Kings fans get apology from Alvin Gentry, but that's not enough

Less than two weeks on the job and interim head coach Alvin Gentry opened his post game press conference apologizing to Sacramento Kings fans Tuesday night following a dreadful 117-92 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers at Golden 1 Center. 

“As the coach of this team, I want to apologize to every Kings fan out there, because you do not deserve this,” Gentry stated. “You deserve much much better and we’ll find guys that will give you better.”

Gentry’s press conference was a shocking indictment on the state of the Kings. Five games into his tenure as the interim head coach and Gentry, a coach with 35 years of NBA experience, felt the need to atone for the sins of his players.

This is where we are. Twenty-two games into the 2021-22 season and a second head coach is already looking into the soul of his team and finding a chasmous void. The Kings are rudderless and even the smallest of waves feels like it would capsize the boat.

First on Gentry’s list of issues is to solve his team’s accountability problem. He’s already shown that he is willing to give just about any player on the roster a shot, but that doesn’t mean that he’s reigning in some of the veterans when they do wrong.

In the midst of a 28-7 third quarter run by the Lakers, Buddy Hield pulled up and launched a 27-foot 3-pointer with 20 seconds remaining on the shot clock. Hield bricked the attempt, like he did all but one other shot he took on the night. 

At the time of the miss, it was still just a seven point ball game, but it all spun out of control quickly. 

This was a moment when Gentry should have called a time out, sent Hield to the end of the bench and given anyone else on the roster a shot.

Not only did Hield get a chance to finish out the third quarter, but he played the first 9:31 of the fourth as the Kings were blown off the court in embarrassing fashion. 

This isn’t a one-time event, it’s an every game occurrence. Gentry has been on the bench for more than a year now in Sacramento watching this unfold time and time again. He is also the guy that earlier this week took credit for drafting Hield to the Pelicans in 2016 NBA Draft.

Hield isn’t the only one to blame, but he is the part of the culture of “my bad” that has permeated the Kings’ franchise for the last handful of years. A 27-foot jumper with 20 seconds on the shot clock as a game is slipping out of your hands?

Live by the Buddy, die by the Buddy is no longer a fun catch phrase, but a truism for the 2021-22 Sacramento Kings.

Heild didn’t help himself following the game when he was caught on the broadcast smiling and joking with Lakers center Anthony Davis. It was almost as if he had already forgotten about the 25-point drubbing his team just took.

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The list of Kings players who struggled was long and pointed to a few issues this team has moving forward. 

De’Aaron Fox turned the ball over seven times and can’t seem to consistently find the level of play that he performed at last season. Tyrese Haliburton shot just 2-for-10 from the field and registered his seventh game in single-digit scoring in his last 10 outings. Rookie Davion Mitchell led the Kings in field goal attempts, despite hitting just 3-of-14. At least Mitchell was willing to shoot when he was open.

This is a mess and if the last two games are any indication, it’s only getting worse. The corrosive nature of what is unfolding on the court is taking its toll and the ramifications could be long lasting.

Perhaps the largest concern is that apathy is growing within one of the most passionate fan bases in professional sports. Golden 1 Center was overrun with Lakers yellow. Even with so many Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson jerseys in the crowd, the announced attendance was just 12,459.

There were so many LA fans in attendance that when they began chanting “Let’s go Lakers” in the fourth quarter, there wasn’t even enough fight in the remaining Kings fans to answer the call. 

Against the franchise’s most hated rival, Kings fans followed the lead of their team and allowed Lakers fans to win the night. This isn’t an indictment on Kings fans, but a sad reality to Tuesday night’s game and the current state of the franchise.

Finger pointing is coming. The blame game already consumed Luke Walton, but he won’t be the last victim to fall to this calamity. He may not even be the last one we see fired this season.

Can general manager Monte McNair find a trade to shake things up? If he can, where was that trade a month ago? Three months ago?

Can Gentry take control of the situation or is he just another blip on a long list of coaching failures following the Rick Adelman era?

Can owner Vivek Ranadivé take a step back and allow the basketball people to make basketball decisions? He’s had a front row view of everything from the Lakers debacle to a fan vomiting all over the Golden 1 Center court. He’s also the only constant in the last eight years of futility in Sacramento. 

It doesn’t matter how tortured the fanbase is. They want to taste success so badly, but that’s not enough. The players, management, ownership and everyone in between have to want it equally as bad or perhaps even more. 

Something has to change. The feel good vibes of a new arena are gone. The team may need to resort to selling cardboard cutouts again this season just to have faces in the crowd. 

Gentry had it right, you deserve much better, Kings fans.