Do you remember the NBA in 2011?

LeBron James was dominating the league, the San Antonio Spurs won 61 games and Chris Paul lost in the first round of the playoffs. All these story lines could apply to both the 2010-11 and 2016-17 seasons, yet six years have gone by in the interim. For many teams and fans of the league, 2011 doesn’t seem like that long ago.

But for the Sacramento Kings, 2011 was an eternity ago.

The Kings just drafted DeMarcus Cousins, but they had a big problem: They were trying to show Sacramento the team belonged in the city. Rumblings of a move to Anaheim were germinating, so the franchise needed a way to stir up revenue for a new stadium in its current location. In an attempt to build excitement around the team and improve the roster, the Kings made a trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers to acquire J.J. Hickson, a young big man who had just averaged 13.8 points and 8.7 rebounds as a 22-year-old. The deal added youth and talent, but nobody around the league could possibly have predicted the long-term effects it would have. The final pentameters ended up as follows:

• Cavaliers receive: Omri Casspi and a future protected first-round pick
• Kings receive: J.J. Hickson

Hickson and Omri Casspi went on to be marginal players for their new teams, so the protected pick ended up as the best asset changing hands. It contained a lottery protection in 2012 and was covered for the top 13 selections in 2013, top 12 in 2014 and top 10 from 2015 through 2017. If the Kings somehow found a way to keep all of those choices, it would become an unprotected second-rounder in 2017.

The Kings were a youthful group heading into the 2011-12 season. Cousins was a rookie, Hickson was 23 and people still had high hopes for 2009 Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans. Nobody thought they would be good in 2011, but many thought they had the pieces to change that in the near future. Hence why both they and the Cavaliers were happy to have the protections on the pick from the trade: It was likely going to convey at a time that fit Cleveland’s rebuilding timeline and Sacramento’s win-now window. The Kings would finish 22-44 in the lockout shortened season, and, as a result, they kept their first-round pick in 2012 and used it to select Thomas Robinson, a rebounding power forward who never amounted to much in his original uniform.

Then, in 2013, the franchise took a few steps forward. They won six more games than the season prior, and while they weren’t necessarily a good team, they jumped from 22 to 28 wins. The pick did not convey again, and they were able to draft Ben McLemore as a result, but all signs pointed to them being an organization on the rise.

In 2014, there was a twist of fate. The Cavaliers were improving and thought they were one piece away from making noise in the Eastern conference. Since the first-rounder had not been sent from Sacramento to the Cleveland yet, the Cavs were free to trade it, and they did just that. They sent the pick to the Chicago Bulls to acquire Luol Deng.

The Bulls made this trade mostly to get out of the luxury tax, but they were happy to acquire draft picks from the Cavs. They were in season 2.5 of the Derrick Rose injury saga and excited to add draft picks to a roster that desperately needed youth. They saw Sacramento was improving, and any day now, the Bulls thought, the pick would transfer from away from the southwestern portion of the United States.

The Kings improved again, enhancing their differential by almost two points per game, but it didn’t yield results. They finished 2014 with 28 wins yet again—good enough for the eighth-worst record in the league, and they selected Nik Stauskas with the No. 8 pick in the draft. Stauskas’s time in Sacramento was short as well; he was dealt away in one of the worst trades in NBA history, which I wrote about last week.

Alas, 2014 became another year the first-rounder did not shift to the Bulls. Instead, they looked forward to having the selection in the near future as the protections dropped to the top 10 picks for the next three seasons. The front office had to hope Sacramento’s would be decent enough during that time for the choice to convey their way.

But the Kings just kept Kings-ing.

They could not get any better. If they tried to tank for a good young player, they would miss on the draft pick. If they signed a veteran improve the roster, they couldn’t figure out how to make the guy gel with the players already in place. The losing just kept piling up, and the protected pick did not reach the Bulls in 2015 or 2016, allowing the Kings to draft Willie Cauley-Stein and Marquese Chriss (who they immediately traded for a bevy of other assets).

Unbelievably, in 2017, the pick obligation remained in the Bulls’ hands. Hickson, the man who started all of this, was out of the league. The Kings hadn’t posted a winning record since 2006. But Chicago had one more chance.

At the All-Star break, Sacramento was a modest 24-29, and it looked like the selection would land right around No. 10. But then, rather abruptly, it blew everything up, trading away DeMarcus Cousins (and, hilariously, Omri Casspi again), in a move that clearly signaled the team was headed for a rebuild. The Kings went 8-21 the rest of the season and finished with the eighth-worst record.

But there was hope.

Since the pick was top-10 protected, there was a chance it might fall to No. 11 in the draft. The odds sat at less than 0.01 percent, so cue up the “So you’re telling me there’s a chance” memes, but at least it was something.

And then it was nothing.

The Kings wound up getting the third pick, and the Bulls did not receive a first-rounder in the deal at all. Instead, the Hickson trade finally came to fruition in another way—Sacramento’s second-round draft choice went to Chicago. Thankfully, it was a high second-rounder; after all these years, they ended up conveying the 38th pick in the 2017 NBA draft.

But wait! There’s more!

So, finally, the Bulls were on the clock to make the selection conveyed from a deal originally agreed upon in 2011. They selected Jordan Bell, a defensive-minded post player out of Oregon. Fans and media members alike were happy they made a good pick, landing a high-upside player in the second round.

Except, the transactions weren’t done. Chicago, anxious to have money on hand for some reason, sold the pick—and Bell’s draft rights—to the Golden State Warriors. After all that waiting, the selection basically turned into $3.5 million in cash. (Side note: If the Warriors call and say they want to buy a player, maybe think about why that is happening).

Somehow, the Kings just never figured it out. They always believed they were on the verge of contention, but even with an All-NBA center, they never got there, and the franchise still has not made the playoffs since 2006.

For perspective, here are the odds the pick would convey in any given year, based on both the projected Kings record (from Bleacher Report) and the record they finished with that season:

Looking at the forecasted league-wide finishes, you can see why the Bulls had optimism. Sure, the pick was unlikely to convey for some of the seasons. But there was only a 2.9 percent chance the Kings would keep the selection, so Chicago thought it was getting a good deal.

And yet, even though the Kings finished close to their projected record every season, they were fortunate—insofar as their oft-crummy state of affairs could ever be construed as “fortunate.” They were able to get Hickson while losing only a 2017 second-round pick. They may not have used the six draft picks they retained in a particularly constructive way—four of them are already off the roster—but this is the best-case outcome to a no-win situation.

Provided Jordan Bell doesn’t turn into the second-coming of Draymond Green with Golden State, of course.

Follow Tony on Twitter @SuperDuperTone.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from NBA Math, Basketball Reference or NBA.com.