SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

You could say it started 40 years ago with tipoff inside a warehouse-looking arena in a city that was celebrating its first-ever professional sports team.

The reality, though, is that the celebration of the beginning of the Sacramento Kings spanned an entire year in 1985 for a city that has had to fight for a pro sports team more than once.

In 1985, standing in front of what would become the "temporary" Arco Arena, then-mayor Anne Rudin threw out a little bit of shade: "Eat your heart out, Dick Berkley, my friend, the mayor of Kansas City!" The Capitol City was celebrating the arrival of their first NBA team, one that left Kansas City, to become the Sacramento Kings.

While the negotiations, news, and information were already in a constant stream, however, the team'

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