The Sacramento Kings are headed into another rough season, and nobody around the league is pretending otherwise. An anonymous NBA scout was recently quoted on how bad the Kings will be in 2026-2027, and that kind of talk only lands because Sacramento already spent 2025-2026 near the bottom of the standings.
The numbers from last season tell the story plainly enough. The Kings finished with 22 wins and 60 losses, which left them as the fifth-worst team in the league and the second-worst team in the Western Conference. That was ugly enough on its own, and the fact that they didn’t wind up with the league’s worst record only made the year feel a little more unsettling.
The early outlook for 2026-2027 isn’t much prettier. The highest projection mentioned for Sacramento sits at 21.5 wins, while other estimates drop all the way to 19. Either way, the expectation is for another season well outside the playoff picture.
Still, the point here isn’t just that the Kings are going to lose a lot. The bigger picture is that the roster has changed enough over the last year and a half to at least give the franchise a path forward.
That process started with the 2025 draft, when Sacramento brought in Maxime Raynaud, Nique Clifford and eventually Dylan Cardwell. The Kings also added Precious Achiuwa, who has found a new gear in Sacramento. Then came the 2026 offseason, which altered the direction of the rebuild in a major way.
In the 2026 draft, the Kings added Emanuel Sharp, Alex Karaban and their new starting point guard, Darius Acuff Jr. They also took a shot on a returning Ben Simmons, signed Jonathan Mogbo and Adam Flagler to two-way contracts, and kept Daeqwon Plowden.
Taken together, those moves are building blocks for a reset that leans on defense and offense at the same time. They also put Sacramento in position for the 2027 offseason, when the team could be in the mix for Jaren Duren and Jonathan Kuminga as free agents.
So yes, 2026-2027 is expected to be bad, and 2027-2028 and maybe even 2028-2029 may not look much better. But the idea is that the rebuild will keep inching forward, one season at a time, and that the Kings will have something sturdier to show for it as they go.
In Other News...
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
The Kings front office has spent plenty of time looking for ways to reshape the roster around Domantas Sabonis, and the latest chatter points to a name that would instantly change the conversation. Jalen Duren, fresh off an All-NBA Third Team selection, has surfaced as a potential Sacramento target, giving the idea more credibility than the usual offseason rumor mill. The reported connection is not just about fit on paper, either, with Duren said to have interest in landing in Sacramento and a relationship already in place with general manager Scott Perry.
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 🡒]