Sydney Kings
Australian professional basketball based in Sydney, New South Wales
The Sydney Kings are an Australian men's professional basketball team competing in the National Basketball League (NBL). The team is based in Sydney, New South Wales, and play their home games at Afterpay Arena in Sydney Olympic Park. The Kings were formed from a merger between the West Sydney Westars and the Sydney SuperSonics in October 1987. The Kings have won six NBL championships in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2022, 2023 and 2026. They were the first team to win three consecutive championships in the NBL and currently sit tied for second with Melbourne United (six) and behind the Perth Wildcats (ten) for championships won.
History
1988–2002: First 15 years
The Kings were formed from a merger between the West Sydney Westars and the Sydney Supersonics in October 1987. The team adopted the purple-and-gold colours traditionally linked with the most winning team in the NBA during the 1980s, the Los Angeles Lakers.
Before the merger, no Sydney-based teams had ever made the final four in NBL competition. That changed in 1989, when the Kings finished fifth with a 15–9 record and advanced to the semi-finals with a 2–1 win over the Melbourne Tigers. After splitting their first two games in the semi-finals, the Kings were humiliated by the Canberra Cannons 142–82 in the series-deciding third game.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Sydney Kings” as australian professional basketball based in Sydney, New South Wales. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as australian professional basketball based in Sydney, New South Wales. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1174892. VIAF identifies the subject as 264088084. The Library of Congress control number is n97119351. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1987, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Sydney Kings”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Sydney Kings primary sources, Sydney Kings archive and Sydney research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sydney Kings”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Sydney Kings” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.