The 2001-2002 Sacramento Kings were one of the best in the history of the franchise. The likes of Chris Webber, Peja Stojakovic, Vlade Divac, Mike Bibby, Doug Christie and Hedo Turkoglu were on the roster. Coached by Rick Adelman, the Kings finished the regular season with a 61-21 record which was good enough to enter the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference.
After passing through the first two rounds of the playoffs relatively easy, the Kings took on the second-seeded Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. Sacramento led the series 3-2 but they lost two games in a row and Los Angeles progressed to the Finals, winning their third straight championships by sweeping New Jersey.
According to Webber, who was a five-time NBA All-Star, the 2001-2002 Kings team should have won the title had they not been cheated in Game 6 of the series versus the Lakers. In a tight contest the LA won by four points. Game 7 went to overtime, which the Lakers won by six points. Webber thinks that getting cheated in Game 6 devastated the Kings so much that they were unable to hold until the end in Game 7.
“I think it’s the, you know, I guess it’s the Lakers,” Webber said per Logan Murdock and Raja Bell of The Ringer as reported by HoopsHype. “I don’t know if that was 2002 or 03. That’s the year we got cheated I think in Game 6… The year Robert Horry hit a crazy shot… It was that year. It was that year. You know, me and Kobe used to talk about it all the time. (…) That was the team. We should have won the championship and we didn’t because we didn’t follow through after being disappointed in Game six.”
