I don't know how you can say the team that led the league (#1) in FG% defense (to many the best statistical indicator of good defense) was not good. If you think that team wasn't good, maybe you'd only be satisfied with a great defensive team that doesn't play offense and slows the game down so their opponents can only score 80 points. That is definitely
not what I'm looking for.
Look at basketballreference.com's team defensive stats for the last 7 years. According to their rankings, the Kings had the following rankings under Adelman (scroll down to the bottom of the links for defensive stats):
1998-99: #17
1999-00: #11
2000-01: #7
2001-02: #6
2002-03: #2
2003-04: #21
2004-05: #23
That's an average of 12th best defense in the league despite the defensive woes of this year and last year. Hardly a broken clock. For comparison purposes, the Mavericks over the same seven years averaged worse than 18th in the league, the Jazz with their great defensive-minded coach averaged 14th best in the league.