Fandom Free Agency - #18 Sacramento Kings

Prior to last night the Kings were teetering on the edge. As much as I liked and cheered for the Kings of the early 2000s the lasting memory of that team for me is Shaq continuously, and I mean continuously putting them in their place.

Then after spending this past weekend surrounded by happy K-State and Northern Iowa fans I wanted to punch out anything purple. I couldn't root for the Kings after a weekend like that.

Then last night happened. On the very same night that I wrote of the Nets for being a pathetic excuse for a basketball team, they went out and beat the Kings for their 8th win of the season.

The Kings started off this season as one of the league's surprise teams. Since then, they've dismantled the team, started looking like a team that will have a Top 5 pick again next year and then topped it off by losing to the Nets last night.

I've watched the Kings play a number of times this year in both the real world and the video game world and no matter where they're playing they really only have player who teams have to plan around.

Tyreke Evans has the ability to turn any game into his own personal lay-up line at any time but the players who usually surround him are Beno Udrih, Francisco Garcia, Andres Nocioni, Spencer Hawes and Carl Landry. If you looked at that list and wondered why you didn't recognize those name, it's because you shouldn't.

Carl Landry is a nice player, but he went from being a potential 6th man of the year in Sacramento to being the #2 option in Sacramento. The rest of the guys are nice role players, but hardly anybody that you have to game plan around.

And then there's the fact that Sacramento took the team away from Kansas City. Now, I'm not really bitter about that. I wasn't alive during any of the Kings years in Kansas City and I have no attachment to the team. But out of respect for my city I have to stand up for this sort of heist.

The name Kings still lingers as a Kansas City team name, along with the Royals and Chiefs, and the team does still choose to taunt KC by occasionally wearing throwbacks like these.

In the end, the Kings have just insulted me in two many ways. They wear purple, the left Kansas City and they made Scot Pollard go all the way to Boston to win an NBA title.

Just imagine what Pollard would do with his Kings ring.

Fandom Free Agency - #19 New Jersey Nets

It really shouldn't have ever gone this far. This is one of those deals where I looked at the remaining teams and then immedeatly said, "Wait a minute? How did New Jersey make it this far."

I of course remember that the New Jersey Nets won a dramatic game of NBA 2k10 to keep them alive not long ago. But that win has apparently given the real life Nets absolutely no momentum at all.

The Nets are currently sitting at a historically bad 7-63 record and have already set an NBA record for most consecutive losses to start a season.

They're bad. Really bad. Historically bad. And for that there is really no reason for me to keep them around any longer.

I've been a Kansas City Royals fan all my life, and because of that I've seem some really bad sports teams. But a winning percentage of .100 is just beyond belief. Even more so, I see no redeemable qualities with this Nets team.

Former all-star Devin Harris is now a shell of his former self and a constant reminder that the Nets got way to little in return for Jason Kidd, who is now in Dallas making every player on their team better.

The teams best player right now is probably Brook Lopez, but have you ever heard Brook Lopez talk? Is there any way that you can take someone who wore a storm-trooper mask and said, "I feel like a 3-year old right now," and then trust that person to win in late game situations?

The answer is no, you can't, and that's why the Nets have won 7 games and have lost an unacceptably large amount of close games this season.

(This isn't even mentioning Chris Douglas-Roberts whose late game heroics I'm very familiar with.)

The Nets aren't completely hopeless though. They're getting a new owner who has been described as "The Russian Mark Cuban" and if nothing else they're young. Of their top 6 scorers the oldest one is Devin Harris who is only 27 and each of their top 10 scorers are all under the age of 30.

There's also hope for the future because they're terrible record makes them a strong favorite to win the John Wall lottery at about 25%. Add to that number that the NBA lottery is rigged and I'll go ahead and bump that number up to about 60%.

But if you think I'm hitching my fandom wagon to a team that only wins 10% of it's games, then you're about as crazy as Brook Lopez.

Confused Brook? I thought you might be.

Fandom Free Agency - #20 Detroit Pistons

I've rooted for the Detroit Pistons one time in my life. The 2004 NBA Finals against the team listed right below them in this post.

As you can imagine I'm not a big fan of veteran players going to title bound teams just so they can win a ring late in their career. So as much as I (and unexplainably every other teenager) of the early 2000s loved Gary Payton and his Los Angeles Laker running mate Karl Malone. I could not root for them to find their way onto the 3-time champion Lakers just to win a championship.

So, in 2004 I became a Detroit Pistons fan for about a month a rooted hard for Mr. Big Shot, Rip Hamilton and Mr. Ball Don't Lie.

With those players the Pistons could have been a very attractive team for my fandom free agency. But sadly those players are all either gone or beyond their prime. Really the only redeemable quality from those Pistons that still remains is their P.A. announcer Mason.

I respect Mason for almost single-handedly changing the game for NBA P.A. announcers, but he will not be able to single-handedly make me a fan of the Pistons.

The real kicker for Detroit Basketball is that Joe Dumars apparently doesn't know what year it is, and that's a real problem for a man who's in charge of a sports franchise.

For almost 2 1/2 years now everyone has been talking about the 2010 free agent class. I'm convinced that Joe Dumars misheard and thought that everyone was talking about the 2009 free agent class.

So then when last offseason came Dumars frantically tried to sign the two top free agents on the market and didn't realize until after it was all said and done that he had signed Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva instead of LeBron James and Chris Bosh. In all reality, a simple mistake to make.

I also wanted to again give Dumars the benefit of the doubt (I mean he did assemble a championship at one point in time) and say that maybe his plan was just to assemble an All-NBA team of UConn Huskies. He brought in Gordon and Villanueva to join Rip Hamilton but unfortunately I knew this wasn't his plan when after the trade deadline he failed to trade Tayshaun Prince for either Ray Allen or Caron Butler.

So, as is, Dumars seems to be just a very confused GM. He traded an All-Star player, and more importantly a winner, in Chauncey Billups for one half season of Allen Iverson. And has now spent well over 100 million dollars for a sixth-man type guard who does nothing away from the ball in Gordon and a big man who refuses to play down low in Villanueva.

I'm sorry Piston fans, but I can't be a part of this upcoming disaster.

UCONN TEAM, ASSEMBLE!!