An arena deal has been agreed on, and the Kings are battling to hold on to the 6th spot in the playoffs.. Hey, I can dream, can't I?

That reminds me of something I said within the last 24 hours: The new CBA MUST make it possible for small market teams to compete with large market teams. If we assume the Kings stay here and we assume the CBA doesn't change to protect us, we'll not be competitive for a championship.

The rich must kick in money in some way so the poor teams have a chance. Then small market teams will not need to move to bigger markets to put a competitve team on the floor. What's easier, shipping teams to big cities or shipping money to poorer cities. One requires trucks and the other requires wire transfer. :)
 
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