The Sacramento Kings played their first game in their new city in 1985 and Sacramento Bee photographers were there. And they’ve been there for almost every game since. We have a lot of Kings photos.
Our digital photo archive — which didn’t really start in earnest until the late 1990s — currently returns 29,879 images when you search for the team. For almost all of them, we can tell you the exact date it was taken and the photographer’s name.
Most of them are photos of game action, but not all. They include fans, team owners past and present, newsmakers and guests. Major moments in the team’s history — intrinsically linked to the city’s history for the past 40 years — are preserved. And we have some of Slamson.
All of the photos have news-style captions that describe the moment. With our photographers filing about their best 25-ish photos per game to the archive (keep in mind that they actually take more than 2,000 pictures per outing), our collection will hit 30,000 next month.
With the 40th anniversary of the team’s first game just days away, we attempted the impossible task of compiling the 40 most important images. I doubt we succeeded, but you can be the judge. Please take a look.
— Nathaniel Levine, visuals editor