It has been a disappointing season for the Kings, who take a 22-59 record – tied for the fourth-worst mark in the league – into the final day of the regular season. However, despite some speculation about his job status, Sacramento plans to keep head coach Doug Christie through the offseason, team sources tell Sam Amick of The Athletic.
As Amick writes, Christie took over as interim coach of the Kings in December 2024, when the team fired Mike Brown. Christie, a former NBA guard, was promoted to the full-time position last summer, signing a three-year deal which features two guaranteed seasons.
The Kings feel like they didn’t have a great way to evaluate Christie’s performance in his first full season as head coach, according to Amick, since the roster had issues entering 2025/26 and several key players sustained significant injuries throughout the season.
Anthony Slater of ESPN confirms the news (via Twitter), adding that the team liked how some of its young players developed under Christie this season.
The Kings are expected to resume trade talks involving veterans like Zach LaVine, Domantas Sabonis, Malik Monk and DeMar DeRozan this summer, Amick reports. Sacramento had “extensive” discussions with the Raptors about Sabonis ahead of the February deadline, but the Kings were unwilling to take on the salary of Jakob Poeltl at the time, per Amick.
The Kings haven’t decided what they’re going to do with DeRozan entering the offseason, team sources tell Amick. Only $10MM of the veteran wing’s $25.74MM salary for next season is guaranteed.
So they still going to tank…Christie has not even had flashes of NBA level hc. He is a loyal yes man though Vivek would like that.
Perry also likes yes man. Christie has 2 more yrs left on his contract.
To play devils advocate, even with a coach like Spoelstra, how are you supposed to win with this team? They don’t have enough talent.
Which is exactly why there’s no sense in replacing him right now. Getting a few extra wins would only take the team from terrible to slightly less terrible. And the pool of potentially interested candidates would likely be smaller now than it would be if the Kings manage to pull off a proper rebuild.
The first thing Perry did as a new gm was giving Christie a 3 yr contract. Christie’s contract is cheap, and Vivek is no longer interested in contending.
That’s like getting mad at a driver at Nascar that’s been given a 1909 Model T. The Kings need to fully embrace the suck and move off of every veteran star or semi- star and focus on young player development. maybe bring in some former Kings to help with player development too. This team is facing an important draft that they need to absolutely hammer.
I mean I dont think they will be doing any winning any time soon and its nice to have some continuity
Should never have fired Brown but that ship has passed.
I agree they should have rode him. Has to be a full rebuild now. AJ >>>>to Kings.
Brown lost the team and will be exposed again in the upcoming playoffs.
Really cause they have been so good since he left.
Blaming others doesn’t solve anything. As the Kings have shown. Knicks got players. This team was built for Brown already. We know who we are. Just don’t get lost.
Unserious franchise continuing to do unserious things.
Christie > Kerr
To be fair I don’t think they could get a legitimate coach in there anyway for next season.
Christie is going to Brian Keefe this for as long as he’s under contract.
No one else wants to move to Sacramento for that job.
I don’t know California. Is Sacramento considered a terrible city to live in?
As far as I know, Assistant Coaches are 6 figure and first-time Head Coaches are 7 figures. The lowest paid guys like Christie and Keefe are probably 2M.
I don’t know what the pay rate for “Associate Head Coach” is but I’d guess its somewhere in-between. (I.E. the assistants with tenure/experience who are usually getting the Interim tag if there’s a firing, like James Borrego).
I would
They are likely to be the worst team in the West next season either way. Kings or Grizzlies, but probably Kings.
Good for him.
I am guessing that even the lowest paid headcoach in the league makes more than the highest paid assistant coach.
And there is no way he would be the highest paid assistant coach.
Braaahhh
What a Kings thing to do.
Christie is a weirdo but it doesn’t matter who the coach is. That front office is terrible and built their team using NBA Live 14.
Now draft a 6 foot tall PG that can’t play defense and pair him with Derozan, Sabonis and Lavine and let Christie try to establish the gritty “defense first” identity that he wants.