The flashy innovator whose playground style captivated so much of the basketball community loved running a Princeton offense on fast forward and we loved watching. In the late 90′s, you couldn’t go more than a city block without a #55 jersey being spotted – a jersey, that in Williams’ rookie year became a top 5 seller, sharing the stage with the likes of Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson and Shaquille O’Neal.

It was a short lived relationship though as Williams was moved to Memphis in exchange for Mike Bibby and Brent Price just three seasons into his career, with Bibby’s clutch play quickly taking over Williams’ love within the Kingdom. Although not nearly as smooth with the rock, the more consistent Bibby wasn’t forced to sit out entire fourth quarters of NBA playoff games because of a flashy, but often mistake-prone game.

Still – now a decade plus removed from his last game as a Sacramento King, few players outside of potentially Chris Webber, Wayman Tisdale or Peja Stojakovic would find themselves on more All-Time King lists than White Chocolate.

News is slow, so, it’s time for a trip down memory lane – something we’ll figure to do quite a bit of during this lockout unless you want daily shirtless pictures of Peja. I have enough for a few years, so, pick your poison.

Today during my pillaging of YouTube I came across a fancy little mix from Answerhong featuring one of my all-time favorite Kings, Jason Williams. I know a lot of people praise C-Webb and Vlade for putting the Kings on the map and I certainly can’t argue with that, but, J-Will most definitely deserves some love as well. His flashy skill-set not only brought new found hope to King fans who’d suffered through thirteen straight losing seasons – but also a national spotlight on the forgotten franchise.

The Kings finished J-Will’s rookie campaign with their first winning record (27-23) in Sacramento history.

Like Scott pointed out last week, the similarities between the 1998 lockout and the 2011 lockout are eerie...let’s hope they repeat themselves.