Ric Bucher's post on Sacramento Kings | Latest updates on Sulia

As an aside on the whole Sacramento Kings' mess: can't get out of my head the vision of hefty garbage bags

falling from the sky onto the Kings' court earlier this season. (Technically, they were tarps meant to cover several advertising boards on the scoreboard, but the impression and the inference was of the Basketball Gods tossing down some bags and saying, "Hey, looks like you could use these.") I keep envisioning the Maloofs with some sort of remote control device that caused the tarps to drop at their discretion, since nothing could've driven home the impression that the arena is old and outdated to a national audience more than that, thereby earning them the sympathy vote on why they're trying to get out of town. (And, yes, I know Sacramento had plans to build a new arena that the Maloofs ultimately submarined. The falling tarps made a bigger visceral impression, trust me.) As an aside within an aside, Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson made the same mistake the Orlando Magic made with Dwight Howard: if someone doesn't want to stay, don't keep them hostage. Yes, I get the huge financial hit involved in both cases and why you'd fight/hope/pray your disenchanted partner might change his/her/their mind. But is it worth the hit when they leave, anyway, after you've embarrassed yourself trying to get them to stay? Maybe, fiscally, it is. It just doesn't appear that way.