The Sacramento Kings are 0-3, and Zach LaVine didn’t bother dressing up how messy things feel right now.
After the loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, LaVine was asked about the team’s process of learning to play together. His answer reached well beyond simple chemistry talk.
"Sometimes it's organized from the top down. Sometimes it's organized from a certain player on the team, like a Chris Paul... a very high-level leader... It can come from a veteran coach or even a bench coach,” LaVine said.
“But we're all working through it. We don't really have any of that right now, and it's not going to come anytime soon. So, as a collective, we need to figure out what's everybody's strengths."
That’s a blunt read on a team still trying to define itself, and LaVine’s wording touches more than one layer of the organization. He starts with “top down,” moves to players, and then gets to coaches, which makes his point feel bigger than one bad night.
That front-office piece matters, especially with how Sacramento has handled its young talent. The Kings traded up to make Nique Clifford the first first-round pick of Scott Perry’s tenure as GM, then traded up again this summer to select Alex Karaban in the first round. Yet both players were DNP-CDs against Memphis.
Clifford has logged just 19 minutes in three games this season. Karaban played five minutes in the opener and has sat the last two games. Meanwhile, the reserve backcourt and wing minutes have gone to Emanuel Sharp, the 45th pick, and Daequon Plowden, who was converted from a two-way last season.
None of that is a knock on Sharp or Plowden. They’ve earned their spots. But when a front office spends draft capital to secure players, and then the rotation still leaves them on the sideline, that usually signals some kind of disconnect between what the front office values and what the coaching staff wants in games.
LaVine’s coaching reference is just as telling. He mentioned “a veteran coach or even a bench coach,” which says plenty given Doug Christie’s experience.
Christie is in his second full season as a head coach and his fifth on an NBA bench overall. The assistants have more tenure, but LaVine’s comments suggest the team still isn’t getting the steady hand it needs.
There’s also the player-leadership layer, and that one is easy to understand. LaVine pointed to Chris Paul as the kind of veteran presence that can organize a team. During a preseason broadcast while mic’d up, the 31-year-old swingman noted that he is now the oldest player on the Kings.
Sacramento has had that sort of stabilizer before. Harrison Barnes filled that role for the Beam Team and still contributed meaningfully. Matthew Dellevadova was at the end of the bench for that group, but even in a limited role he provided a resource younger players could lean on when they were taking on bigger responsibilities.
Now LaVine and the rest of the roster are looking around for that same kind of voice, and the younger players are probably looking straight at LaVine because of his age. That’s an unusual spot for him, but it’s the one this roster has put him in as the team turns over and heads deeper into a rebuild.
Some of this, too, traces back to the preseason. Christie made it clear before the season that exhibition games matter, because they give a team a real chance to figure out what it has instead of learning everything from scratch once the games count.
As he said then, training camp and practices only go so far. Real games reveal your strengths, your weak spots, and how to put the pieces together. Sacramento did not get much of that runway.
With the regular season now underway, the Kings are forced to sort through all of this in real time. That’s a tougher ask now than it used to be, especially with the NBA’s new anti-tanking rules in place and every team trying harder to avoid the “relegation zone” that comes with worse odds at a top draft pick.
For now, LaVine’s message is pretty simple: the help isn’t arriving soon, and Sacramento has limited ways to fix this during the season.
The Kings are back on the floor tomorrow against De’Aaron Fox and the San Antonio Spurs, and they’ll be trying to find some kind of rhythm before the hole gets any deeper.
In Other News...
Keegan Murray Is Caught In A Kings Problem That Keeps Growing
Keegan Murrays early-season fit has been complicated by more than just the usual opening-night rust. Between a preseason spent on limited minutes and the lingering effects of returning from injury, Murray has had to find his rhythm while the Kings keep adjusting the pieces around him. The result has been a start that has not looked as clean or settled as Sacramento would like from one of its key young forwards.
The bigger issue is the one the Kings seem to keep running into: a rotation that has not stayed still long enough for anyone to really settle into a role. Murrays spot has felt especially fluid amid those changes, and the uncertainty has shown up in his on-court consistency. For a team trying to build continuity, his situation has become another reminder that Sacramento still has some sorting out to do. [Read more 🡒]
Sabonis Is Doing Something Historic For The Kings Already
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What makes the start even more notable is that the big mans production has not been limited to the glass. He is leading the league in rebounds per game and in assists for the Kings, and he has done it while showing improved shooting percentages from last season. For a team still looking to turn effort into results, Sabonis has already been everything the Kings could ask for, and maybe a little more. [Read more 🡒]
Kings Are Already Facing A Worrying Early Season Pattern
The early-season concerns for Sacramento are starting to pile up in a hurry. In a 123-112 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, the Kings dropped their third straight game, and this one followed a familiar script: Zach LaVine carried the offense with 37 points, but the rest of the night was defined by missed chances and the kind of slippage that can erase a strong scoring performance.
Memphis kept punishing Sacramento on the glass and off turnovers, turning those mistakes into 30 second-chance points. The bigger-picture concern is how little room there seems to be for experimentation this early, with rookie Nique Clifford not playing at all and the rotation already looking tight, which makes the Kings search for answers feel even more urgent. [Read more 🡒]