Sacramento Kings

This may come as news to many basketball fans, even some fans of the Sacramento Kings themselves, but this much-derided franchise actually once won the NBA Championship. Okay, granted, that was in 1951 when the team was known as the Rochester Royals (after which they would become the Cincinnati Royals, then the Kansas City Royals, then the Kansas City Kings, before finally landing in Sacramento in 1985), but when you have a record over the years as dismal as the Kings, you need to cling to any success that your team has had. The team actually enjoyed glimmers of success in Kansas City, even reaching the 1981 Western Conference Finals, which they lost 4-1 to the Houston Rockets. Once in Sacramento, they made the playoffs in their initial season, losing in the First Round, but did not show their faces in the postseason again until 1996. Between 1998 and 2006, bolstered by the talents of Chris Webber and Peja Stojakovic, the Kings entered a considerable purple patch with eight straight playoff appearances, including one memorable, heart-breaking Game Seven loss in the Conference Finals to their California rivals the Los Angeles Lakers. The Kings then spent nearly two decades as the doormats of the Western Conference, missing the playoffs for 16 straight seasons. Led by De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk, they finally returned to the postseason in 2023 after an impressive third-place finish in the Western Conference. Despite the team losing in the First Round 4-3 to another of their state rivals, the Golden State Warriors, long-suffering but loyal Sacramento Kings fans will be hoping that their team can build on this small start and make further in-roads into the playoffs in 2024.