Winning Percentage: 74.4 (3rd in franchise history)
The Sacramento Kings actually have a title in their franchise history, but it came from a 1950-51 Rochester Royals team that went 41-27 and won the championship in an 11-team league.
With all due respect to that era and Arnie Risen (who led the team in scoring at 16.3 points per game), the early 2000s Kings have the greater legacy. And the 2001-02 team, specifically, took the eventual champion Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers to the brink in a seven-game series later steeped in controversy.
That season, Chris Webber averaged 24.5 points, 10.1 rebounds, 4.8 assits, 1.7 steals and 1.4 blocks. Peja Stojaković went for 21.2 points and 1.8 threes, while shooting 41.6 percent from deep. Mike Bibby added 13.7 points and 5.0 assists. And Vlade Divac, who averaged 11.1 points, 8.4 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.2 blocks and 1.0 steals, was one of the league’s ultimate glue guys (and something of a trailblazer for modern bigs like Jokić).
The Kings played a fun, uptempo and team-first style that helped the league shake out of its post-Jordan malaise. They led the league in regular season wins, were top six in both offense and defense and had separate 2-1 and 3-2 leads over the Lakers in the conference finals.
Had they escaped that now infamous series, there’s a good chance Sacramento would’ve won it all.