The preseason losing streak kept going. On October 13, the Kings lost 98-110 to the Trail Blazers at home, with Tristen Newton scoring 15 and Jonathan Mogbo adding 15 points and 10 rebounds. Three days later, on October 16, they lost 97-126 at the Spurs, with Zach LaVine scoring 20 and Ben Simmons 14. That's five preseason losses in a row. The Kings are still 0-0 in games that count.
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Roster churn continued alongside the losses. Viktor Lakhin, who'd been released October 5, rejoined the team October 13 and signed a camp deal, confirmed in a report October 14. Aaron Nkrumah and Damari Monsanto signed October 12 and were both gone by October 14. David Muoka joined October 15 and left October 16. Leaky Black, who had cycled on and off the day-to-day list, was converted to a two-way contract on October 15. Then, on October 17, a report said the Kings had waived Lakhin, Newton, and Elfrid Payton — all three had been on the camp roster.
The day-to-day list kept turning over. Maxime Raynaud, hurt in the Warriors game, was downgraded from day-to-day to out with a right knee injury on October 11; he hasn't been upgraded since. Dylan Cardwell's rest issue became a calf problem on October 12, and by October 13 he was out with a left calf strain — a report that day said the injury would keep him out at least two weeks. Malik Monk had been day-to-day for rest since October 5; on October 16 that tag shifted to a left ankle issue, with no clearance yet. Leaky Black was cleared October 11. De'Andre Hunter, Zach LaVine, Ben Simmons, and Darius Acuff Jr. all went day-to-day for rest on October 13 and were all cleared by October 16, the same day Domantas Sabonis and Precious Achiuwa — who'd gone day-to-day with a right ankle issue on October 14 — were also cleared.
None of the offseason threads moved. Simmons, cleared again October 16 and then scoring 14 points in the loss at San Antonio, still has no report addressing how he fits next to Sabonis and LaVine. Minnesota's September 8 interest in Sasha Vezenkov has drawn no follow-up. The September 14 announcement about changes to coaching and basketball operations staff still has no names attached.
Five preseason losses, a trimmed roster, and Cardwell and Raynaud both out — that's where the Kings stand heading into the final stretch before the regular season opens.
Open storylines
as of Sun, Oct 18Simmons was cleared again October 16 and played 14 points at San Antonio, but no report has addressed his fit next to Sabonis and LaVine.
Cardwell (left calf, out since Oct. 13, reportedly at least two weeks) and Raynaud (right knee, out since Oct. 11) have had no further updates.
An October 17 report said the Kings waived Lakhin, Newton, and Payton, closing out their camp roster spots.
Minnesota's September 8 check-in on Sasha Vezenkov has had no follow-up report since.
The September 14 announcement of changes to coaching and basketball operations staff still has no names attached.
The projection
all 30 teams →The season depends most on Nique Clifford (8.8 wins without him), Precious Achiuwa (5.9 wins without him), Dylan Cardwell (4.0 wins without him) and Malik Monk (1.5 wins without him): on/off from 2025-26, details under Injuries. Computed Sat, Oct 24; the method is on the methods page.
The race
Western Conference · 80 games leftNext 5: vs Grizzlies100%at Spurs0%at Pelicans0%at Grizzlies100%at Mavericks50%opponents win 50% of their games on average
Standings and games back are from the official table; the pace is the current record carried over 82 games, nothing more.
Day by day
33 days on the recordEarlier on the record29 more days · back to Tue, Sep 8
The franchise
Every season since the start →Public record →Nowupdated 2026-10-19
Doug Christie is the head coach of a team trying to prove last season's 22-60 record was a bottom, not a new normal. The offense ranked 26th in the league and the defense 28th, and the net rating of minus-9.7 was 28th of 30 teams. The core now runs through Domantas Sabonis, acquired years ago in the trade that sent Tyrese Haliburton to Indiana, and Zach LaVine, who arrived in the February 3, 2025 three-team deal that sent De'Aaron Fox to San Antonio. Keegan Murray, De'Andre Hunter, Maxime Raynaud, Nique Clifford, Daeqwon Plowden and Leaky Black round out the group that logged real minutes last season. Sacramento sits at $191.8 million in payroll against a $165.0 million cap, over the cap but still under the $200.4 million luxury tax and well clear of the $209.0 million first apron. LaVine's $49.0 million player option and Sabonis's $45.5 million deal are the two biggest numbers on the books, with Hunter and Murray behind them. The Kings hold their own first-round picks through 2030 but owe second-rounders to Portland, New York and San Antonio in future years, plus a conditional second to Oklahoma City in 2027. The summer and early camp were defined by churn at the roster's edges: Sacramento waived Viktor Lakhin, Tristen Newton and Elfrid Payton in mid-October and converted Leaky Black to a two-way deal.
