Mayor Quinton Lucas invites another NBA team to relocate to Kansas City
Next Thursday marks the 37th anniversary of the final regular-season NBA game played in Kansas City.
Byron Scott had 25 points and five Lakers players scored in double figures in a 122-116 victory over the Kansas City Kings at Kemper Arena. It was the final regular-season game of the 1984-85 season.
The Kings, who finished with a 31-51 record, moved to Sacramento following the season, despite being in the playoffs in four of the previous seven seasons. That included a trip to the Western Conference Finals in 1981.
Despite a successful stretch that included postseason appearances in eight straight seasons (1998-06), the Kings have fallen on hard times and will miss the playoffs for a 16th straight season.
The Athletic’s Anthony Slater wrote a story that looked at what’s next for the franchise. A tweet about that story led Mayor Quinton Lucas to invite the franchise to return to Kansas City, where the team played from 1972-85 (including three seasons split between KC and Omaha).
Unfortunately for NBA fans, a Kings return seems highly unlikely for a couple of reasons.
First, the Kings tried to move just nine years ago. The franchise hoped to relocate to Seattle, but the NBA’s relocation committee unanimously voted down the move, as KHTK AM noted.
After the failed bid to play in Seattle, a new arena was built for the Kings. The Golden 1 Center opened in 2016, so the arena is still fairly new. That wouldn’t be cause for the franchise to leave.
This is not the first time Lucas has openly invited a team to play in Kansas City. In August 2020, he said the Thunder would be welcome if they left Oklahoma City. Two months later, Lucas formally invited the Toronto Raptors to play at the T-Mobile Center because they couldn’t return to Canada because of COVID-19 restrictions at the time.
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 12:15 PM.
