{"id":50046,"date":"2024-07-07T20:37:06","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T01:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=50046"},"modified":"2024-07-09T20:37:15","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T01:37:15","slug":"i-always-forget-there-are-four-nba-teams-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=50046","title":{"rendered":"I always forget there are four NBA teams in California"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span>While scrolling through some sports headlines, I saw one that stated that the Sacramento Kings had landed DeMar DeRozan<\/a>, for three years and $74M dollars.\u00a0 My first thought was simply, oh yeah, the Sacramento Kings are<\/em> an NBA team.<\/span><\/p>\n

I simply had forgotten that they existed.<\/span><\/p>\n

It occurred to me then, that pretty much at no point in my entire sports fan life, have I ever really been able to immediately recall that there are four NBA teams in the state of California.\u00a0 The Lakers are easy to remember, the Clippers are easy to remember as the team that isn\u2019t the Lakers, but at varying points in my life, I always forget about one of the teams between the Warriors and the Kings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Usually it correlates with which one of them sucks because sucky teams are easy to lose track of, but one of my friends recently reminded me that it was the Kings that actually eliminated the Warriors from this past year\u2019s playoffs, but it didn\u2019t really matter because they had been living in the shadow of the Warriors for so long now, that they\u2019re still basically an invisible market.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back to the original point though, I like DeRozan as a player, but the fact that he\u2019s going to the Kings, it\u2019s a good thing that he\u2019s getting paid a fat contract, because he\u2019s definitely going to be an invisible player for the next three seasons, barring any opt-out clauses or drama-filled trade sagas that could occur along the way.\u00a0 Because the Warriors still have a few years left in the tank before they really start to suck, and until Steph Curry hangs up his shoes, the Warriors are always going to be relevant, and there simply isn\u2019t going to be any room for any awareness for the Kings short of a breakout star and\/or deep playoff run.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s funny though, because as long as I\u2019d been paying attention to basketball, I can definitely recall the years where the Kings were the kings, and the Warriors were invisible, and when the Warriors were pretending to be Ultimate and the Kings ceased to exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I first really got into basketball, the Warriors were the good team because they had the Run TMC backcourt of Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin which was fun, fast and exciting to watch.\u00a0 Although the Warriors were still a fringe team, they were exciting, while I didn\u2019t even know where in the country Sacramento was at that age.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, as is inevitable in the world of sports, the Warriors would eventually become the laughing stock of the NBA, winning 19-28 games a season, years after Run TMC and trading Mitch Richmond and Chris Webber away.\u00a0 And it would be Chris Webber who would transform the Kings into contenders, and teamed up with guys like Mike Bibby, Peja Stojakovic and Vlade Divac, the team would really challenge the league, and if not for existing at the same time as a prime Kobe\/Shaq Lakers squad that had Robert Horry on it, they probably could\u2019ve won a championship and really put Sacramento on the map for good.<\/span><\/p>\n

But that window of contention would eventually close, and the Warriors would draft Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, pick up Andre Iguodala, hire Steve Kerr as head coach, and the rest is history.\u00a0 The Warriors would go on to become one of the greatest squads in history, making the Finals an absurd amount of times, winning multiple ships, and putting their stamp on the record books, both team and individual.\u00a0 It\u2019s safe to say that the Splash Bros changed the entire game, and the influence is palpable with ballers all over the world flinging three-pointers like it\u2019s the only option on the court.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Kings have taken the backseat once again, and whenever the topic of the NBA comes up, I always have to stutter and stall whenever the obscure trivia comes up of, name all four NBA franchises in California, because I simply forgot they fucking existed.\u00a0 Sure, they\u2019re on the rise again, but we\u2019re reading a pivotal point in the timeline of the modern NBA, where it could really go either way, whether the Warriors make all the right moves and climb back up the standings of contenders, or they slowly begin their ride into the sunset as Steph winds his career down, while the Kings capitalize on draft picks and acquisitions like DeRozan.<\/span><\/p>\n

And five years from now, who will be the contender, and who will be the forgotten fourth team in California?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, but what I do know is that whomever is the shitty team then, is the team that I\u2019ll definitely forget exists.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While scrolling through some sports headlines, I saw one that stated that the Sacramento Kings had landed DeMar DeRozan, for three years and $74M dollars.\u00a0 My first thought was simply, oh yeah, the Sacramento Kings are an NBA team. I simply had forgotten that they existed. It occurred to me then, that pretty much at … Continue reading I always forget there are four NBA teams in California<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59,79,100,45,129,83,52,99,58],"class_list":["post-50046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-basketball","tag-cashmoney","tag-comparison","tag-fail","tag-nostalgia","tag-observations","tag-owned","tag-reminiscing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50048,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50046\/revisions\/50048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}