Sports and arena politics have changed quite a bit since Gregg Lukenbill brought the Kings to Sacramento from Kansas City in 1985. The original owner of the Kings still lives in the area and is excited about what Vivek Ranadive is doing with the franchise and Sacramento.
Gregg Lukenbill entered the NBA as the owner of the Sacramento Kings shortly after the David Stern era began and Michael Jordan was drafted by the Chicago Bulls.
It was a different NBA, different California and a different Sacramento.
Lukenbill, a Sacramento native always known for sporting a simple pair of jeans and plaid shirt on regular basis, sold his share of the team in 1992 to Jim Thomas. Some 20 years later, Sacramento has its fourth team owner in Vivek Ranadive. One man brought the team here and the other saved it by preventing a relocation attempt to Seattle with the help of Mayor Kevin Johnson and others. As Ranadive leads the revival of the franchise on the court and in building a new downtown arena, Lukenbill, who still resides in East Sacramento, is watching as the city he always believed deserved to be "major league" takes a giant leap forward.
"I love the guy [Ranadive], he's world-class. He's the kind of guy we need in Sacramento and I think his vision is ideal for an opportunistic interchange between Sacramento as the state Capitol and the world," Lukenbill said. "I think this guy is effectively going to be Sacramento's ambassador to world, and I think he's a world-class human being and I think we're incredibly blessed and lucky to have a guy like that."
Lukenbill was the guy Sacramento needed in the early 80s. He cut through red tape created by an adverse political atmosphere at the time. He claims he was told if he got a team to come to Sacramento, the city would provide him the zoning for an arena. But when he got the deal in place to move the Kings from Kansas City to Sacramento in 1984-1985, the zoning wasn't made available to him so he "had to go build the building in the county instead of the city," he said.
"That's how spectacular the politics was in this town," Lukenbill said.
These days, things are a little different as the political climate in Sacramento, especially as it relates to sports and arena politics, revolves around Kevin Johnson and the connections that he has made to not only keep the Kings in town, but also put together an ownership group that is contributing $254 million for the new downtown arena and showing interest in bringing a Major League Soccer team and bringing it to Sacramento.
The political environment Johnson has been able to cultivate is something Lukenbill admires.
"Phenomenal job by Kevin Johnson. You just cannot say enough about how this group of people gelled in a great opportunity, and a great moment for Sacramento. It's probably in the top four or five most historic things that's ever happened for the future of Sacramento … They probably saved the Maloofs from themselves," Lukenbill said. "I couldn't have done this 30 years ago, I couldn't have done this 20 years ago - nobody could have done this 20 years ago. It was a different environment."
Lukenbill knows a thing or two about development projects - he is a construction man at heart, having not only built Arco Arena 1 and Arco Arena 2, but he also played a part in building the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Sacramento.
Lukenbill credits Gov. Jerry Brown for putting California's economic environment back on the rails and therefore, Sacramento on the right path at the right time for the arena project to happen. Along with Johnson and Ranadive, Lukenbill acknowledges how big of a role Sen. Darrell Steinberg and former NBA Commissioner David Stern played in making this all happen.
"You better know that David Stern is the guy who made this happen, because that's the kind of commissioner David Stern was. He was just a guy who was an incredibly resourceful commissioner," Lukenbill said. "If they had a hall of fame for commissioners, I think David Stern would be the leader of the pack probably in the entire history of professional sports in America."
Bringing the Kings to Sacramento was one of Stern's first major decisions as NBA Commissioner. He visited Sleep Train Arena for the season opener last season and had this to say.
"It means a lot to me that we were able to respond to this city, which responded so well to us," said Stern, who plans to be back in town when the new arena opens in 2016.
These days, Stern's old partner Lukenbill works for Dynamic Airways, a charter jet company established in 2010. He's experienced his ups and downs as a business and NBA owner, but Lukenbill has always put the betterment of Sacramento front and center. A shell of a baseball stadium still sits abandoned next to Sleep Train Arena that he started. The guy also was in negotiations to bring the Oakland Raiders to town at one point. Both of these things are examples of how difficult it can be to both lure a team and build an arena/stadium.
Lukenbill still studies the area closely and keeps tabs on the latest construction developments. Always a strong advocate for utilizing the land in Natomas where Sleep Train Arena currently sits, he acknowledges the shift toward developing downtowns and believes the arena project is going to be a big boon for the city.
"I don't know about the basketball team, but the economic impact on Sacramento is going to be stellar," Lukenbill said. "I think its catalytic affect on downtown is going to erase at least 50 years, maybe 60 years of K Street doldrums since the late 50s...We're about ready to head into a growth spiral here that is perfectly timed for the Kings in my opinion, so it's fantastic."
Plans have called for a 250-room hotel along with restaurants and retail stores developed around the 745,000 square-foot, $477 million arena, which is scheduled to open in October 2016. This, combined with Ranadive's "NBA 3.0" vision, is something Lukenbill is excited about. He said one of the biggest changes in the league since he owned those teams that were led by Reggie Theus on the floor and coached by Jerry Reynolds is the impact of technology, which is Ranadive's calling card.
"The single greatest difference is the pervasive nature of the media in so many different ways, down to your hand-held cellphone, and apps, and sales, and online sales off your phone, and technology and the Internet - all of those things that didn't exist 30 years ago," Lukenbill said. "So you've got this incredible, insatiable appetite that really binds the world in a much closer way that I think is going to transcend the NBA into a global phenomena, and it's not if, it's when."
Ranadive frames his approach to the Kings with this global perspective in mind. As just one current example, he will be the Grand Marshal at the India Day Parade in New York City on Sunday. It is expected that there will be around 100,000 people in attendance. Also, this week the Kings officially signed the NBA's first player of Indian descent, Sim Bhullar.
"I’ve long believed that India is the next great frontier for the NBA," Ranadive said in a team release. "While Sim is the first player of Indian descent to sign with an NBA franchise, he represents one of many that will emerge from that region as the game continues to garner more attention and generate ever-increasing passion among a new generation of Indian fans."
A different NBA and a different Sacramento indeed.
Next year will mark the 30th season the Kings have been in Sacramento, and with this new era comes an opportunity to build on an already intriguing franchise and city history.
"Sacramento is getting some legs underneath it," Lukenbill said.