For Kings fans, pride in Sacramento is inextricable from pride in their team

This year was a historic one for the Sacramento Kings. 

Not only did the team earn themselves a new moniker — the Beam Team — but they broke their 16-year playoff drought, the longest in major American professional sports this century. And in his first year with the team, Mike Brown became the first to win the NBA Coach of the Year award unanimously.

Once the team made the playoffs, the city decked itself in purple in support, picking up the slack when the beam shooting out of Golden 1 Center was off-duty. Local businesses have created Beam Team specials and hosted watch parties. A crowd swarmed the Sacramento airport to greet the Kings after they clinched a spot in the playoffs, and those who could trekked to San Francisco to watch the Kings play the Golden State Warriors for Games 3, 4 and 6. 

Despite the Kings’ Game 7 loss, fans see this as just the beginning of continued success for the team. And outside of its narrative hook — the Kings acting as the David to the dynastic Warriors’ Goliath — the first match-up in this year’s playoffs was deeply personal for many, with lifelong fans feeling vindicated and team pride intimately linked to city pride.

“There’s a community aspect, and the Kings being good is bringing everyone together,” said long-time fan Erika Velasco, 26. “It feels like a party wherever you go, and we’re all there to celebrate and support the team that’s representing us so well and putting Sacramento back on that map.”

Vindication for lifelong fans

Cheering on the Kings has been an enduring family tradition for fans like Velasco, who has lived in Sacramento since she was 4. Her family’s first house was located around a five-minute drive from Arco Arena. 

“My dad’s old work was right by as well, and growing up, I remember me, my mom and my dad would park at his work and just walk to the games," she said.

Brooke Uhlenhop, 25, said her “huge Kings family” has regularly bought season tickets since 1997.

She has memories of doing homework in the row her and her family regularly sat in: “There were some years where I would just bring my book that I have to read in school to the game because I'm like, ‘Oh, halftime, I’m just sitting there’ — I guess that just shows my dedication [to the team].” 

She said the excitement around the playoffs has been payoff — in some regard — for the “16 years of terrible basketball” Kings fans have watched. “We also want to believe in our team — we know we’re not going to go very far, [maybe], but we just have that faith,” she said. “What if we’re going to be the best team ever to exist?”

Jordan Mata, 26, also has fond memories of the Kings backgrounding his life. 

“I remember my dad buying a new TV just to watch the Western Conference Finals in 2002,” he said. “And now, it’s impossible to be in a relationship with me, as Sarah [my partner] found out, without watching Sacramento Kings games or hearing about random facts or gossip or whatever.” 

For him, the Kings making the playoffs was surreal. 

“This speaks more about my jacked up psychology [about the Kings], but I had this terrible feeling in me that something terrible would happen [once they made the playoffs], like the Golden 1 Center would explode,” he said. “Or we’d go into a world war surrounding the Sacramento Kings, which is so stupid.” 

But the way they played is validating, Mata said — ”comfy and really strange in some ways … when you get used to winning, it becomes scarier when they do lose.” 

Velasco similarly feels that validation, especially since her family is split between Kings-Warriors fans on her mom’s and dad’s sides. And she said she feels like a “proud mom” from following the entire Kings organization from their 0-4 start to making the playoffs.

“I can’t believe my favorite NBA team is finally in the playoffs and the world gets to see them,” she said. “But that feeling washes over quickly and you find yourself thinking, like, ‘Hey. You are seeing the KINGS. It’s about damn time [for the world] to pay attention.’”

That sentiment is muted but present in attire Mata and his partner, Sarah Kamiya, designed and printed this season — an off-white shirt and gray crewneck sweater, both emblazoned with a purple, all-caps italicized phrase: “I AM CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE KINGS THIS YEAR.” 

Kamiya — who considers herself a Kings fan “by association” after getting to know her partner and his passion for the Kings, but also enjoys the “reality show” aspect of basketball — said the two made the shirt because it could be worn any time of the year. 

