It is kind of a weird time to be a Sacramento Kings fan. Along with the team sorely lacking direction, they also don't have much going on right now.
They are out of the playoffs, and they don't have a first round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.When you really think about it, the Kings don't really have much to look forward to until the start of free agency.
So, to entertain themselves, popular Kings' social media accounts have resorted to deception, including a clever poll that made nearly three-fourths of voters look like fools.
Kings fans say they would rather have Domantas Sabonis than Chris Webber
On Tuesday, the popular Kings Twitter account (I refuse to call it "X"), KingsMuse, tweeted out a classic "Player A versus Player B" Twitter poll.
In total, 250 people participated in the poll, with nearly 75% of people selecting Player B. Just looking at the numbers posted above, this seems like the right call. But when you figure out who the two players are, it changes everything.
Player B is Domantas Sabonis during his time with the Kings. Meanwhile, Player A is Chris Webber in his seasons with Sacramento.
Ever since being traded to Sacramento, Sabonis has put together some monster statistical seasons with the Kings. However, hardly anyone would argue that he was better than Webber was in Sacramento.
Last offseason, Sactown Sports constructed a panel of journalists, media personalities, and fans to vote on the top 40 players in the Sacramento era (1985-present). Despite only having been with the team for 2.5 years at the time of the exercise, Sabonis still finished eighth in these rankings. But even his modest placement was nothing compared to Webber, who was named the greatest Kings player of the last four decades by the panel.
The fact that so many people were fooled in the poll illustrates the problem with using box score statistics, particularly when it comes to comparing players from different eras.
It would be one thing if both of them played in the same era, but the numbers above say nothing about the differences in pace and space that the two parties were dealing with.
A better way to compare players from different eras is by using things like percentiles/ranks from their specific seasons. For instance, from 2000 to 2003, Webber finished in the 91st percentile or higher in augmented plus-minus (AuPM, per Thinking Basketball). Meanwhile, Sabonis was just in the 69th percentile in this category in 2023-24 (he was in the 95th percentile in 2024-25, though).
The bottom line is that using percentiles is a much better way to compare players from different eras, and it gives you a better chance of looking silly on polls like this one.