SACRAMENTO, Calif. ? The title of Regular Season Kings of the NBA had just been bestowed upon Sacramento's Kings when some nightly basketball pundits were asked what they thought of it all. They wound up talking about the Mavericks' chances against the Lakers.

A day after the Mavericks completed their sweep of the Minnesotans, Jim Rome asked me on his TV show about Dallas' favorite basketball team. (Excuse the dropped name, for I'm just trying to underscore a point.) Rome wanted to know if I thought the Mavericks had enough to beat the Lakers.

"Hey, what about the Kings?"

I ask: Has a team (Sacramento) that has done so much (win 61 games) been written off so fast (a matter of weeks) by so many people (folks from co ast to coast)? It is as if the Kings have turned into little more competition than the Washington Generals and a Lakers-Mavericks' conference finals is all but prearranged, like marriages in parts of Central Asia or the championship college football game.