“Nothing specific — just I’m feeling good, but not really,” she said. “We were just wanting to give it to some of our friends, and now it’s turned into a monster … But now I’m feeling the optimism.”

Kamiya closed orders for the apparel, which she’s sold over 150 pieces of, but said she’s hoping to bring it back next season, possibly in different colors. 

And Mata said the phrase encapsulates the “idiotic optimist” experience of being a Kings fan, particularly the feeling of being “so dedicated to such a miserable franchise,” he quipped. 

“Every year you're convincing yourself like, ‘This is the year that the Kings are gonna do it, they're gonna make the playoffs,’” he said. “Or there's a few years where it's like, ‘Okay, this is a tanking year, they're intentionally being bad so they'll get a better odds for getting a higher pick in the draft.” 

Sacramento pride swells for Kings’ historic season

San Francisco and Sacramento are just 90 miles apart. Being so close, basketball fans and general onlookers made sweeping comparisons about both the teams and their respective cities — sometimes leading to unflattering comments, Mata said. 

“It’s a bummer,” he said. “We have so much to relate [to] on a lot of levels — obviously, we’re cities that are close to each other and with a lot of crossover in populations, but more on the team level, they were a miserable franchise for so long.”

While Mata has dedicated energy, time and money to supporting the Kings, it wasn’t until 2013 — when the Kings were at risk of leaving the city — that he became a fully-involved fan.

“I gained a new appreciation and affection for the team and began to see them kind of as representative of the city,” he said. 

But after Bay Area rapper and long-time Warriors fan Earl “E-40” Stevens said he was ejected from Game 1 due to racial bias, Mata said he’s seen some reactions “painting Sacramento like it’s a ‘backwoods hick town’ with bad people in it.” 

Stevens and the Sacramento Kings released a joint statement on Apr. 20 saying both parties agreed the incident was a “miscommunication,” with the Kings saying they looked to welcome him back to the arena in the future.

In a conversation Mata had with another Warriors fan, he showed her a photo of a Kings fan holding up a sign that said “Don’t sleep on my Kings, they’re dynasty killers.”

“But the guy had … a handlebar mustache and he was missing a tooth,” he said. “And she made a comment like, ‘Oh, I bet there’s a lot of those people in that arena.’ … And it’s like, you don’t know.” 

Uhlenhop pointed to Sacramento’s diversity as a reflection of the Kings’ varied fanbase and highlighted that fans have “always been dedicated to their team,” especially since “small market teams [like the Kings] are the big sporting event [in the city].”

She said she thinks it's laughable that people try to say ‘no, Sacramento is the Bay,’” an experience codified in one of the closing scenes of Lady Bird, in which the titular character shrugs her hometown off in New York, saying she’s from San Francisco instead of Sacramento. 

“I've never thought that personally … Don't lump us [Kings fans] in,” the lifelong Sacramentan said. “We have very much pride for our Sacramento Kings and the city of Sacramento.”

“It's hard not to have that pride be so intertwined with, you know, pride of the city and pride of where you're from,” she continued. “Even when they’re bad, [Sacramentans are] filling up the stadiums, having fun loving their team. You’re just seeing us on an elevated level, because we’re winning.” 

Though the Kings lost their playoff series, Velasco, who attended college in the Bay Area, is looking forward to visiting with Kings gear on full display and says she’s excited to watch their bright future.

“I remember a Muni bus driver in San Francisco jokingly telling me I couldn’t ride because I had a Kings hoodie on,” she said. “There was even a ‘I’ve never met a Kings fan in my life’ comment, and I just smiled and thought ‘Don’t let the Kings be good; the league won’t know what will hit them when the Kings are good.’”

Uhlenhop said she thinks the Kings will be great for the next years to come, but even if they aren’t, she’s glad to have experienced their performance — and the energy it brought to the city — this year.

“Even if this is the fluke year, I don’t care — this year has been so much fun … and it can make me happy for another 16 years.” 

The Kings will tip-off again in October this year, when the regular season begins again. The draft is scheduled for June 22.