Unless the Lakers or Clippers can raise a big enough stink to submarine the deal, it looks like a Blake Griffin slam dunk that the Kings are gone.
Look at the facts:
NBA commissioner David Stern has washed his hands of the situation.
The Kings and Anaheim have been talking for months.
An arena deal for Sacramento is still a fantasy.
And the Maloofs desperately need cash. Right now. (By the way, note to Maloofs: This is what you get when you spend five years cutting and slashing salary and refusing to look at bringing on talent. Empty seats. If you guys had tried to keep the Kings winners instead of trying to keep your sports cars, it might be a different story)
So sad.
Sacramento was once a small-market dream franchise, selling out the arena for years on end. But that's a distant memory.
The glory days of Divac and Webber and Bibby are almost a decade old. The vibrant pride this city felt for its team has dissipated.
And now we're left with nothing but a dismal team in a dismal arena.
I knew the Kings were done in Sacramento when a group of people knocked on the door of our office the other day selling Kings tickets door-to-door at cut-rate prices.
It's over folks.
Cue the curtain.
