SKSacramento Kings

Franchise history

The Kings franchise traces back to the 1945 Rochester Royals and passed through Cincinnati and Kansas City-Omaha before relocating to Sacramento for the 1985-86 season, its sixth home city. Sacramento's early decades brought little success, but the turn of the millennium produced the franchise's high point in the city: a Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, and Peja Stojakovic-led team nicknamed the "Greatest Show on Court," which won a league-best 61 games in 2001-02 and pushed the eventual champion Lakers to seven games in a Western Conference Finals still remembered for its controversial officiating in Game 6. The Kings never got past that near-miss, and the roster gradually broke apart without reaching the Finals.

A long, difficult rebuilding era followed, and from 2006 through 2022 Sacramento held the longest active playoff drought in the NBA, compounded by a franchise-record run of losing seasons and threats of relocation before a new arena and ownership group kept the team in Sacramento. The drought finally ended in 2023 behind De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, whose All-NBA seasons returned the Kings to the playoffs and reenergized the fan base. The franchise's only NBA championship remains the 1951 title won as the Rochester Royals; Sacramento itself has yet to win one.

Sources

• Sacramento Kings — Wikipedia
• Sacramento Kings — Britannica