The 2025-2026 Sacramento Kings: Record & Rankings

Padrino

Padrino

All-Star
Here we are, 10 games into the season. It's early yet, the Kings have been dealing with some injuries to key players, but there are still some pretty obvious takeaways we can mull over.

Given that this season is looking like quite the sh*tshow, I thought it might be useful to start cataloguing a few things. I won't necessarily be updating this thread after every game, but I will be checking into it periodically to update the Kings record and rankings in a variety of useful measures, and anybody who wants to contribute other illuminating metrics are more than welcome to do so.


As of 11/10/25, here is where the Kings are at:

3-7 record (13th in conference)

111.9 Offensive Rating (23rd in NBA)
119.9 Defensive Rating (27th in NBA)
-8.0 Net Rating (25th in NBA)

They're most used lineup is:

Schroder, Westbrook, DeRozan, LaVine, Sabonis (79 mins)

105.3 Offensive Rating
122.1 Defensive Rating
-16.8 Net Rating


There's more to break apart, particularly in the lineup data, but this feels like a good start. The Kings are bad, in other words. They're as bad as many of us thought they might be. With their current minutes distribution, it shouldn't be too surprising that they're atrocious defensively. And with all of these ill-fitting pieces in the rotation, I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that they're pretty awful offensively, as well.

I will be curious to see if the Perry/Christie braintrust pivots in any meaningful way as the losses continue to pile up.
 
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...

This is all fair. I suppose one's mileage may vary with respect to how much weight one wants to give to the factors you've cited, but Domas' and Keegan's skill sets are not well-served by the roster around them, so I'm not expecting a theoretically healthy Domas and/or a theoretically healthy Keegan to be able to make up an 8-point shortfall in net rating. Keegan's a good defender, but he's not good enough to elevate this roster, especially if he's given few opportunities to play alongside the Kings other good defenders.

And personally, I don't care how much time the coach gives the new guys to get integrated, this roster is not going to achieve much in the way of cohesion before Perry starts jettisoning players (for better or worse). They're not well-optimized. They're not well-balanced. They're getting blown out by 20+ regularly, and unless Christie wants to man up and sit some of the Kings' weakest defenders, it's a massive climb for this team to be playing anything resembling .500 ball, regardless of the quality of the opposition.

As for the schedule, it is quite tough to start the year. Brutally so. But this is the Western Conference. It's always tough. There aren't a lot of nights off, and the Kings so far have already had difficulty drawing even with the likes of the Jazz and the Suns. I'm not optimistic that the Kings record will improve dramatically as the schedule eases a bit.

Of course, that's what this thread is for. I'll be monitoring offensive rating, defensive rating, net rating, and specific lineup data throughout the season. Maybe this Island of Misfit Toys of a roster will prove me wrong. Maybe they're better than I think and they just need time to get healthy and gel. We'll see what the numbers tell us over time.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...

That is what I expect to see if Perry/Christie stay the course with this roster. If you sort these players into three buckets -- guard, forward, and big man -- we really only have one guy on the roster who belongs in the forward bucket and he's injured. Missing Keegan was always going to hurt us but his absence is even more glaring when there is no one else who can even come close to replicating his role.

Let's say Keegan comes back after Christmas (at home against Dallas on Dec. 27th) and the team goes 6-12 before that (a modest improvement on our current winning % but there are some weaker opponents during that stretch). We would be 9-19 with 54 games left to play. If the Kings play .500 ball from then on they would finish the season at 36-46. Last season that would have landed us in a 3-way tie to pick 9-12 in the draft. Is that such a desirable place to be that we should continue to stash all of our young players at the end of the bench while veterans on short-term deals get to define our team identity?

Alternatively, what if we trade Domas right now for a defensive big man who fits the age range of a Keon/Carter/Clifford/Murray core, bench or trade LaVine and DeRozan, and give Nique, Ellis, Carter and Reynaud starter's minutes. When Keegan comes back he would be returning to a team built around the culture of hard work and defensive intensity that Doug Christie has been preaching since he got the job. They might outpace 36 wins, they might be worse, or they might be about the same but regardless we would finish the season having established a new core group that we can build some continuity around and we would have given Doug a fair shot to coach the team the way he wants to coach.
 
I'm still thinking the record will be the mid to high 30s Vivek special when it's all said and done.

Keegan will have a big impact on the defensive end. Once we're allowing a modest 125 per game instead of 140 or whatever, we should start winning some of these shoot outs.
 
The Kings play Denver and Minnesota three times this month. They will play Oklahoma City for the third time next Wednesday. Then they will not face any of these teams in the regular season again. Just crazy.

So far, they have won two of the 4-5 games I predicted for the month of November, with a back-to-back at home coming up on Tuesday and Wednesday. The situation will look grim come December 1.

