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BLED-BATH AND BEYOND!
Western Conference
Finals...
Game 5.
Kings-Blazers...
Portland up 3-1 going back home with all the momentum after the Kings snagged a
win in close game 3 by 8 points, startling the eventual Champs and perhaps
forcing them to take this Sacramento outfit a little more serious...
267 combined points were dropped that night and as the Kings; Led by Lebron and
Bledsoe, seemed to hit their absolute peak... Were then swiftly reminded who
the real ones were as Portland steamrolled them eventually taking it out in 5.
The Gentlemen's treatment. They would then go on to sweep the Bulls in the
finals with an average winning margin of +10.5 PPG. Some still say the WCF
"showdown", probably more appropriately named "Portland's
momentary lapse in concentration", was indeed the closest we got to a
competitive "finals" series . A representation and true showing of
arguably the two most elite teams in the NSL.
That being said,
just being able to take ONE game off the Champs hasn't gone down very well and
isn't really a notion that has helped comfort the sting of losing here in
Sac-Town.
Bled finished the series with admirable averages of 22/2.4/7.8/1.8 which was by
far the most impactful he'd been all post season let alone through out the
regular season. He was a cult hero, a guy who gets down and dirty and didn't
shy away from a challenge. In the first round up against the Lakers he won over
the Kings faithful with incredible back to back performances... Game 2 he led
the Kings who were down 19 heading into the 4th on a massive run almost pulling
off the come back win with 24 pts and 7 stls going 10-12 from the line. In game
3 he matched this effort with 24pts and 7 assists while shooting 8/12 from the
field in a dominating 24pt blow out.
A lot of clever nick names and hilarious wordplay flooded social media... One that stuck and coincided with both his tenacity on the court but also what he was able to do in striking fear in the hearts of the opponent... The moniker "Bled-Bath" was born. Kings fan took this and ran with it, giddy with excitement as they foresaw a bright future ahead with Bled and Lebron at the helm.
He was in a lot of
ways, the perfect running mate to a guy like Lebron, but even the Sacramento
faithful knew this partnership had a shelf life. With vivid PTSD flashbacks
streaming back to as I recall the painful memories lived only a few years ago,
where the NLL Kings well and truly went all in until they went bust... These
raw memories had fuelled the rumblings of uncertainty and were the cause of
general unease, always present and lingering throughout the off season in
anticipation for what the front office would decide... The decision of what the
immediate and long term future of this franchise would be.
Change came swiftly and all of a sudden one morning we all woke up to the news
that both Lebron and Bledsoe were being traded and sent out East *Phew*. It
seemed the Kings had landed on a temporary rebuild as the answer while still
obviously ensuring the motivation still being a large focus on being
competitive... This may have been influenced just a little, by the fact they
have Draft pick "I.O.U's" for decades to come... A few Smooth Klemm
trade shenanigans later and the Kings managed to bring in
Middleton/Siakam/DJ/Holmes just to name a few, while managing to keep guys like
KCP, Bog and Noel around... Things were looking good and the Kings had options,
opening up and extending their window to contend by years while making sure to
have all their core pieces locked up for multiple. All this while still looking
mighty tasty on paper in terms of overall fit and upside.
12 trades later and we've just hit the half way point of the 2020-2021 season
being week 10... 43 different players have walked in and out of the Kings
facility doors and although we seem to be always saying this on a loop as the
weeks rolls by... It would look like the front office has managed to put
together what resembles a roster built to contend. The Kings have had one of
the tougher schedules to date and short of the nice little run they just went
on, rattling off 5 in a row, they head into week 10 with an abysmal 18-20
record sitting a game or two back from the top 8. 4/5 of the upcoming weeks are
against below .500 teams on average with a particularly friendly run home with
LAL, UTA, MIN, ATL, BOS x2, GS, MIA in the last 3 weeks. There should be no
reason that they can't ATLEAST manage a 8-4 run home in that time and that's
assuming losses to all above .500 teams.
This very optimistic Kings fanatic has projected them to go 24-16 to close out
the season, finishing with a 44-38 record... A little short of the much
proclaimed and to be expected 50 wins we're all so accustomed to, but nether
the less, it's good for a 5th-8th seed and with any luck, have us out of the
death zone that is an invitation to the first round slaughter house at the
hands of the likes of Portland and San Antonio...
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