J.Ross: The Kings Missed Their Chance At A Championship
Dec 7, 2017, 12:00 AM | Updated: Jan 4, 2019, 11:21 am
(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Wednesday night the Sacramento Kings were in Cleveland at Quicken Loans Arena matching up with the red hot Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James.
The Kings were actually playing for a championship. What? Yes, the very prestigious linear championship.
Damien Barling and I from the Lo-Down have adopted the linear championship as a thing to watch this year in the NBA. This all stemmed from when the Kings beat the Warriors at Oracle back on November 27th. Many of our listeners were suggesting that the Kings were now the champ because they had beaten the champ. Well that’s not exactly how it works.
So we went to work to actually track down the current NBA linear champ.
So to figure this out just follow the premise. The NBA champion from last season was the Golden State Warriors. On the opening night of the NBA season they were still the champs until they lost to the Houston Rockets on opening night. So in that line of thinking we track it from there. In fact the second night of the NBA season the Rockets were in Sacramento and the Kings missed out on an early season holding of the title.
The Rockets held it for a while until Memphis ripped it from them. The Grizzlies lost it to the Dallas Mavericks but Dallas gave it right back to Memphis the next night in that home and home back to back that they played. The linear championship rested in Charlotte after that and then bounced to San Antonio. The Greek Freak took it from the Spurs but the Bucks coughed it up to the Dallas Mavericks again. The Mavericks haven’t been that good this year but they have been linear champs twice.
They lost that title to Boston who flipped it to Miami and the Heat watched LeBron and the Cavs take it from them. That is where we sit now. The Cavs have the title and the Kings had their second opportunity to steal it this year.
As you can tell we are having fun with this. We will see how long the Cavs have it for and how many more times will the Kings have a chance at it. Track it yourself, it is fun. #LinearChampionship
