Fall from Royalty, Part One: The decline of the Sacramento Kings, 2003-05

By the 2000-1 season, Geoff Petrie had assembled a championship quality team from the ground up and turned water into wine in the Sacramento Valley. 

For the next four seasons, the Kings played in the Western Conference semi-finals or finals and won at least 55 games a year. 

Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Doug Christie, Peja Stojakovic, Bobby Jackson, Mike Bibby, Hedo Turkoglu, Scot Pollard, Gerald Wallace, Lawrence Funderburke, and Jabari Smith all played on at least three of those four successful teams.  

That core of 11 players—with key one-year contributions from Jason Williams, Jon Barry and Brad Miller during that span—made for entertaining and successful basketball.

That success put Geoff Petrie's ability to build a successful team on a league-wide pedestal.  He had pulled in Webber for an aging Mitch Richmond, drafted unheralded studs like Peja, Jason Williams, Wallace, and Hedo, rolled the dice on aging vets like Christie and Divac and—despite Sacramento's love for White Chocolate—pulled off a heist in parlaying Williams into Bibby. The last move pushed an entertaining and successful team to the brink of a championship.

However, despite the development of the roster, the Kings lost game-seven matchups in three consecutive years.  First, the free-throw debacle in Game Seven of the "Big Shot Rob" series with the Lakers in 2002, the Webber injury against the Mavs in 2003 and KG's one shining moment in 2004.

So. What has King Geoff done lately?  How has the 2002-3 team, which returned 11 players, evolved into the current roster following the Bibby deal?  In this three-part article, I will go through the major deals, ignoring the Rodney Bufords and Ronny Prices of the world.

For part one we'll go through the 2005 deadline deal of Chris Webber.  Here we go...

Step 1: Turkoglu for Miller (summer 2003)

After winning 59 games and dealing with the idea of a difficult off-season surgery for his superstar, the summer of 2003 was a time to reconsider the team's direction.  They had swung with all their might for two straight seasons and hadn't reached their goal, plus Divac wasn't getting any younger and was a liability against Shaq and the Lakers. 

In July 2003, the Kings unloaded injured fan-favorite Pollard and a promising Turkoglu for Brad Miller in a three-way trade.  A move seen as an admission that Divac was almost through and that Webber was going to miss significant time.

While the Kings have to be pleased with Miller, Turkoglu is showing in Orlando that he is the real deal and was on the bubble for an All-Star spot this season.  Given that Miller has outperformed Hedo over most of the last 5 seasons, I'd have to say this deal shows that Petrie still had his mojo.

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