Keegan Murray is headed back to the court for 2026-2027, and Sacramento is hoping the long layoff gives him a fresh start. After spending most of last season sidelined by injuries, Murray is set to return after the Kings locked him into a five-year rookie extension just before those injuries hit in the 2025-2026 season.
But the bigger story isn’t just that Murray is back. It’s that his development has been slowed by a franchise that hasn’t exactly helped him along the way.
Murray is a good player, but he’s not where he should be after four seasons, and the responsibility for that falls on the Kings. Sacramento has a long track record of mishandling young players, and Murray has been caught in that same current.
He arrived during the Beam Team Era, right when the Kings were making their first postseason run in 16 years. That was a fun moment for the franchise, but it wasn’t exactly an ideal environment for a rookie trying to build a foundation.
The timing got messier from there. During the 2024-2025 season, the Kings fired head coach Mike Brown, lost De'Aaron Fox, and rebuilt their front office. That kind of upheaval doesn’t make life easier for any young player, and it certainly didn’t help Murray’s growth.
Now he’s coming back into a different setup altogether. Sacramento’s roster has changed significantly while he’s been out, with several players leaving and several new ones arriving, many of them through the draft. So Murray won’t just be shaking off the rust - he’ll also be learning how to fit into a new Kings team.
There is a silver lining here. A year away from the floor may have been exactly what Murray needed.
He’s had time to recover, reflect, and work on his game. With a new head coach, a new front office, and a partially revamped roster, this is his chance to take a real step forward.
Murray has dealt with inconsistency before, but now he’s older, more experienced, and surrounded by better resources than he’s had in the past. The opportunity is there.
He already got the contract. Now the next step is proving Sacramento was right to believe in him.
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Kings Are Signaling Doug Christies Vision With Two Staff Moves
The Kings have continued to reshape Doug Christies staff, adding Brendan Suhr and Jason Maxiell as assistant coaches to bolster the bench around their new head coach. Suhr arrives with more than 25 years of coaching and executive experience across the NBA and college basketball, giving Sacramento a seasoned voice with a long track record in the game.
Maxiells promotion from the Kings G League affiliate adds a different layer, bringing a former nine-season NBA player into a bigger role after he had already been in the organizations development pipeline. Together, the hires suggest Christie is leaning into a staff built on both experience and internal continuity, with Sacramento clearly working to strengthen the coaching personnel behind the scenes. [Read more 🡒]
Kings Rebuild Depends On Fixing An Offense Problem That Starts At The Rim
The Kings spent much of last season fighting uphill on offense, and the numbers told an obvious story. Sacramento finished with just 22 wins and sat near the bottom of the league in several key scoring categories, including three-point shooting and attempts at the rim. The encouraging part was what happened when the ball actually got into the restricted area, where the Kings shot well enough to hint at a cleaner offensive base than the overall results suggested.
The bigger issue was simply getting there often enough, something the team missed when Domantas Sabonis was out of the lineup after leading Sacramento in restricted-area attempts. As the rebuild moves forward, the front office is clearly hoping a mix of added interior size and shooting can change that profile, with Darius Acuff Jr. joining rookies Maxime Raynaud and Dylan Cardwell as part of the effort to create more balance around the paint and beyond the arc. [Read more 🡒]
Kings Buzz Around Jalen Duren Suddenly Feels Worth Watching
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There have also been whispers tying Duren and Sabonis together in possible trade discussions, which is exactly the kind of wrinkle that makes this worth monitoring even before anything concrete develops. For now, nothing official has been confirmed, and that keeps the whole situation in the speculative stage. Still, when a player with Durens profile is linked to Sacramento, and the Kings own top decision-maker is part of the equation, it is a storyline that suddenly feels a lot more real than background noise. [Read more 🡒]