The Sacramento Kings were expected by many to be a sleeper playoff contender (and potentially a playoff team) in the Western Conference this season.
I was leading that charge.
After an impressive 2018-19 campaign in which the Kings actually contended for a playoff spot for much of the season thanks to the inspired play of youngsters such as De'Aaron Fox, Marvin Bagley III and Buddy Hield, I thought for sure Sacramento would take the next step this year.
Instead, the Kings are floundering at 21-32 heading into their Wednesday night matchup with the Dallas Mavericks and have essentially seen their postseason hopes go down the tubes.
To be fair, Sacramento has dealt with a wealth of injury issues. Bagley has played just 13 games. Fox has missed time.
But at its core, you can see that something is very wrong here, regardless of health.
Hield, who has been benched in favor of Bogdan Bogdanovic, is unhappy with his current situation, just months after signing a contract extension. Luke Walton doesn't appear to have any control over the team. Vivek Ranadive is getting frustrated. Vlade Divac may be on thin ice.
Let's face it: there is a reason why the Kings have been one of the NBA's worst franchises over the last decade and change. They have not made the playoffs since 2006, and they haven't even won 40 games since.
No matter how much optimism some may have had for Sacramento heading into the 2019-20 campaign, that dark cloud of ineptitude from the last 13 years still hung over Cowbell Kingdom.
Even when the Kings put together a nice stable of young talent, they still find ways to blow it. And yes, we can also sit here and bemoan Sacramento for not taking Luka Doncic over Bagley in the 2018 NBA Draft, but to be fair, Bagley had a terrific rookie season and was seen by some as the best prospect in that class.
Honestly, the biggest mistake the Kings made this past offseason was firing Dave Joerger, who did an incredible job with his young squad last year. The decision to jettison Joerger, a good coach with an established track record, and replace him with Walton, who failed miserably in Los Angeles, was always a strange one, and it seems to have torpedoed Sacramento's chances of making any sort of noise this year.
Of course, Walton is far from the only issue here, as a culture of losing has permeated this organization for what seems like ages. The days of Chris Webber and Mike Bibby seem like centuries ago.
The Kings have reached New York Knicks levels of incompetence, but their situation is a bit different, because it actually looked liked Divac and Co. were doing a solid job assembling a roster that could contend in the future.
I won't go as far to say that Sacramento should clean house just yet. Divac in particular deserves a little more time. But it may be time to admit that the Walton experiment was a failed one, not even a year in.
I don't know what it's going to take to erase the stench of defeat on this franchise, but whether it has been DeMarcus Cousins or Isaiah Thomas or Fox or Bagley or Hield, the personnel doesn't seem to matter. The culture has been established, and just when it looked like its grip was loosening, it tightened back up again.
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