I'll never forget the day when I realized that everything had changed. For years, I'd been ridiculed for being a Kings fan — even though the hometown New Jersey Nets were just 129-199 (.393) over the past four seasons. But there was an unfamiliar buzz surrounding Sacramento during the opening month of the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season; while the team was still hovering around .500, flashy rookie point guard Jason Williams, high-flying forward Chris Webber, and the new-look Kings were suddenly featured in every NBA highlight reel.
My friends and I gathered for our weekly pick-up basketball game at a nearby park in early spring, and I couldn't believe my eyes. Carmine, one of the best players on our high school team, as well as a Los Angeles Lakers fan who never passed up an opportunity to inform me that the Kings were "garbage," was wearing a Jason Williams jersey. It would've been surreal to see anyone other than me wearing purple and black at the time, much less a fan of a division rival — in fairness, it wasn't quite as sacrilegious as it may seem; the two didn't have much of a rivalry at the time — but it showed that Sacramento was now prominently on the NBA map.
Over the next couple of years, as the Kings continued to evolve from a laughing stock into one of the most popular and exciting teams in the NBA, Williams and Webber jerseys became commonplace in my high school and in local sports equipment stores. Everyone enjoyed imitating "White Chocolate's" behind-the-back and off-the-elbow passes, Vlade Divac's crafty post moves, Peja Stojakovic's silky-smooth jumpshot, and Jon Barry's patented fist-pump on the local playground. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but still, the Kings — the Kings! — were the league's darling team and instantaneously gained a multitude of fans in not only New Jersey, but all over the globe. Keep in mind that Sacramento had only ten more wins than losses during the first two years of the renaissance, and didn't get out of the first round of the playoffs until 2001.
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