I’ve never been a particularly big basketball fan — or a sports fan in general — but I’m not blind to the fact that for many, a winning team is a source of pride.

That was certainly the case when my family first moved to Sacramento from the Bay Area back in 2001. I was only five years old at the time, but I quickly learned how important the Sacramento Kings were to the people who lived here.

The 2001-2002 season still remains the team’s crowning glory and one of the biggest “what if?” stories in sports. Kings fans still blame referee Tim Donaghy, someone known for fixing matchups, for their loss against the Lakers in the 2002 Western Conference Finals.

Even with the postseason disappointment, if you lived in Sacramento during that time, Mike Bibby and Chris Webber were just as big household names as Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.

The team’s decline didn’t truly hit for another two years but when it did, it hit hard. Webber suffered a knee injury that would lead to him being unable to play the way he used to, and the team lost key role players like Vlade Divac, Doug Christie and Bobby Jackson.

The team concluded the 2006-2007 season by missing the playoffs for the first time in years, the start of a trend fans would become familiar with. This 17-year-long playoff drought would become the longest in not only NBA history but the history of North American sports.

While people who love basketball may have kept up with the team, the Kings no longer had a presence in casual conversation. I couldn’t name a player on the team from the past decade and they haven’t had a winning season since their last run in the playoffs.

This year, I turn 28 and for my entire adult life, the Kings have been at best a shadow of their former selves and at worst an utter disappointment. For someone just entering their 20s, the team has been bad for effectively their entire life.

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But this year also saw a change in fortunes for the team. Coming off a less than stellar 30-52 in the 2021-2022 season, the 2022-2023 season hasn’t just seen the team finally finding another winning season, but finally ending the playoff drought.

We can talk about basic stats like 3-pointers and rebounds, but ultimately what matters to a lot of people is they’re finally winning more games than they’re losing. 

It may be a shallow way to look at it but, for those who follow the sport more casually, it’s the first thing they’ll look at and this year has proven that.

For the first time in years, I’ve actually started to follow the team and catch a game when I’m able to. When I take the light rail home from work during a home game, the car is a collection of purple and gray with people actually looking like they had a good time.

The phrase “light the beam” is quickly becoming common slang in Sac, going far beyond the confines of just basketball. I was at a pro wrestling show at the Golden 1 Center in March and “LIGHT THE BEAM!” was chanted by those in attendance more than anything wrestling related.

When people talk about how great the team is doing, they can actually speak in the present tense and not have to recall nearly two decades ago.

The Kings are currently the only major league sports team in California’s capital, and even a non-sports fan like myself recognizes how important that is to the people who live here. The Monarchs folded over a decade ago, and Sacramento Republic FC’s MLS expansion is on indefinite hiatus; if someone is going to represent us nationwide, it’ll have to be the Kings.

Regardless of how far the team gets in the playoffs, they have undoubtedly taken a strong step forward. As to whether they’ll ride this momentum into future success, that ball’s in the Kings’ court.