It wasn’t that long ago that the Sacramento Kings was a team full of possibilities and potential. During the 2022-23 season, head coach Mike Brown led a squad anchored by point guard De’Aaron Fox and center Domantas Sabonis to the third-best record in the Western Conference.
They even took steps into the postseason, losing in the first round to the Warriors. It was a solid season for the franchise. Both Fox and Sabonis were named All-Stars. and that playoff berth broke a 16-year drought for the Kings.
For his efforts, Mike Brown was named the NBA Coach of the Year, and rightfully so. His guidance and leadership were key in getting the Kings’ collective foot in the door of playoff contention. But this is the NBA, and laurels fade fast. The 2023-24 season saw the Kings slip to 9th in the West, an incredibly competitive conference.
They didn’t make it out of the play-in. This was followed by the off-season acquisition of DeMar DeRozan, the mid-2024-25 firing of Mike Brown, and a trade that saw Fox head to the Spurs and Zach LaVine join the Kings. And Sabonis was left holding the bag.
Sabonis should wonders what happened to the Kings
Without question, there was huge potential in the 2022/23 Kings roster. For some reason, the front office didn’t see things that way. The team went 48-34 in 2022/23, which was good enough for 3rd place in the West. Then, they went 45-37 the next season which dropped them to 9th. That just demonstrates the difference in the conference between those seasons.
The Kings’ team led by Fox and Sabonis was still solid and also still developing. The potential was there. But missing the playoffs apparently sent the front office into full panic mode. They fired Mike Brown 18 months after he was named NBA Coach of the Year. The move reputedly upset Fox so badly that he asked for a trade, which led to him joining the Spurs mid-season.
Now, Sabonis has been left in the ruins of what might have been in Sacramento, wondering how he got in this position in the first place. Both DeRozan and LaVine are talented players whose best years are behind them. Even Jonas Valanciunas is gone, leaving the team without a solid backup center for Sabonis. He does have Dennis Schroder, at least until he’s traded for the 10th time since 2020.
All the pressure is on Domantas Sabonis
Domantas Sabonis is going into his fifth season with the Kings and has arguably become the face of the franchise. Had the Kings been able to hang onto either Fox or Tyrese Halliburton, whom they drafted in 2020, things might be different. There would be a sense of some sort of plan in place for the franchise. Right now, it just feels like they’re flailing.
After making the playoffs for the first time in 16 years, the Kings missed it the next season. The front office basically seemed to snap. They started making ill-advised trades that brought dubious results, fired the award-winning coach that got them to the post-season, and ran off their homegrown point guard in Fox, who they drafted in 2017 and led the team for nearly eight seasons.
Sabonis is now in the unenviable position of trying to make something out of nothing. There are some familiar names, but it remains to be seen when, or more likely if, they will gel together as a team. It’s not hard to imagine that the days of Sabonis in Sacramento are numbered, especially since this is a league where versatile big men who rebound like crazy are becoming increasingly valuable.
