The franchise that would become the Sacramento Kings initially started in the city of Rochester, New York, as the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball League.
At the conclusion of World War II, the United States lacked a major professional basketball league. The National Basketball League decided to fill that void by stepping up from a regional semi-pro league into the nation’s premier professional basketball loop. One of the top professional teams in the country was the Rochester Pros, an independent barnstorming team run by Lester Harrison. They were invited to join the NBL for the 1945–46 season. The team, which had long been known as the Seagrams before briefly adopting the nickname “Pros”, held a name-the-team contest and selected the nickname “Royals”.
Success for the Royals was almost immediate. Founded in 1945 by owner/coach/general manager Les Harrison (Hall of Famer) and his brother and co-owner/business manager Jack Harrison, the team won the NBL championship in 1945–46. The team was led by Bob Davies, Al Cervi, George Glamack, and Otto Graham, a future NFL Hall of Famer, who, in his only season in professional basketball, won a league championship before moving on to football and leading the Cleveland Browns to ten straight championship games, winning seven.
The following season, NBL Governors voted that the regular season “Pennant Winner” would be declared as the official NBL Champion, and the post-season would consist of a separate, non-championship tournament. The Royals finished 31–13 (.705), capturing their second NBL Championship in as many years, but lost in the post-season tournament finals to the Chicago American Gears.
The following season the NBL scrapped their one-year “pennant” experiment, and from that point forward the post-season playoffs would determine the NBL Champion. The Royals again finished with the league’s best overall record at 44–16, but lost to George Mikan’s Minneapolis Lakers 3 games to 1 in the NBL Finals.
In 1948, the Royals moved to the Basketball Association of America along with the Fort Wayne Pistons, Minneapolis Lakers, and Indianapolis (Kautskys) Jets. A year later, the BAA merged with the NBL to become the National Basketball Association.
The Royals won the NBA title in 1951 by defeating the New York Knickerbockers 4 games to 3. It is the only NBA championship in the franchise’s history to date.
The Royals’ twelve-year stay in Rochester featured the services of nine future members of the Basketball Hall of Fame, one member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and a Hollywood Walk of Famer: Al Cervi, Bob Davies, Alex Hannum, Les Harrison, Red Holzman, Arnie Risen, Maurice Stokes, Jack Twyman, Bobby Wanzer, Otto Graham, and Chuck Connors.
In 1957, the Royals were moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, by the Harrison brothers. Despite winning the NBA title in 1951, the Royals had drawn poorly and lost money for five straight years in Rochester and were under pressure to seek a larger market. Cincinnati, which had a strong college basketball fan base and no NFL franchise to compete with, was deemed the best choice. The fact that local college stars Jack Twyman, Dave Piontek and Tom Marshall were on the roster helped make fans quickly.
During the team’s first NBA draft in Cincinnati, the team netted future Hall Of Famer Clyde Lovellette and former star guard George King. They teammed with the 1-2 punch of Maurice Stokes and Twyman to produce a budding contender in the team’s very first season in the Queen City. Injury to Marshall and the loss of star guard Si Green to military service dropped the team into a tie for second place in the NBA Western Division during the 1957–58 season’s second half.
In the season’s finale, All-Pro star Maurice Stokes struck his head when he fell after pursuing a rebound. He shook off the effects of the fall, even as he had briefly been unconscious. After Game One in the playoffs three days later, Stokes head injury was greatly aggravated by airplane cabin pressure during the flight back to Cincinnati for Game Two. He suffered a seizure and was permanently hospitalized, a tragedy that greatly shook the team. Stokes, a tremendous talent who could play center, forward and guard, was 2nd in the NBA in rebounds and 3rd in assists, a double-feat only Wilt Chamberlain has matched for a full season. Without Stokes, the team nearly folded.
Fellow All-Star Twyman rose to All-Pro level the next two seasons for Cincinnati, even as the team posted two 19-win seasons. The 1958–59 Cincinnati team featured five rookies, with Lovellette, King and other key players having left the team in the wake of Stokes’ tragic injury. The Harrisons, under pressure to sell to a local group, sold to a local ownership headed by Thomas Woods. The fact that Stokes was simply dumped by the team and the new ownership infuriated many.
Jack Twyman came to aid of his teammate and even legally adopted Stokes. Raising funds for Stokes’ medical treatment, Twyman helped his fallen teammate until his death in April, 1970. The 1973 feature film Maurie, which co-starred actors Bernie Casey and Bo Svenson, later dramatized their story.
Shootng often for the beleaguered team, Twyman was the second NBA player ever to average 30 points per game for a full NBA season. Both Twyman and Stokes were later named Hall of Famers.
In 1960, the team was able to land local superstar Oscar Robertson. Robertson led a team that included Twyman, Wayne Embry, Bob Boozer, Bucky Bockhorn, Tom Hawkins and Adrian Smith over the next three seasons. The Royals reversed their fortunes with Robertson and rose to title contender. An ownership dispute in early 1963 scuttled the team’s playoff chances when new owner Louis Jacobs booked a circus for Cincinnati Gardens for the week of the playoff series versus the champion Boston Celtics. Jacobs, an aloof owner, would prove no ally to the team’s title hopes.
In late 1963, another local superstar, Jerry Lucas, joined the team. The Royals rose to second-best record in the NBA. From 1963–66, the Royals contended strongly against Boston and the Philadelphia 76ers, but fell short of their title hopes. The team’s star players throughout the 1960s were Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas. Robertson met with individual success, averaging a triple-double in 1961–62 and winning the Most Valuable Player award in 1964. Robertson was a league-leading scorer and passer each season. Lucas was Rookie Of the Year in 1964, led the league in shooting, and later averaged 20 rebounds per game over three seasons. Both were All-NBA First Team selections multiple times.
The Royals were an also-ran throughout the era anyway. The team failed to keep promising players and played in the tough NBA East division, dominated by the Boston Celtics, even as a Baltimore team played in the West Division for three years, denying the team likely visits to the NBA Finals.
In 1966, the team was sold to a pair of brothers named Max and Jeremy Jacobs. That same season, the Royals began playing some of their home games in neutral sites such as Cleveland (until the Cavaliers began play in 1970), Dayton & Columbus, which was the norm for the rest of the Royals tenure in the Queen City.
New coach Bob Cousy, a loyal Boston Celtic, traded Lucas in 1969. Robertson was traded to Milwaukee in 1970, where he would immediately win an NBA title. The declining franchise left Cincinnati shortly thereafter, moving to Kansas City in 1972.
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Moses Eugene Malone (born March 23, 1955 in Petersburg, Virginia) is a retired American Hall of Fame basketball player who starred in both the American Basketball Association and the National Basketball Association.