quick dog said:
1034 stated the most important fact that IMHO seems to be under-appreciated here. The Kings stopped being an "elite" team when Webber went down with the last major knee injury. The subsequent Webber-trade was really more of a house-keeping task.
A lot of fans continue to live in the past with regards to the Chris Webber. When Chris went down, the team changed forever. The decline of the Kings was the direct result of Webber's knee injury, not the subsequent player-trades.
The whole story will unfold next season.
Last year Webb was not nearly as healthy as he was this year, and we went to game 7 of the round 2. This year we went to game 5 of round 1. Hard to compare, isn't it? Webb stepped up big in the playoffs last year, when he was barely recovering from the surgery. Hard to know what he COULD have done this year if playing on the Kings, isn't it?
Did things change when Webb got injured? Of course, we were a better team with a completely healthy Webber. Yes, without the injury, our best shot at a championship was that year, and I remember watching Webb get taken off the court, and thinking there goes our season. It'd be silly to say anything else. But Webb brought a lot to this team, even after this injury, and while we can argue all night about when this team stopped being "elite" I just have to say that a few months ago a lot of people thought we were (including many of the players) and now no one would hesitate to say we are not.
Would we have have won a championship this year? Highly, highly, unlikely. But with the players we had, and the team experience and oncourt chemistry we had, when we were healthy, yeah, I would have called us an elite team. Not elite as in favored to win it all, or even elite as in one of the best 5 teams, but elite as in, if we were all healthy & playing well, I liked our chances against most teams in a 7 game series.