Despite the loss against the Spurs, confidently declare your allegiance for the Kings with the State Farm Nation, now live on Facebook to root the young, but talented Kings on!

The “State of Fandom” allows you to have customized Facebook cover photos, have friends or foes with fans of the Kings, or other teams in the NBA that you just love to hate.

You can also generate your NBA fan graph to see where your Facebook friends’ loyalties lie, and hopefully cheer them on as they finish the season strong, gaining momentum into next season!

A tearful Gavin Maloof announced the pact after the Kings’ co-owners emerged from a Monday morning meeting in Orlando, Fla., The Sacramento Bee reported.

“We’ve always said we wanted to stay in Sacramento, and now’s our opportunity,” Joe Maloof said, according to the newspaper.

The Maloofs agreed to contribute more than $70 million upfront to the construction of the arena, “probably another $75 million over the term of the agreement.”

“Today is a new day for Sacramento and a defining moment for our community,” Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said. “We came to Orlando needing to convert both ends of a one-and-one free throw. Over the weekend, the city hit the front end of the free throw by making clear it had delivered on its promises and, today, the Maloof family hit the second free throw by stepping up and increasing their contribution.”

After dropping Saturday’s home contest to Phoenix by 14, the Kings were winners of four out of their last five games.

Three of the four victories were captured at home — including an overtime win over Golden State and a five-point triumph over OKC on TNT. A three-point win over Portland was also an impressive showing for Keith Smart’s young, yet talented club.

Still residing at the bottom of the Pacific Division at 10-17, the team prepares for a tough six-game East Coast trip — starting Tuesday night in the Windy City against the Eastern Conference-leading 23-7 Bulls.

The following night, the team will head to the Big Apple to witness “LINsanity” and the emerging Knicks, winners of five straight.

Friday the Kings will travel to the Motor City, head to Cleveland on Sunday, before wrapping up the tour out East with back-to-back games next Tuesday in South Beach and Wednesday in the Nation’s Capital.

A diagnostic ultrasound test performed on guard Marcus Thronton today at the UC Davis Medical Center revealed a significant hematoma in his left thigh.

The LSU product is expected to miss approximately one to two weeks of action.

Thornton, the Kings’ leading scorer (16.4 ppg), has missed four games due to the injury.

The Sacramento Kings have fired head coach Paul Westphal after a 2-5 start.

Assistant Keith Smart, who just received a two-year contract from the Kings, will serve as the team’s interim head coach.

“I want to thank Paul for all of his effort on behalf of the Kings,” said Kings president Geoff Petrie in a statement. “Unfortunately, the overall performance level of the team has not approached what we felt was reasonable to expect. I wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

Westphal posted a record of 51-120 in his two-plus seasons as Kings coach.

“I would like to thank the Maloof family for the incredible opportunity they gave me to participate in the attempt to bring the Sacramento Kings back to prominence,” said Westphal. “While the job is far from finished, I am proud of the strides we were able to make.”

STATEMENT FROM KINGS HEAD COACH PAUL WESTPHAL

SACRAMENTO, CALIF., Jan. 1, 2012 – “Whenever a new season begins, in any sport, there is great hope that everything will progress in only a steady, upward direction. As we all know, it seldom happens like that in this life!

As coaches, we can only ask that our players do everything they can to improve themselves as individuals and teammates. If they do this with all their hearts, we live with the results.

Everything that happens on a team does not become known to the public. This is how it should be. However, when a player continually, aggressively, lets it be known that he is unwilling/unable to embrace traveling in the same direction as his team, it cannot be ignored indefinitely.

DeMarcus Cousins has demanded to be traded. In the best interest of our team as we go forward, he has been directed by me, with the support of management, to stay home from the New Orleans game tonight.”

Cousins is averaging 13.0 points and 11.2 rebounds in 27.0 minutes through four games this season.

The Kentucky product is also shooting 32.1% from the floor and averaging 5.0 personal fouls to go along with 2.8 turnovers per game.