SDH Presents the NBA's Worst to First for November: 27. Sacramento Kings

Sacramento Kings Overall Win/Loss Record (as of November 30th): 4-10,  fifth place Pacific Division	Preseason Prediction: 29	This Month: 27
Team Statistics and League Rank (as of November 30th) Points Scored: 95.0 (22nd) Points Allowed: 99.8 (21st) Team FG%: .442 (17th) Opponent’s FG%: .444 (20th) Rebounds per game: 39.8 (26th) Opponents rebounds per game: 43.7 (26th) Turnovers per game: 14.7 (12th) Opponents turnovers per game: 16.3 (9th)	Individual Statistical Leaders Scoring (ppg): DeMarcus Cousins (16.1) Rebounds per game:  DeMarcus Cousins (9.6) Minutes per game: Tyreke Evans (32.1) Assists per game: Tyreke Evans (3.8) Steals per game: DeMarcus Cousins (1.5) Blocked Shots per game: Jason Thompson (1.2)
Worst Player of the Month:  Tyreke Evans For the third straight season, Tyreke Evans has continued to disappoint Sacramento Kings fans with his worsening play and his diminishing production.  After having his scoring drop for the second consecutive year from 17.8ppg his second year to 16.5 last season, his offense took another negative turn dropping to an all time low at 14.5.  Known for being a big point guard by trade at 6’6”, Evans has also been averaging a career worst in assists per game (3.8) leading many to believe that it may be time to unload this asset that continues to give diminishing returns.  Coach Keith Smart has been wracking his brain on how to reignite the spark of a player who won NBA Rookie of the Year just three years ago trying to place him in different positions in hopes of Evans will find his offense.  If his latest attempt of pairing Evans with Aaron Brooks in the back court does not work, then it may be time for Kings management to finally cut their losses and cut him loose.	First Player of the Month: Jimmer Freddette This is NOT A JOKE: Jimmer Fredette, amongst all the players in the Sacramento Kings roster, has proven to be the best player in the month of November.  In the month of November thus far, Freddette, in just nine minutes per game, has averaged 6.3 points per game in under 10 minutes of playing time while shooting a whopping .510 from the field and an astounding .471 from the three point line.  Hypothetically, if he were to play 36 minutes per game, he would be averaging  24.1 points, 3.2 assists, and a steal per game—virtually All Star like numbers.  Thus theoretically, starting Jimmer at shooting guard, for instance, would mathematically be more efficient than the team banging its head against the wall trying to find solutions to awaken the stagnant offerings of current starter, Tyreke Evans.  Hopefully Coach Keith Smart recognizes this and rewards Jimmer for his extremely efficient play with more minutes—if not he is a fool and should be fired immediately.
Analysis: No new news for you here Sacramento Kings fans—your team sucks!!  As always they have continued to disappoint with their poor play and their usual terrible start to tip off the new NBA season.  The Kings started losing three straight against the Chicago Bulls (10/31/2012), Minnesota Timberwolves (11/2/2012) and the Indiana Pacers (11/3/2012) only to surprisingly bounce back winning two in a row against the Golden State Warriors (11/5/2012) and the Detroit Pistons (11/7/2012).  Unfortunately, in usual Sacramento Kings fashion, they would follow the two game win streak with a five game losing streak; however, they did get some satisfaction in breaking that streak by pummeling a struggling Los Angeles Lakers (11/21/2012) team on their home court which happens to be the worst named arena ever (more on that later.)  Of course they followed that big win with yet another loss to the Utah Jazz (11/23/2012), but at least Sacramento got revenge beating them back a day later (11/24/2012).  Sacramento the capped off their first month losing the last two games against the Timberwolves (11/27/2012) and the Pacers (11/30/2012) which is no surprise to Sacramento fans. In fact their team’s play is worthy of the name of the team’s current home court changing the name from the Arco Arena to the Sleep Train Arena.  Talk about diminishing the image of an already depressing team—why not just announce it in bright lights that your team is not worth watching?  It has to be a ploy by the team’s owners, the Maloof Brothers, who have been quite unabashedly vocal in their desire and intent to moving the team out of the California state capital—drum down as much anticipation for the season by lulling the city’s fanbase with the least exciting and intimidating arena name in sports history.  Their motto: “come to the Sleep Train Arena and treat yourselves by letting your Sacramento Kings lull you to sleep with their lackadaisical and uninspired play.”  Some would go as far to say that calling Sacramento’s home court the Sleep Train Arena is a blatant slap in the face to the team’s fanbase who have been desperately trying to keep their team. It is bad enough that fans have to witness and endure the sheer disinterest of their home team’s front office to make any strides in improving their current situation, but to virtually imply that it their team is  completely not worth watching takes the cake.  Their team has been a complete embarrassment for the past five or so years, a far cry from the glory years of the late 90s and early the 2Ks where the former Arco Arena roared louder than any basketball court in the league.  One can get a sense that the team’s management and ownership have been earnestly trying to sabotage this team to the point of destroying whatever credibility it had in order to sicken to local population enough to apathetically let go of their city’s only professional sports team.  Before this was just mere speculation for those who follow conspiracy theories, but with the recent events, the speculation has become more of a reality.  No sports fan deserves such mistreatment from their team whom they have supported for the past thirty years in both good times and bad filling up the arena to capacity and has ranked amongst the tops in the league in attendance. The NBA should find a way to sanction the Maloof brothers for not only what they are doing to their team and its fans, but also for starting a very disturbing precedent.  Sure, the majority of teams that have moved did so because of financial troubles and to find bigger markets, but to purposely downgrade itself to create an environment where it cannot survive is truly another story.  Unfortunately, since Sacramento is such a small and unnoticeable market in the league, the plight of this team has been left relatively ignored allowing Kings officials to continue this intentional self destruction in order to get what they want.  Commissioner David Stern already has enough problems to deal with—ruthless billionaire owners, spoiled millionaire athletes, the huge disparity between the NBA’s haves and the have-nots, and having to compete with the NFL and Major League Baseball for the attention of sports fans and advertisers.  Thus the fans of Sacramento will have to suffer in silence and watch the organization that they have proudly supported purposely destroy itself in order to rid itself of them once and for all.  There is no real use to continue following the Kings as their season has already been set in stone—they are losers and will continue to lose until ownership gets to green light to move away.  It is already sickening enough watching this rabble of unmotivated, immature, and unprofessional players continue to just bring shame to the city of Sacramento and the league as a whole.  Changing the arena’s name to something so weak and pathetic as the Sleep Train Arena is an insult to not only Kings fans basketball fans everywhere because it shows such little consideration this team has for the people that spend their hard earned money buying tickets and merchandise.  Just recently the Kings parted ways with their GM of more than a decade, Geoff Petrie—the same man who brought the glory years to Sacramento; mostly probably because he had grown tired of perpetrating the heinous act of devaluing the same team he had once built as a championship contender not so long ago.  It only goes to show how low the team’s owners are willing to go get what they want and the sickening prospect of that soon happening.