RETURN OF THE KINGS - Read this story on Magzter.com

Cleveland thinks it's been an NBA backwater lately? The fans in Sacramento would like a word. The Kings haven't been to the playoffs since 2006, the longest drought in the league. Since that appearance-a first-round loss to the Spurs-only, the Timberwolves have lost more games than Sacramento. The franchise has cycled through 12 coaches, mangled several drafts (in '18 they took Marvin Bagley III over Luka Dončić), and failed to post a league-average defense even once since '06. "The product on the floor just wasn't good," says Faz Imran, a longtime fan and Sacramento resident who handles airline baggage for a living. Imran splurged for two season tickets during the '21-22 campaign. "It was hard to give them away last year, even for marquee games," Imran says. "Fans were so fed up with the team."

Things have changed: Nowhere is the NBA's season of parity a bigger hit than in Sacramento. The Kings finished February with 36 wins and the third-best record in the Western Conference, all but ensuring an end to that NBArecord 16-year absence from the playoffs. Almost 98% of the seats at the Golden 1 Center have been sold this season; last year, when the Kings had the league's second-lowest attendance, that figure was 82%. The scene there has been literally electric: Crowds hang around after home victories to watch the team celebrate with a purple beam of light shining high into the night sky. If the Kings have a fourth-quarter lead, the "Light the beam!" chants are deafening.

It's not hard to understand why the Kings are winning and so fun to watch. Powered by De'Aaron Fox, the blisteringly quick All-Star point guard, Sacramento plays at one of the NBA's highest tempos and scores at the highest clip in basketball after forcing a live-ball turnover: 1.43 points per possession through the end of February, according to advanced data site Inpredictable. The club uses a league-high 10.3 handoffs each night, usually orchestrating them along the perimeter between All-Star center Domantas Sabonis and the team's wings. Kevin Huerter and Keegan Murray race right off the shoulder of Sabonis, allowing him to serve as a roadblock for defenders who are chasing the sharpshooters. "A lot of guys don't like me because of how physical I am on those screens," Sabonis says with a smile. "But if I was on their team, they'd probably love me for it."

As the NBA's second-best passing big man after Nikola Jokić, Sabonis is also a capable playmaker who can identify soft spots in opposing defenses. The Kings thrive on that kind of ball movement and unselfishness: They play one-on-one less often than all but five teams in the league, but when they do, it pays off with the highest scoring rate on isolations.

Sacramento's turnaround started last May, when team GM Monte McNair hired Warriors assistant Mike Brown as coach. As the former coach for LeBron in Cleveland and Kobe in L.A. (and as an assistant with Curry's Warriors), Brown was used to dealing with stars. But now he was being handed an unproven roster and being asked to get more consistent effort out of it. Changing the franchise culture would start simply. "He's in our ear every single day, drilling us on the basics," says Huerter, who was acquired from the Hawks shortly after Brown's signing. "This is just Year 1 of a multiyear thing we're building."

Some things have been slow to change; the Kings are the sixth-worst in the NBA in defensive efficiency, and they're vulnerable to points in the paint. But they're among the best in limiting fast-break points, and no team forces opponents to run their half-court offense more-a credit to Brown and the way he drills his squad to get back on D.

Of course there was a time when all of this-sellout streaks, highly entertaining offense, playoff berths-was taken for granted in Sacramento. In February 2001, the club's starting five of Chris Webber, Peja Stojaković, Jason Williams, Doug Christie and Vlade Divac was on the cover of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED with the headline THE GREATEST SHOW ON COURT. Those Kings won at least 50 games every season from '00-01 to '04-05 and advanced to at least the conference semifinals four straight years. These Kings have rekindled the atmosphere of those teams. The next step is making sure this season isn't a one-off. "Yes, we want to make the playoffs," says McNair. "That would be a success to the fans, the city and the players.... Some people made fun of our fans who got excited [last summer] about the idea of us winning 40 games. But guess what? We haven't won 40 for 16 years. We understand that won't be a success for long, because then it turns into 'Can you win 45? Can you get to the second round?' But we're really enjoying this."