We can all pontificate on what Doug Christie should or should do in terms of rotations, but I think most here are agreed that a mixture of veterans and youth in the starting lineup and for the primary bench unit will optimize the team's talents until Keegan comes back. He is still experimenting. The addition of Precious Achiuwa should make the task easier.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...

Ah, just where a team wants to be as the 3rd oldest in the league or whatever it is. The upside is IMMEASURABLE, haha.
 
SacTownKid said:
Ah, just where a team wants to be as the 3rd oldest in the league or whatever it is. The upside is IMMEASURABLE, haha.
Click to expand...

Indeed. But you really have to believe that Domas getting healthier and Keegan returning to the lineup is going to reverse this team's fortunes enough to even see a path toward .500 ball. The problem is that minutes are being distributed primarily to aging offense-first talent with duplicative skill sets within line-ups that possess neither balance nor chemistry nor efficiency nor much in the way of common sense. That's partly on Perry, who prioritized backcourt additions in the off-season, and partly on Christie, who refuses to elevate his defenders in the rotation.

I mean, I'm not sure if Kings fans really appreciate just how awful this team has been through 10 games, particularly the most-used starting 5 we've seen on the court. I cited the following lineup data in my initial post, but I didn't provide enough context for the numbers:

Schroder, Westbrook, DeRozan, LaVine, Sabonis (79 mins)

105.3 Offensive Rating
122.1 Defensive Rating
-16.8 Net Rating

That OFFRTG would be good for 28th in the NBA. That DEFRTG would be good for 29th in the NBA. And that NETRTG would be good for 30th in the NBA. This lineup is one of the worst in the entire league, on both ends of the court, and it's Doug Christie's preferred starting 5 in the absence of Keegan Murray. But these guys are who they are! As you said, it's not like there's any upside to be had whatsoever with the parts of this roster that are "earning" the lion's share of the minutes. They may "gel" better as the season wears on, and getting Keegan back will restore the smallest semblance of sanity to the starting lineup, but I just don't see these factors correcting the Kings' fortunes in any meaningful way.

An old team that occupies the bottom rung of these efficiency metrics isn't likely to improve enough to sniff the play-in, certainly not in the Western Conference. And that's all right by me, since I view a high draft pick as the only means of salvaging this "gap year". But there's a reason a lot of smart NBA minds are looking at the Kings and wondering if a "stealth tank" is occurring, because it's hard to imagine any sensible owner and front office putting together a roster like this with the expectation that they're going to win in the west.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...
So in other words 10th place and our annual spot in the Vivek Invitational is not out of the picture.
 
Padrino said:
I mean, I'm not sure if Kings fans really appreciate just how awful this team has been through 10 games, particularly the most-used starting 5 we've seen on the court. I cited the following lineup data in my initial post, but I didn't provide enough context for the numbers:

Schroder, Westbrook, DeRozan, LaVine, Sabonis (79 mins)

105.3 Offensive Rating
122.1 Defensive Rating
-16.8 Net Rating
Click to expand...

I imagine most people who have watched a game or two will accept that the team is bad. Maybe they are just better at detaching than what you would like?

For me, I accept the Kings are going to be awful this year. I also accept that I cannot control the team and that if I only think about how much I dislike them I’m going to feel worse and I’m not going to be able to conjure the optimism/ delusion that is necessary to be a fan of most sports teams most of the time.

How about this way of looking at that most used lineup you posted - they are tank commanders on relatively short term deals.

Shroder is only making 9% of the cap, the third year of his contract is partially guaranteed, he’s tradable and has been traded multiple times recently, and he doesn’t have the name/ salary/ social capital that prevents a shift to a reserve role.

Westbrook is on a one-year, non-guaranteed minimum deal.

DeRozan is on a reasonable contract (15% of the cap) and it’s not impossible that a contender will take him on before the trade deadline. If that doesn’t happen, he only has one more partially guaranteed year left on his deal.

LaVine is on an unreasonable contract, and I would be surprised if someone was willing to take it on without taking back assets or getting rid of their own bad personnel moves. BUT he now makes less than Fox, is a better tank commander, and there is an outside chance (please!) he opts out of his contract at the end of the year. Our GM might not like him and didn’t extend him in the offseason. If he doesn't opt out, his contract should run out by the end of next season.

Sabonis is making 27% of the cap for two more years after this one. I don’t know how movable he is: he genuinely contributes to winning although with additional roster building challenges. His contract is longer than the other players, but since he isn’t blocking anyone’s minutes and he seems to make others better via his passing/ screening/ team play I don’t think it’s worth sweating his presence just yet.

