It’s amazing how quickly fortunes can change.

A year ago, the Sacramento Kings and Seattle Sonics combined to win more than 100 games. Entering this season, each featured a roster largely intact from 2004-05 and was favored by most to return to the playoffs.

Yet a week into the new campaign, the Kings and Sonics look like two of the worst teams in basketball. Sacramento opened its season by getting blown away by the lowly Hornet and has won just once in five tries. Seattle looks even worse, following up a 25-point loss to Memphis with a 27-point beat down at the hands of the Cavaliers. Overall, only four teams in the league have an average scoring margin of -10 or worse, and these are two of them (the others are perennial doormats Atlanta and Toronto).

What’s the difference? How can two teams that were so proficient a year ago look so unrelentingly awful a few months later?

It’s particularly puzzling in Sacramento’s case, because many prognosticators thought the team improved in the off-season. The addition of Shareef Abdur-Rahim was supposed to fill in the scoring gap created when the team traded Chris Webber midway through last season. Similarly, an off-season trade for Bonzi Wells was expected to plug the hole left by the free-agent departure of Cuttino Mobley. Throw in the usual offensive exploits of Brad Miller, Peja Stojakovic, and Mike Bibby, and the Kings looked like they’d be making a comfortable return to the playoffs.

They still might, of course – they have 77 games left on the schedule, after all – but in the early going, three factors have contributed heavily to their misery. The first shortcoming was expected – the Kings can’t guard anybody. Wells and Stojakovic are nobody’s idea of defensive stoppers on the wings, while Miller and Abdur-Rahim are softies who can be out muscled in the paint. Sacramento’s opponents are shooting 49.1% on the season, ranking the Kings 27th in the NBA in that category.

Sacramento was supposed to compensate for its lack of defense with superb offense, but this is part two of the letdown. Bibby has been especially dreadful, shooting 36.8% and averaging a meager 12 points per game, but the others are off their games too. Wells, who’s shooting 40.8% and averaging three turnovers a game, has had trouble replicating Mobley’s shooting touch.The normally efficient Miller also is struggling, shooting just 40.4%.With three-fifths of the starting lineup having trouble getting untracked, it’s no wonder the Kings rank only 26th in the NBA in field-goal percentage at 40.6%.

That brings us to the third shortcoming – the bench. Sacramento hoped its bench would be passable, and instead it’s been absolutely horrendous. The Kings’ “best” bench player, Kevin Martin, is averaging 5.8 points per game and shooting 36.4% from the floor. That makes one wonder how he can be playing so much … until he’s compared to Corliss Williamson (33.3%), Kenny Thomas (30.4%), Jason Hart (20.0%), and Francisco Garcia (18.2%). Yes, it’s still early and one would expect the percentages of the bench crew to improve, but it’s alarming that only little used backup center Brian Skinner has provided any services of note for the Kings’ second unit.

Of course, despite Sacramento’s early struggles, they’re still miles ahead of the Sonics. One of the league’s best offensive teams a year ago, Seattle’s potent half court attack of 2004-05 has vanished without a trace. Seattle ranks 28th in the NBA in field-goal percentage at 39.6% and is hitting a brutal 28.2% on its beloved 3-pointers.

Here’s the scary part for the Sonics: Ray Allen has been great. The veteran guard is playing even better than he did last season, pouring in 26.5 points per game and hitting over 40% from downtown. The problem is that he’s not getting any help. Small forward Rashard Lewis is the only other Sonic averaging in double figures, and to make matters worse, he hurt his shoulder Wednesday night and may miss a few games.

So what happened to the rest of Seattle’s fearsome attack, which was the NBA’s third-best offense last year? Simply put, they just can’t make any shots. While the free-agent loss of guard Antonio Daniels certainly hurts, this is the same crew from a year ago.

Point guard Luke Ridnour has been the biggest disappointment. He was supposed to pick up the offensive slack in Daniels’s absence, but he’s shooting 20.0% and averaging 4.8 points per game.

Forward Vladimir Radmanovic was another expected source of offense after averaging 11.8 points per contest last season. But he’s spent more time whining about minutes than expanding his game. When he’s on the court, he seems content to wait in the corner and hope his defender leaves him open for a 3-pointer. Two other reserve wing players, Ronald Murray and Damien Wilkins, have started poorly. They’re a combined 0-for-15 on 3-pointers but already have produced 14 turnovers between them.

As with Sacramento, Seattle can’t afford to suffer an offensive slump because it’s such a bad defensive team. While the Sonics earned a reputation for physical play last season, they still were a very poor defensive club – they just tried to make up for it by fouling a lot.

But they could at least rebound. The Sonics were in the middle of the pack in defensive rebounding a year ago thanks to wide bodies like Reggie Evans and Danny Fortson. This year, they’re awful. Seattle’s opponents have recovered an embarrassing 39% of their missed shots – only Washington is worse. So in addition to the Sonics’ usual troubles in stopping a shot to begin with (their 49.2% field-goal defense ranks 28th), they also can’t stop the opponent from getting the rebound.

The most glaring example came in Wednesday’s blowout in Cleveland, when the Sonics were out rebounded 56 to 21. That’s not a typo – they lost the battle on the glass by five touchdowns. Radmanovic played 33 minutes at “power” forward and grabbed one rebound – and still outdid Murray, who came up with nothing in 24 minutes.

Fortunately for both the Sonics and Kings, the long NBA season affords plenty of time to recover. But the question looms as to whether there’s any recovering to be done – or if this is simply their new level of ability. Both teams have suffered horrific blowouts against second-tier teams and narrowly scraped by middling teams for their lone victories. Both statistically seem to have much more in common with the Hawks and Raptors than the West’s many playoff contenders. And both, it says here, won’t be making a return visit to the postseason.

Mr. Hollinger is the author of the 2005-06 Pro Basketball Forecast.