Last December, when Rich Paul met with the Sacramento Kings’ front office, the discussion reportedly centered on an existential question: What’s the plan here?
Paul was in Sacramento representing De’Aaron Fox, who had declined to sign an extension going into the 2024-25 season in part because he wasn’t sure the team would put him in position to win. Fox now plays for the San Antonio Spurs, and the Kings have a new coach and general manager, but the plan in Sacramento is no clearer.
The Kings’ three most prominent players — Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine — are 29, 36 and 30, respectively. Their big offseason move, the signing of 32-year-old guard Dennis Schröder, indicates that they’re still aiming to make their second playoff appearance since 2006. That won’t be easy in the West, though, and if the goal is to actually contend for a championship, there is no discernible roadmap.
Schröder could prove to be a good fit, and maybe Keegan Murray has a bounceback season in 2025-26. Maybe, if coach Doug Christie finds enough minutes for guards Keon Ellis and Devin Carter and rookie wing Nique Clifford, the Kings can go from a poor defensive team to a decent one. It’s hard to believe, though, that the Kings are just a couple of years removed from a 48-win season that felt like the start of something sustainable.
The State of Play
Last year: The Kings fired Mike Brown and elevated Christie to interim head coach two days after Christmas, at which point they were 13-18 with a defense that ranked 16th in the league and a net rating that ranked 13th. At the end of the regular season, after trading Fox and Kevin Huerter for a package that included LaVine and some draft picks, they were 40-42, with a defense that ranked 22nd in the league and a net rating that ranked 15th. This was good enough to get them into the play-in, but they couldn’t stop a Mavericks team that was starting Naji Marshall at point guard and lost by double digits.
The offseason: Right after their season ended, they fired general manager Monte McNair. Very shortly after that, they replaced him with Scott Perry, who brought in B.J. Armstrong as their assistant general manager. The new front office took away Christie’s interim tag, drafted Clifford with the No. 24 pick and drafted big man Maxime Raynaud with the No. 42 pick. Instead of negotiating a new, long-term deal with Ellis, Sacramento opted to pick up the $2.3 million team option on his contract, so it could have more immediate room to maneuver. In another cost-cutting move, it traded Jonas Valančiūnas to the Denver Nuggets for Dario Šarić. All of this was to set the Kings up to use the non-taxpayer midlevel exception to sign Schröder to a three-year, $44.4 million contract. Sacramento also signed Doug McDermott and Drew Eubanks to minimum deals. It reportedly put Malik Monk and Carter on the trade block, but nothing ever materialized with them. The same goes for the Kings’ reported interest in the Warriors’ Jonathan Kuminga and the still-unsigned Russell Westbrook.
Las Vegas over/under: 35.5 wins, per BetMGM
The Conversation
Kings believer: DeMar DeRozan says we’re going to see a much different Kings team this season, and I believe him. It’s hard for any team to be the best version of itself when the organization decides to fire the coach and trade the franchise point guard midseason. Now that Doug Christie has a full training camp to put his stamp on the team, I expect Sacramento to be more cohesive on both ends. Improving the defense is obviously the priority, though, and FIBA legend Dennis Schröder is going to help. I know he wasn’t the splashiest signing of the summer, but he’ll pressure opposing ballhandlers and get the Kings going in transition.
Kings skeptic: Yeah, it’s a miracle that the Kings have a point guard to push the ball in transition. They were on a slow death march with Tyrese Haliburton and De’Aaron Fox running the show, but now they’re finally in the fast lane! You’re so right about Schröder, and about this team being a lot better. Do you think they’ll win a championship this season or next?
Kings believer: Your sarcasm won’t dull my enthusiasm! I’m sure you criticized the Kings for how Keegan Murray’s sophomore season went, and I’m sure you totally missed that Christie wants Murray to try to get up 10 3s a game this year. I bet you think it’s laughable that Sacramento could build a good defense with Domantas Sabonis, DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Malik Monk on the roster, but I bet you haven’t spent a second thinking about Keon Ellis, Devin Carter and Nique Clifford flying around at the same time. Clifford was the best rookie at summer league, by the way.
Kings skeptic: Sarcasm?! No way! I sincerely agree with your assessment of the Kings! It totally matters that Clifford, who is 23 years old, looked more polished than the 19- and 20-year-olds in his draft class in Vegas. And yeah, with DeRozan, LaVine and Sabonis on the court last season, Sacramento gave up 119.8 points per 100 possessions (i.e. even worse than the league-worst Jazz), but there’s no way that will happen again because Schröder, Clifford and two young guards will fix everything. This roster makes perfect sense, so those trade rumors about Monk must have been a bunch of baloney.
Kings believer: I’m not saying the roster is perfectly balanced, and it’s obvious that the team veered off course after Year 1 of the relatively brief Mike Brown era. This is Christie’s first full season as a head coach, and Scott Perry has only been the GM for about six months, so the team is from a finished product and my short-term expectations are pretty modest. But I don’t think the Kings are some kind of joke. They have a ton of weapons on offense, and they have a nice collection of young guys who are all somewhere between solid and elite defensively. If they can establish an identity the way the 2022-23 team did, they’ll be lighting the beam more often than you think.
Kings skeptic: There’s no need to moderate your expectations. Murray will definitely grow as an offensive player this year, even though Sabonis, DeRozan, LaVine, Schröder and Monk all need touches. There’s no duplication on the roster whatsoever, and, even if there were, it wouldn’t be fair to criticize Perry yet. The decision to pick up Ellis’ team option wasn’t weird at all, and there’s no chance he’ll leave for nothing as an unrestricted free agent next summer. Sabonis is surely thrilled with the way everything is going, too. Why would you even suggest that anyone would think the Kings are a joke?