| | | SACRAMENTO -- OK, you want an example, I'll give you one.
Several years ago, the coach of the Sacramento Kings is Garry St. Jean. It's late in a season -- pick any season -- and the team stinks, and it is the middle of the third quarter of some game that, on paper, probably was decided before tipoff; and several rows behind the Kings' bench there stands a collection of fans just bellowing at the top of their lungs, desperately trying to get St. Jean's attention.
|  | | In good times and bad, Kings fans make it tough for visitors to win in Arco Arena. |
"Come on, Saint!" one man is screaming. "You've got to make the substitution! You know he's earned his minutes!"
The game is technically see-sawing, and these fans are absolutely certain of what it is they want. And they stay on St. Jean for the rest of the game, whereupon they flood the local talk radio outlet with criticisms of the coach for not making the bench move that was so obviously called for to win.
You know who they wanted?
Pete Chilcutt.
The fans in Sacramento are getting the love right now. People are lining up to tell them what wonderful fans they are. They get the magazine love. They get the Internet love. Standing in a hallway the other day after watching his Philadelphia 76ers take a wild overtime victory from the Kings at raucous Arco Arena, coach Larry Brown shook his head in wonderment and said, "This is just a great place to be a basketball player."
And it's all well and good, as far as it goes. The thing is, it doesn't go remotely far enough. Put it this way: Anybody can show up to cheer Jason Williams and Chris Webber and Vlade Divac and a legit title contender.
Let's see you get passionate about Pete Chilcutt and 50 losses.
Nothing against Chili, mind you. But you have to understand that, long before they raised the roof for Webber and Divac, the fans in Sacramento rattled the beams for such frontliners as Duane Causwell and Wayman Tisdale. They've treated Tyus Edney like he was Michael Jordan finishing a break. They have seen the move from 25-57 to 28-54 as cause for optimism, as evidence that things were about to turn.
They sold out every game when the Kings moved from Kansas City into a smallish building that sat in the middle of a sheep field, and they sold out every game when the Kings moved a few years later to the larger Arco building on the other side of the sheep field. Sacramento had legitimate sellouts for almost every home game for its first dozen seasons in town, despite never once finishing with a plus-.500 record.
In some markets, especially larger ones, such blind loyalty would be considered damn foolishness. You mean to say you keep saddling up with that loser every year? But Sacramento is not like other markets, and there is a wonderfully simple reason why:
Actual people attend games.
You think I'm kidding. According to the NBA's own leaguewide numbers, approximately 80 percent of its season tickets are held by corporate entities. In Sacramento, that figure is stood on its head -- roughly eight of every 10 season tickets are held by individuals. Stuffed shirts pass tickets along to flunkies, who might or might not decide to use them, since the ducats didn't cost them a dime. Going to a game thus becomes merely a dull option, just something to maybe do. (This is known out West as the Laker effect.)
Kings fans, on the other hand, hoard tickets like bullion in a town with almost no other sports options. If someone drops a couple of decent seats on you for an upcoming game, consider yourself fully befriended. You must be in the loop.
Sacramento never got past the cheerleading stage, thank goodness. It was a college atmosphere when the fans first piled into the old place, which seated barely more than 10,000, and it has just never really changed, even if the past two winning seasons are slowly beginning to produce a little more sophistication on the part of the game-goers. In an NBA long on TV revenue and often startlingly short of actual atmosphere, it's refreshing.
"It always feels like a different game when you play in Sacramento," Allen Iverson said. "Their crowd is into the game big-time. ... You get them down, they still scream and do a lot for the Kings. It's tough to win here."
Didn't used to be. But even when the team stunk, the fans were great. They love Chris Webber in Sacramento these days, which is terrific. Just don't forget that, long before it was fashionable to be passionate about all things King, they once cried out for more Chili.
Mark Kreidler, a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com and Page 2.
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