Sacramento Kings
The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The Kings are the oldest team in the NBA, and the first team in the major professional North American sports leagues located in Sacramento. The team plays its home games at Golden 1 Center.
The franchise began with the Rochester Seagrams from Rochester, New York, that formed in 1923 and hosted a number of teams there over the next 20 years. They joined the National Basketball League in 1945 as the renamed Rochester Royals, winning that league's championship in their first season, 1945–46. In 1948 they jumped with three other NBL teams to the Basketball Association of America, that later merged with the NBL to form the NBA. As the Royals, the team was often successful on the court, winning the NBA championship in 1951. The team, however, found it increasingly difficult to turn a profit in the comparatively small market of Rochester and relocated to Cincinnati in, becoming the Cincinnati Royals.
Before the 1972–73 season, the team relocated again, this time to Kansas City, Missouri, and renamed the Kansas City–Omaha Kings because it initially split its home games between Kansas City and Omaha, Nebraska; the nickname was changed to avoid confusion with the baseball team dubbed the Kansas City Royals. After three seasons, the team truncated to Kansas City Kings, but continued to play several home games per season in Omaha, through March 1978.
The franchise again failed to find success in its market and moved after the 1984–85 season to Sacramento. Their best seasons to date in the city were in the early 2000s, including a very successful 2001–02 season when they had the best record in the NBA at 61–21. Between 2006 and 2022, the Kings had 16 consecutive losing seasons, the most in NBA history. The Kings also had the longest active postseason drought in the four major North American sports, which started in 2006 and lasted until 2023. Thanks to these periods of futility and their historic age, the franchise has the most losses in NBA history.
History
1923–1944: Rochester Seagrams
The basis of a purely-professional team in Rochester, New York, which came into existence in 1945, was two decades of a sponsored semi-professional team, the Rochester Seagrams. Canadian distiller Seagram was the team's main sponsor and received the bulk of what monies were made. During the 1932–33 season, the Seagrams actually played professionally in the District Basketball Association, while in the years 1933–36, they played in the District Basketball League instead. One of the team's early stars was Lester Harrison, a local high school star of some publicity before joining the team. Harrison later became the team's captain, coach, manager, and chief scout over the next two decades. Among visitors to Rochester to play the team were the Original Celtics, the New York Rens, and the Harlem Globetrotters.1945–1957: Rochester Royals
With news that World War II was approaching its end, the National Basketball League announced that it was expanding, and Harrison was approached for interest in a franchise. While the sponsored semi-professional team balked at additional expenses involved, Harrison and his brother Jack, a lawyer, jumped at the chance. They pooled money to meet the steep entry fee of $25,000 and were granted an NBL franchise. Their team, the Rochester Royals, pushed the Seagrams out of their local facility, smallish Edgerton Park Arena.The best players were the returning Navy and Army players now being released from the war. There was no draft for the league in the selection of new players. So, Harrison was able to scoop up several name stars for his new team, among them Bob Davies, Red Holzman and William "Fuzzy" Levane, as well as NBL free agents like George Glamack and Al Cervi. The result was a strong league champion in their first season of existence as the Royals during the 1945–46 season.
The team had two more seasons of success during their NBL years, which permitted the team to play non-league opponents. During all three years, 1945–1948, the team played over 300 total games, hosting most of them.
The Royals defected to the NBL's rival, the Basketball Association of America, in 1948 along with the Fort Wayne Pistons, Minneapolis Lakers, and Indianapolis Jets. A year later, the BAA and the NBL merged to become the National Basketball Association.
After the move to the BAA, Rochester was placed in the Western Division. Their biggest rivals at the time were the Minneapolis Lakers, led by George Mikan, who won the NBA Championship five times between 1949 and 1954. The Royals were the only other team to win the NBA title during that period, defeating the New York Knicks 4–3 in 1951. It is the only NBA championship in the franchise's history.
The title, however, did not translate into profit for the Royals. With their relatively small arena and now-limited schedule, the franchise was losing money, despite the team finishing no lower than second in its division in both the NBL and BAA/NBA from 1945 to 1954. The roster turned over in 1955, except for star guard Bobby Wanzer, who soon became the team's new coach. The team moved to the larger Rochester War Memorial in 1955. The NBA even agreed to host their All-Star Game there in 1956. By then the Royals were in a rebuild and financial struggle and the NBA was putting pressure on Harrison to sell or relocate his team to a larger city, and eventually ownership announced that the 1956–57 season was the Royals' last in Rochester.
The Royals' stay in Rochester featured the services of nine future members of the Basketball Hall of Fame: Al Cervi, Bob Davies, Alex Hannum, Lester Harrison, Red Holzman, Arnie Risen, Maurice Stokes, Jack Twyman, Bobby Wanzer, while others proved prominent in other fields, such as Pro Football Hall of Fame member Otto Graham, Hollywood Walk of Famer Chuck Connors, and Jack McMahon.
