The Sacramento Kings are starting from the ground up next season, with a new ownership group, front office and coaching staff. It’s the latest rebuilding job for a franchise that hasn’t made the playoffs in seven years, the second-longest drought in the NBA. The Kings went through four head coaches in the last five seasons, never winning more than 28 games. With the Maloof brothers trying to force their way out of town, it was basically the plot of Major League in real life.

An NBA franchise almost has to try to be that bad for so long. While Sacramento hasn’t gotten any lucky bounces in the lottery lately, over the last five years, they picked at No. 4, No. 5, No. 7, No. 5 and No. 7. That’s the whole point of a reverse-order draft: the bad teams get the first crack at all the best young players. As poorly as the franchise has been mismanaged, all they really had to do was get their picks right. If you draft well enough, everything else takes care of itself.

By the end of Geoff Petrie’s tenure as GM, the Kings seemed to be blindly picking the biggest name on the board every year. It worked out well in 2009 and 2010, when they took Tyreke Evans at No. 4 and DeMarcus Cousins at No. 5. Both have significant holes in their game, but are talented enough to be starters on a good team. Unfortunately, no more talent came up behind them. The Kings whiffed badly in 2011 (Jimmer Fredette) and 2012 (Thomas Robinson).

Fredette was a huge star at BYU, averaging 29 points a game and sweeping the Player of the Year Awards. Nevertheless, his struggles in the NBA shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise. A relatively unathletic 6’2 195 combo guard, he didn’t have the size to be a shooting guard at the next level. Even worse, he didn’t have the playmaking ability to be a full-time point guard. As a rookie, he was beat out by Isaiah Thomas, whom the Kings took with the last pick of the second round.

The draft in 2011 wasn’t particularly strong, but Sacramento had a lot of options better than Fredette. They ended up trading back to No. 10 in a bizarre three-team deal, where the following players were still available: Klay Thompson (No. 11), Kawhi Leonard (No. 15), Nikola Vucevic (No. 16), Iman Shumpert (No. 17) and Tobias Harris (No. 19). In his second season, the Jimmer showed some promise as a bench scorer, but he would not be a Top 20 pick in a redraft of 2011.

The Kings compounded the error in 2012. Thomas Robinson, after being discussed as a Top-3 pick before the draft, fell to them at No. 5. An athletic 6’9 240 power forward who averaged 18 points and 12 rebounds a game and carried Kansas to the NCAA title game, he seemed like a fairly safe pick. However, a closer look at his game and level of competition would have revealed serious flaws. Robinson can’t shoot, defend or create his own shot, which became obvious in the NBA.

Even worse, Sacramento passed on a number of excellent prospects to take him. Damian Lillard, a polished senior point guard from Weber State, was the next player off the board at No. 6. As rookies, Harrison Barnes (No. 7), Andre Drummond (No. 9) and John Henson (No. 14) all showed far more potential. That doesn’t even count players like Terrence Ross (No. 7), Jeremy Lamb (No. 12) and Terrence Jones (No. 17), who could establish themselves in their second year.

Hindsight is 20/20, but the Kings left some excellent talent on the board. If they had selected Leonard and Lillard, they would be 4/5 of the way to a quality starting five. The presence of so many talented young players could have had a domino effect as well, making Sacramento a more attractive destination for free agents. Don’t pass on Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes in consecutive drafts and maybe the Kings win the Andre Iguodala sweepstakes.

Of course, the $64,000 question is whether those players would have looked as good had they been in Fredette and Robinson’s shoes. Without a center who could protect the rim or a point guard who could create open shots, Sacramento was hardly an ideal situation for a young player. However, it’s not like guys are leaving and lighting the world on fire either. Robinson lasted six months with the Houston Rockets, who dumped him for cap space.

Right now, DeMarcus Cousins is the closest thing to a building block on the Kings' roster. Ben McLemore, their first-round pick, could be that in time, but he is a 20-year-old who will need to be brought along slowly. They turned Tyreke Evans into Greivis Vasquez, a productive 6’6 PG with defensive issues. Patrick Patterson, Carl Landry and Jason Thompson can all play next to Cousins upfront, but there isn’t a high-level NBA starter among them.

Sacramento is probably two more good starters away from becoming a legitimate playoff contender. Ideally, the new front office will be more active when it comes to asset management and improving the roster, but their best chances to grab those players will come in the 2014 and 2015 drafts. No matter where the Kings wind up in the lottery, there will be multiple guys available who can become cornerstone players. All they have to do is identify them.

Drafting young players into the NBA is an inexact science, but rebuilding is still easier than in most sports. In the MLB, it can take 4-5 years for draft picks to come up through the farm system and establish themselves in the major leagues. In European soccer, clubs like FC Barcelona develop players from the age of 12. NBA teams, in contrast, are given the chance to pay below-market wages to the best 19- to 22-year-old players from all over the world on an annual basis.

With one of the most anticipated draft classes in the last decade on tap, tanking has become a hot topic league-wide. However, even in a draft as potentially loaded as 2014, where a team makes its picks (unless they get the No. 1 overall in the right year) isn’t as important as how they are making them. Sacramento will either get better at identifying young talent or they won’t. In the NBA, that’s what separates the good franchises from the bad ones.