Identity and rivalries123 words
Sacramento sees itself as the team that lit the beam, the purple light shot into the night sky after every home win since the 2022-23 season, a ritual born the year Sabonis and Fox first made the Kings relevant again. Slamson the Lion has been the mascot since 1997-98. The Kings' rivalries trace back to the franchise's earliest days, when the Rochester and Cincinnati Royals clashed with the Syracuse Nationals, the team that became the Philadelphia 76ers, and later with the expansion Cleveland Cavaliers during the Kansas City years. None of those rivalries carry the stakes they once did, but they are part of how a franchise with roots in Rochester, Cincinnati, Omaha and Kansas City measures itself against the league's oldest teams.
Home, owners and numbers85 words
The Kings play at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, their home since 2016 after three decades at ARCO Arena. Vivek Ranadivé has owned the team since 2013, when his group beat back a bid to move the franchise to Seattle and kept it in Sacramento for good. The retired numbers hang in the Golden 1 Center rafters, including No. 1, which was temporarily unretired for Sabonis in 2024. Bill Russell's No. 6 has been retired by every NBA team, Kings included, since August 11, 2022.
What they are chasing110 words
The Kings are chasing a return to the playoffs after a 22-60 season, and a cleaner answer on how Ben Simmons fits alongside Sabonis and LaVine now that he has been cleared to play. They are also watching whether Minnesota's September interest in Sasha Vezenkov turns into an actual trade. Financially, the goal is staying under the luxury tax and well clear of the aprons while LaVine's $49.0 million player option and Sabonis's $45.5 million salary sit on the books. Fans argue over whether this roster, with Cardwell and Raynaud both out to start the year, is actually better than the one that finished 28th in defense a season ago.
The long view462 words
The Sacramento Kings trace back to 1923, when the Rochester Seagrams, a sponsored semi-professional club backed by distiller Seagram, took the court in Rochester, New York, with local star Lester Harrison eventually running the team as captain, coach, manager, and scout. In 1945 Harrison and his brother Jack paid a $25,000 entry fee to join the National Basketball League as the Rochester Royals, and the team won the league championship in its first season, 1945–46, with players like Bob Davies, Red Holzman, and Al Cervi. The Royals jumped to the Basketball Association of America in 1948, which merged into the NBA in 1949, and in 1951 Rochester beat the New York Knicks 4–3 for the franchise's only NBA championship. Their chief rival in that stretch was the Minneapolis Lakers, led by George Mikan.
Money troubles in small-market Rochester forced a move to Cincinnati in 1957. There the team drafted local star Oscar Robertson in 1960 and later Jerry Lucas, and Robertson averaged a triple-double in 1961–62 and won the MVP award in 1964. Earlier, in 1958, star forward Maurice Stokes suffered a head injury after a fall that led to permanent paralysis; teammate Jack Twyman legally adopted him and helped support him until his death in 1970. Both Stokes and Twyman, along with Davies, Holzman, Cervi, Harrison, Arnie Risen, Alex Hannum, and Bobby Wanzer, are Basketball Hall of Famers from the Rochester-Cincinnati years. Robertson was traded to Milwaukee in 1970, and the franchise left Cincinnati in 1972.
The team relocated to Kansas City, splitting home games with Omaha, Nebraska, and renamed itself the Kansas City–Omaha Kings to avoid confusion with baseball's Kansas City Royals. Point guard Nate Archibald led the NBA in both scoring and assists in the 1972–73 season. The club shortened its name to the Kansas City Kings in 1975 while still playing some games in Omaha through 1977–78.
Sacramento became home after the 1984–85 season. The franchise's best run there came in the early 2000s, peaking in 2001–02 with the league's best record, 61–21, a .744 winning percentage. That success gave way to prolonged struggle: from 2006 to 2022 the Kings posted 16 consecutive losing seasons, the most in NBA history, and their playoff drought stretched from 2006 to 2023, the longest active postseason gap in the four major North American sports at the time.
Today the Kings, the oldest franchise in the NBA, play at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California, in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. Their identity is shaped by that full arc: a 1951 title, the Robertson-Lucas and Archibald years, the Stokes-Twyman story of loyalty through tragedy, and, more recently, the most losses of any team in NBA history alongside the record-setting losing streak and playoff drought that defined the franchise's Sacramento decades.