Doug is an inexperienced head coach on a cheap, short term, ‘prove it’ deal. He hasn’t been great so far, but he wasn't going to be a finished product from day 1 and has an opportunity to improve. Finding himself in the deep end this early in the season is going to force him to either improve - ideally by making hard personnel decisions and playing a more balanced roster – or be transitioned into a different role. He is playing some young guys (Nique, Max). I think it’s easy to underestimate the challenges of player management, especially for an inexperienced coach coming up against established roles, egos, $$, agents, social hierarchies, etc. But if he doesn’t manage, he will be out.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
An important thing to remember is that through 10 games the Kings have had the hardest strength of schedule in the NBA so far and this seems likely to hold through the next 8 games. After that, the difficulty drops off and the schedule never gets close to as difficult for the remainder of the season, as best as I can tell.

So we combine missing a very important player in Keegan, with Domas missing time/being hampered with a hamstring and now a rib injury, and the classic issues of trying to work new players in (Russ, Nique...and our entire front line), and we face all that while being up against the hardest schedule in the league? Yeah, we're going to look bad.

Just don't be surprised when Keegan is back and Domas is healthy and everybody is integrated and we're playing easier teams if we settle into pretty good play and go like .500 the rest of the way after the first 18 games.
Click to expand...

That would be horrific if they went .500 the rest the way shortly after this. Probably the worst possible scenario they could be in by years end.
 
Padrino said:
Here we are, 10 games into the season. It's early yet, the Kings have been dealing with some injuries to key players, but there are still some pretty obvious takeaways we can mull over.

Given that this season is looking like quite the sh*tshow, I thought it might be useful to start cataloguing a few things. I won't necessarily be updating this thread after every game, but I will be checking into it periodically to update the Kings record and rankings in a variety of useful measures, and anybody who wants to contribute other illuminating metrics are more than welcome to do so.


As of 11/10/25, here is where the Kings are at:

3-7 record (13th in conference)

111.9 Offensive Rating (23rd in NBA)
119.9 Defensive Rating (27th in NBA)
-8.0 Net Rating (25th in NBA)

They're most used lineup is:

Schroder, Westbrook, DeRozan, LaVine, Sabonis (79 mins)

105.3 Offensive Rating
122.1 Defensive Rating
-16.8 Net Rating


There's more to break apart, particularly in the lineup data, but this feels like a good start. The Kings are bad, in other words. They're as bad as many of us thought they might be. With their current minutes distribution, it shouldn't be too surprising that they're atrocious defensively. And with all of these ill-fitting pieces in the rotation, I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that they're pretty awful offensively, as well.

I will be curious to see if the Perry/Christie braintrust pivots in any meaningful way as the losses continue to pile up.
Click to expand...

Yeah, whatever the preseason plan was for this squad... it's utterly failed. Sure, we've had injuries to deal with and Keegan being out certainly has thrown a huge wrench in this start, but as valuable as Keegan is, he's not THAT level of an impact player where we'd be 6-4 right now with him or something along those lines.

Russ is putting up numbers and has had a few excellent games, but he just does not translate to wins in year 18 of his career. He tries incredibly hard (most of the time, last night on defense not included), but he's such a heliocentric player that he just ends up sucking up #1 USG when he's on the floor.

Someone brought it up that if this team were Russ+kids, could actually work. He'd allow them to be brought along slower on the offensive end without like Nique and Keon all of a sudden having to be lead options. And Russ, while ineffective, actually does try on the glass and sometimes does try defensively.

But I just don't understand the plan of bringing on Russ, to a team where you just signed Dennis to be the starting PG and lead ball-handler to a team that ALREADY have Malik Monk/Zach LaVine/Keon Ellis/DDR that all deserve big roles and a former lotto pick in Devin Carter that needs an everyday opportunity to develop. It's just asinine.

I'm not even sure how much Keegan can really help this team as currently constructed. He's certainly not going to get anymore offensive USG opportunity with how ball-dominant Russ/Dennis/LaVine/DDR have been. Hell, we've already seen Domas diminished in his playmaking role, currently on pace for his lowest AST rate since his 2nd year in the league. If he can't get the rock, why would Keegan? Who we already kind of pushed to the side the last 2 years?

This Minny game hopefully was fairly eye-opening for the decision makers. Was one of the first all year where we faced a great team at full strength. We've gotten some pretty fortunate injury luck for the most part (Lakers no Luka/Bron. OKC game 1 no Chet/Jalen. Warriors no Steph/Dray/Jimmy. OKC game 2 no Jalen).
 
It's a team with no future. It doesn't matter if Murray returns or Sabonis gets healthy. Lavine and DDR, the two misfit center pieces of this team give it a short expiration date. So even if all the stars align, they have penultimate health, and they run off five wins in a row, it's still a team in limbo. Until they come to grips with their cryonic state they will continue to go on and on and on with no rebirth on the horizon. Some say that such is the perfect definition of hell.
 
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