Ask anyone, and they will tell you that the Sacramento Kings' most successful era since moving to Northern California came in the early 2000s. From 2000-05, the Kings won at least 50 games each season.
Without question, the apex of this epoch was in 2002 when the Kings came within one win of going to the NBA Finals. In the Western Conference Finals, the Kings squared off against Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant's Los Angeles Lakers, falling to the Purple and Gold four games to three.
A key part of those Kings' teams was Peja Stojakovic. In Stojakovic's eight seasons in Sacramento, he made three All-Star appearances and one All-NBA team. In 2001-02, the year in question, Stojakovic finished 16th in MVP voting.
Anyway, the renowned Knuckleheads Podcast from The Players' Tribune had Stojakovic on the show.And among the variety of topics they discussed, naturally, the 2002 series against the Lakers came up.
Peja Stojakovic speaks out about the 2002 Western Conference Finals
On the podcast, Stojakovic had this to say about the series:
"I mean, playing against and , it was hard because both of them demanded a double team...It always made us scramble. Let's say we are going to protect the paint, we are going to double right away. Then, we are running to shooters, and gets the ball," Stojakovic explained on the Knuckleheads Podcast.
Stojakovic continued, "But we had them. I think we had the Game 7 at home. I personally look back and think of the things I could have done better. that we could have done better. I missed a corner shot. It was our opportunity. It was definitely our year, and we were not able to through them."
If you're a fan of the Kings, any mention/reference to this series brings immediate sadness and despair. However, you have to admit there is a certain level of freshness to Stojakovic's perspective.
So many times, when you hear people talk about this series, you hear people mention all the controversy that took place with the officiating. Tim Donaghy – a former NBA referee who was banned from the league for fixing games – once admitted that the league may have had one of the referees on the call for Game 6 tilt the contest in favor of the Lakers.
Here, Stojakovic doesn't focus on what was out of his control at the time. He was very complimentary toward O'Neal and Bryant, discussing why their combined splendor made them such a difficult tandem to gameplan for. Then, instead of blaming the series on unknown variables, Stojakovic talks about what he could have done to produce a different result.
When is the next time the Kings will come this close to an NBA title? Could it be as soon as this season? Hopefully, we don't need to wait much longer to see a deep Kings' run because the team let their best chance (so far) slip away in 2002.