Some owners presumably just love basketball.

But there's another reason, one that is blatantly real, but that owners will seldom acknowledge: It's the ultimate fan experience. If you're the owner, you get to hang out in the locker room. You get to hang out in press conferences. You get to sit courtside, within earshot of timeouts. You get to slap five with players in key moments of games. You get to invite people like Julius Erving to hang out with you -- and they show up.

There are not a lot of ways to get into that exhilarating swirl of sports and celebrity. There are not a lot of ways to look so cool.

Still, as the last pick of last summer’s draft, Thomas has been a pleasant surprise. Sacramento’s lack of a real point guard has given Thomas ample opportunity to show off his underrated court vision and passing skills. Last year, J.J. Barea made the severely-undersized combo guard in vogue, somehow. If Thomas’ scoring ability ever decides to come out from hiding, there could be longevity in his giant-slaying business.

One of the things I always thought I was blessed with in my career was that I played with a lot of guys who got along well – we had a great group of guys. People always ask me, ‘Do you miss the game?’ I never miss playing, but I miss being around my teammates. We had Eddie (Johnson), Woody (Mike Woodson), Reggie Theus, Otis Thorpe – I love Otis like a brother to this day – Carl Henry, Rich Kelley. We had all these guys who were close and liked each other, and were willing to make sacrifices to make the team better.

"My team is not a family yet," Smart said after the Kings beat the Milwaukee Bucks 103-100. "They’re a bunch of players that come to work every day. We got to get them to grow and be a family together."

The new Kings coach appears to be ripping a page straight from Mike Krzyzewski’s book of life. Coach K once said, "A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional amount of time on "x’s and o’s" as compared to time spent learning about people."

State of the Reunion radio show focuses on Sacramento

Actual DMC highlight - nasty dropstep on JaVale McGee

Tyreke Evans plans to try to organize some team workouts with the #nbakings in late August.

Thursday is Here We Purple day Sacramento! Wear purple to work and tell your friends and family to wear purple! Show the love while the NBA is in town!

Foreboding in Sacramento as the Kings Wither Away

There are a couple of other sides to this card. The first is an unfortunate consequence of supply and demand. A professional basketball team, even a really bad one, is a hot commodity. So, if support for a team does dwindle, said team can just pack their bags and move to greener pastures, even if the dwindling support is completely justified by a crappy product. It happened in Seattle, and it now appears to be happening in Sacramento. In those situations, the choice is very different. Instead of "I am choosing not to support this team right now because they haven't done a good job creating a good product", small market fans are left with "I am choosing to potentially lose the ability to support this team forever because they haven't done a good job creating a good product."

NBA Playbook - Kings' Shoddy Defense Leads to Game Losing Lay-Up

"Everybody’s a Laker fan [in my family]," Jeter said. "They say they don’t boo me when we play against them. They say they boo my team because they’re Laker fans."

It doesn’t strike me. We are the NBA team of the Bay Area. We’re San Francisco, we’re Oakland, we’re San Jose, put them in whatever order you want to put them in. We happen to be playing in Oakland. That’s where the arena is. But we have territorial rights. This is the NBA team for the entire Bay Area, those are our fans, they come to our games, I have friends in Monterey who come to the games. I have friends in Napa who come to the games. People in Sacramento actually who’s not in our territory (laughs)…come to the games. So, it’s an irrelevant point to me. There’s not going to be an NBA team in San Jose.

Savvy/Shabby - Lakers/Kings

8. (New entry) DeMarcus Cousins, Sacramento Kings — 2010-11 stats: 33 GP, 25.9 MPG, 12.8 PPG, 1.6 APG, 7.7 RPG, 0.8 SPG, 0.6 BPG, .437 FG%, .250 3P%, .674 FT%, 14.6 PER

If you watched DMC in college or summer league, you knew that the only thing that could keep him from becoming a top-five center in the NBA is the looseness of his cannon. Presumably, a productive Cousins is a happy Cousins because I’m not hearing any complaints about him now that he’s starting to dominate. If you haven’t watched a full game with him yet, make sure you do. You’ll be amazed that somebody that big is so agile and fluid with the ball. He reminds me of a larger Chris Webber.

The fact is that very few teams that have a top three pick will celebrate a championship with the player they draft; only 9.6% of teams have managed to win a championship with a top three pick that they've drafted (from 1966-2010). In order to be successful, teams need to have several good players and at least one superstar player. Most rookies aren't superstar players, and most top three picks don't play with good teammates.

When Kingdom Come interviews Marty McNeal

New/old Spurs swingman Ime Udoka says it isn’t difficult to erase the remnants of the Sacramento Kings’ system.

"It’s not hard to forget that," said Udoka, 33, who spent last season with the Kings after two with the Spurs. "It was a lot of standing around."

I envision Jason playing a lot of the (small forward)," stated Westphal. "He’s going to play the (small forward), (power forward) and (center) as needed. I can see a lineup of DeMarcus, Jason and Darnell (Jackson) out there, and it lets us present a big front line for people to deal with.

Representatives of Inland American Real Estate Trust Inc. say they want to calm nerves in the capital city after a summer of uncertainty over the fate of the railyard, and to take quick steps to get the redevelopment project back on track...Inland also indicated that it is willing to listen to any development suggestions – including an arena – that could make sense for the site.

Bee: Kings Hope to Play Their Way Into Shape

Aykis presents: The Advanced Statistics Calculator

...Hassan fits the Kings’ rebuilding process very well. Dalembert may/should be gone by the start of next season, vacating the spot of defensive-big-man-who-tries-not-to-get-in-DMC’s-way. I see no reason why Hassan can’t fill this role in the future. If all goes to according to plan, his development should perfectly mirror the team’s – slowly rising from irrelevance over the next two-three years, hitting his stride in the seasons that follow, and hopefully, peaking at great heights in his prime. In that regard, the Kings are absolutely perfect for a project big man.

Just announced: Carl Landry, who suffered an eye injury during Saturday's practice, is out for tonight's game at Golden State.

Cowbell Kingdom: How Dalembert Can Be Used Effectively on Offense