1957–1960: Early years of the Cincinnati Royals
In April 1957, the Harrison brothers moved the Royals to Cincinnati, a city that was then trying to obtain an NBA expansion franchise. This move followed a well-received regular-season game played at Cincinnati Gardens on February 1, 1957. The change of venue had been said to have been partly suggested by Jack Twyman and Dave Piontek, who were two of several roster players on the new Royals from that area. Cincinnati, which had a strong college basketball fanbase then, and no NFL franchise to compete with, was deemed the best choice for the Harrisons, who also considered other cities. The Royals name continued to fit in Cincinnati, often known as the "Queen City".During the team's first NBA draft in Cincinnati, the team acquired Clyde Lovellette and guard George King. They teamed with the 1–2 punch of Maurice Stokes and Twyman to produce a budding contender in the team's first season in the Queen City. But injuries and the loss of star guard Si Green, the #1 overall pick of the 1956 NBA draft, to military service dropped the team into a tie for second place in the NBA Western Division during the 1957–58 season's second half.
In the season's finale, All-Pro star Maurice Stokes struck his head when he fell after pursuing a rebound. He shook off the effects of the fall, even as he had briefly been unconscious. After Game One in the playoffs three days later, Stokes's head injury was greatly aggravated by airplane cabin pressure during the flight back to Cincinnati for Game Two. He suffered a seizure and was permanently hospitalized, a tragedy that greatly shook the team. Stokes, a tremendous talent who could play center, forward and guard, was 2nd in the NBA in rebounds and 3rd in assists, a double feat only Wilt Chamberlain and Nikola Jokic have matched for a full season. The impact of losing Stokes was such that the team nearly folded. Six of the team's shaken players simply retired on the spot.
Fellow All-Star Twyman rose to All-Pro level over the next two seasons for Cincinnati, even as the team posted two 19-win seasons. The 1958–59 Cincinnati team featured five rookies, with Lovellette, King and other key players having left the team in the wake of Stokes' tragic injury. The Harrisons, wanting out at this point, sold to a makeshift local group, headed by Thomas Woods, Cincinnati Gardens management, and a number of local businessmen.
Jack Twyman came to the aid of his teammate, and even legally adopted Stokes. Raising funds for Stokes's medical treatment, Twyman helped him until his death in April 1970. The 1973 feature film Maurie, which co-starred actors Bernie Casey and Bo Svenson, dramatized their story.
Shooting often for the beleaguered team, Twyman was the second NBA player to ever average 30 points per game for an NBA season. Twyman and Stokes were later named Hall of Famers.
1960–1970: The Oscar Robertson era
In 1960, the team was able to land local superstar Oscar Robertson. Robertson led a team that included Twyman, Wayne Embry, Bob Boozer, Bucky Bockhorn, Tom Hawkins and Adrian Smith over the next three seasons. The Royals reversed their fortunes with Robertson and rose to title contender. An ownership dispute in early 1963 scuttled the team's playoff chances when new owner Louis Jacobs booked a circus for Cincinnati Gardens for the week of the playoff series versus the champion Boston Celtics. The Royals' home games were at Xavier University's Schmidt Field House.In late 1963, another local superstar, Jerry Lucas, joined the team. The Royals rose to the second-best record in the NBA. From 1963 to 1966, the Royals contended strongly against Boston and the Philadelphia 76ers, but won no titles. In the 1964 NBA draft the Royals drafted rookies George Wilson, Bill Chmielewski, Steve Courtin, and Happy Hairston. The team's star players throughout the 1960s were Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas. Robertson met with individual success, averaging a triple-double in 1961–62 and winning the Most Valuable Player award in 1964. Robertson was a league-leading scorer and passer each season. Lucas was Rookie of the Year in 1964, led the league in shooting, and later averaged 20 rebounds per game over four seasons. Both were All-NBA First Team selections multiple times. The team failed to keep some promising players, though, and played in the tough NBA East division, dominated by the Boston Celtics, even as a Baltimore team played in the West Division for three years, denying the team likely visits to the NBA Finals.
During the 1966–67 season, the Royals began playing some of their home games in neutral sites such as Cleveland, Dayton and Columbus. This did wound their local fan base in Cincinnati, though, and fortunes for the team continued to steadily decline. That year, they would host the 1966 NBA All-Star Game, with Smith scoring 24 points to be named All-Star MVP. As of 2021, it is the last time that the franchise has hosted an All-Star Game. In the summer of 1968, Owner Louis Jacobs died and ownership went to his sons Jeremy and Max Jacobs.
New coach Bob Cousy traded Lucas in 1969. Robertson was traded to Milwaukee in 1970, where he immediately won an NBA title. Both transactions were unpopular with the fan base, resulting in a home attendance decline and eventually the franchise's move to Kansas City which was announced on March 14, 1972. The NBA Board of Governors voted 16-1 to permit the transfer nine days later on March 23. Before a crowd of 4,022, the Royals defeated the Baltimore Bullets 132-114 in its final home game at Cincinnati Gardens the following night on March 24. The team represented Cincinnati for one last time in a 135-122 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers witnessed by 10,289 at the Cleveland Arena two nights later on March 26.