I’ve always had a soft spot for the Sacramento Kings.
Back in the early aughts, when they were helmed by the still-underrated Rick Adelman, they played some of the most aesthetically pleasing and fundamentally sound basketball of the era (which Pop and the 2014 Spurs almost certainly borrowed from on the offensive end).
And it was easy to sympathize with them after they too had a critical playoff series stolen from them in favor the Los Angeles Lakers. To many it seemed more a matter of when not if they would take home the Larry O’ Brien, with already deteriorating relations between Kobe and Shaq growing chillier and more public by the minute.