SACRAMENTO -- The Kings’ storybook season officially is over, but the team is just getting started.
After Steph Curry’s historic 50-piece sent the Kings “night night” while the sun still shined on Sunday at Golden 1 Center, Sacramento kept its heads held high because, despite the first-round exit from their first playoff appearance in 17 years, the team -- and everyone watching -- knows they are just getting started.
“I'm excited about this team,” Kings coach Mike Brown said after the Kings’ 120-100 Game 7 loss. “I got a lot of gratitude for everybody in that locker room. I think we obviously have a chance to really, really be good in the future.
“This obviously stings, it’s going to sting for a while, and it should. It's supposed to sting and hopefully, we'll be able to use this and remember what this feels like so that when we get going to summer, we can crank it up a notch so we don't feel a sting again next year.”
The Kings entered the 2022-23 season as they have every season for nearly two decades. Overlooked. Mocked. The laughing stock of the league.
Understandably so, since they hadn’t made it to the playoffs since the 2005-06 season. But with new coaches and new players, a new culture was established in Sacramento. Discipline. Accountability. Confidence. Togetherness. Just some of the fundamentals engraved in this young team early on that helped them eventually shock the world six months later.
They had their backs up against the wall all season, and that didn’t change when their first playoff test as a collective unit came against none other than their Northern California neighbors, whose Hall-of-Fame core is on a mission to win its fifth title in nine seasons.
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The Kings never were supposed to win this series. Somehow, though, they forced the only first-round Game 7 this season -- against the experienced playoff Warriors.
Of course, to be experienced you have to earn experience. The season didn’t end the way the Kings wanted it to, but it set the stage for what’s to come in Sacramento.
“This is definitely a building block,” Kings guard De’Aaron Fox said postgame. “Obviously, being able to play a team like this, we all have tremendous respect for who have been there and done that. This is definitely just something that you build on. I mean, we had a good season, the third seed, we stayed relatively healthy. I think playing against this team and in the first round was a blessing and a curse, you can learn a lot. You're not the favorite to win. We fought every game, but they did what champions do.
“And for us, I feel like a lot of the guys, whoever's back next year, obviously we still relatively have a younger team. I feel like we learned a lot this series. … This is a lot of our first times in the postseason. You got a taste of it, you got to feel what it was like to play against a team who's a championship contender just about year in and year out. And you take that and you build off of it.”
Fox playing in his first NBA playoff series might have gotten lost in the intensity of the series. But yes, Fox made his playoff debut and, as expected, rose to the occasion for his team. And in the end, everyone now knows his name.
“You know, people know who I am now,” Fox said. “Being able to play on this stage and perform. I don't think I played well tonight. I know there's another level that I have to get to as a professional and that our team has to get to as well, but I'm grateful for this experience.”
While the rest of the league finally got to witness the player that the organization has been in awe of for years, the world got a front-row seat to the must-watch De’Aaron Fox Show.
It’s nothing he hadn't done all season, but after introducing “Fourth-quarter Fox” and now “Playoff Fox”, he knows there’s more in store for him.
“It was great for this to be our and my first playoffs ever. This is a learning experience for us,” Fox added. “Being at the age that we are, hopefully, you have a lot of basketball left to be played. You're entering your prime. You want to have the best years of your basketball career coming up. So losing to this team, you just learn from it. You take everything that they did to us, that they taught us and you try to try to be better at those things and just continue to work at it.
“Obviously, you want to get back to the playoffs and you want to advance but you know it doesn't work that way. You got to go through the regular season, putting your body through it and getting to the playoffs, you want to be as healthy as you can possibly be and just be ready to play.”
After scoring at least 24 points in his first six playoff games, Fox, playing through a fractured index finger on his left shooting hand, struggled offensively in Game 7.
Entering Sunday’s do-or-die game, the 25-year-old averaged 29.3 points on 44.5 percent shooting from the field, 5.8 rebounds and 8.0 assists. He had 38 points in his playoff debut, and then dropped 24, 26, 28, 24, 26 in the five games after that, respectively. He finished Game 7 with 16 points on 5-of-19 shooting from the field and 3 of 10 from 3-point range.
“Fox was great,” Brown said. “He struggled [today] obviously, but he was fantastic. He always seemed in the moment. When you have a guy that has a chance to be special, you can feel it and I felt it from him throughout the whole playoff series.
“I'm excited to be working with him going forward because he's going to do a lot for this city, for this organization in terms of helping us try to fight for that championship we're so desperately trying to get.”
While the team surpassed their preseason expectations, Fox accomplished his own milestones. He became a first-time All-Star this season and won the league's Clutch Player of the Year award.
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As fans watching around the world learned about Fox and his game, I asked Fox if there was anything he has learned about himself over this wild and emotional journey of a season.
“I don't know if I will say if there's anything I've learned about myself, but just being resilient, just coming in and knowing that I could play on the big stage," Fox said. "I feel like I learned lessons about basketball and just what it takes to win at a high level, especially when you see a team over and over again, this first time that I've ever had to do that.
"You know, you might see a team four times in a year but you know, it's spaced across this year ... Now we played a team seven times in two weeks. That was definitely a learning lesson. I'm happy that I got to experience that."
This team, whose core includes Fox, Domantas Sabonis, Malik Monk, Kevin Huerter, Davion Mitchell and Keegan Murray, has an average age of 24.3 years "old". They displayed their youthful energy in their first postseason appearance together, and that is expected to carry over into at least the next few seasons.
The beam wasn't lit on Sunday, but like the purple laser sensation, this team isn't going anywhere.