The Sacramento Kings will retain head coach Doug Christie going into next season, according to The Athletic. The decision seems to center on the poor roster that Christie inherited, along with the injuries that it endured. Sacramento entered this season with postseason expectations, but will conclude it as either the worst or second-worst team in the Western Conference.
Christie, a broadcaster before getting into coaching, joined Sacramento’s coaching staff before the 2021-22 season. He remained on the staff of Mike Brown, who was hired for the 2022-23 season and eventually won Coach of the Year unanimously for leading the Kings back to the playoffs for the first time since 2006.
However, Brown’s tenure ended early in the disappointing 2024-25 season. Christie took over from there and, soon after, star guard De’Aaron Fox forced a trade to the San Antonio Spurs. The Kings made the widely unpopular decision to emphasize player value in the trade rather than maximizing the draft picks they could have gotten by taking back Zach LaVine’s unwieldy contract in the deal. Despite LaVine’s presence, Sacramento still felt enough of a need at point guard to sign Dennis Schröder to a three-year, mid-level contract that it would eventually trade at the 2025 deadline.
Those additions gave the Kings postseason expectations coming into the 2025-26 campaign, but those hopes were dashed almost immediately. The Kings won three of their first seven games before a nine-game losing streak knocked them out of the playoff hunt. They had the NBA‘s worst record at the All-Star break at 12-44, but closed the season with 10 second-half wins to date. That may have indicated progress, but it also cost Sacramento meaningful lottery positioning.
Sacramento’s immediate future is now dependent on May’s lottery drawing. So important are those ping pong balls that a questionable decision by the Kings to intentionally foul Seth Curry in an April 7 game against the Golden State Warriors was investigated by the NBA for tanking. Eventually, it was determined that the decision was simply a coaching mistake.
Coaching turnover has been frequent since Vivek Ranadivé purchased the Kings in 2013. Christie is the seventh permanent coach the Kings have had since then and, if he finishes next season in his post, he will have been the second-longest tenured Kings coach in this period behind only Dave Joerger. Scott Perry, hired last offseason, is the fourth permanent lead basketball executive the Kings have had in that window, and together, they will attempt to defy Sacramento’s recent history of dysfunction to build the Kings back into a competitive franchise next season.
