The Sacramento Kings are trying to finish preseason business and get ready for the regular season opener on October 21, but the conversation around the team keeps drifting away from basketball.
It started with a team dinner last week, and then Zach Lowe added fuel to the fire on his podcast, The Zach Lowe Show. Lowe said Kings owner Vivek Ranadive addressed the room in a way that caught people off guard.
According to Lowe, “[The team] went out to fancy training dinner, team, the whole team, the staff, everything. And at the dinner, Vivek Ranadivé spoke, and he kind of turned the dinner into a roast of lots of people in the room, telling them all the ways in which they have been failing as players, coaches, executives, whatever.”
Lowe also said, “Some people were alarmed and were like, 'This is not going over the way you intended.' Some people thought, 'I get what he's doing, he's using the fact that we've become a media punchline to motivate us.' He was not saying, 'I, Vivek Ranadivé, believe these things about you, but here's what people say about you, prove us wrong.'”
That version of the story spread quickly, and the Kings have spent the last couple of days dealing with the fallout. General manager Scott Perry responded Friday on the Deuce and Mo show and pushed back on Lowe’s description of the dinner.
“[The dinner] was definitely not portrayed in the proper way. I asked Vivek to say a few words to the team.
It was great to have him there. He loves this team, loves the players.
He actually started by talking about himself and how he’s been viewed or treated in the media for years, and also said the same to the guys in the room.
"A couple of the guys, afterwards, all had the same take as me where it was motivational. He started out in such a light manner, and talked about players and how they’ve been disrespected or how we’ve been counted out as an organization, and we should all use that to prove people wrong.”
Perry’s response was predictable in one sense: even if there’s disagreement over how the dinner landed, he’s not going to line up against ownership. And the truth here could be messier than either side is making it sound.
Ranadive may not have intended a roast, and some people in the room may have taken it as a motivational speech. Others clearly didn’t see it that way.
What makes the whole thing feel more serious is the way Kings insider James Ham framed the larger issue. Ham suggested the organization keeps finding itself in these uncomfortable moments and hinted that some current players could be part of the story.
“... Stuff is starting to seep out about why some of these players might not be playing.
I’m not gonna go on the record and throw guys under the bus if I don’t have all of it tied up with a nice bow on it, but there are already murmurs. And these are things that happen in Sacramento.”
That comment appears to point toward Malik Monk, Keegan Murray, and Ben Simmons, all of whom have sat out Sacramento’s first two preseason games. Simmons is the easiest case to understand; he has a serious injury history and missed last season while recovering.
Monk and Murray are more interesting. Monk is expected to be a major rotation piece and doesn’t have a significant injury history, yet he has been held out of the first two preseason games for rest.
With second-year coach Doug Christie in the last guaranteed year of his contract, there is pressure for the Kings to show progress, even if this is still the first year of what looks like a longer rebuild. From that angle, getting Monk on the floor sooner would seem to help him settle in with the group.
Murray’s situation is even less clear. He has missed the first two preseason games for undisclosed reasons, not rest and not an injury designation. Murray said he only got back to five-on-five work a little more than a month ago, and that came only days after Perry told SacTown Sports 1140 that Murray is “100% healthy” and was fully healthy entering training camp.
There is reason for caution after Sacramento’s injury-riddled season last year, especially if the team is being careful with Murray following his first serious lower-body injury. But if that were the explanation, it would seem more likely to come with an injury management label rather than “undisclosed.”
So the dinner story may stay a matter of interpretation. The bigger thread to watch is Ham’s point about healthy players sitting out without a clear explanation. The Kings still have three preseason games left, beginning with tonight’s matchup against the Golden State Warriors, and the question now is whether Simmons, Monk, or Murray will suit up before the regular season arrives.
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