The Sacramento Kings had a chance to get right Thursday against a struggling Memphis Grizzlies team missing Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. with injuries. Instead, their early-season spiral may have hit a new low.
The Kings lost 137-96, their eighth straight double-digit loss, to fall to 3-13 on the season and match the worst 16-game start in franchise history. Four of those losses have been by at least 27 points.
Even the return of Keegan Murray after a 15-game absence with a thumb injury did little to lift the team. Heading into the fourth quarter, the Kings trailed by 37, and coach Doug Christie opted to bench veterans Russell Westbrook, DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine for the rest of the game.
LaVine led the Kings with 26 points on 10-of-17 from the field and 4-of-8 from 3. Murray and Westbrook scored 11 points each, while DeRozan contributed just seven points. The Kings allowed the Grizzlies to shoot nearly 51 percent from the field, surrendering 29 points from forward Santi Aldama and 21 to reserve center Jock Landale.
🚨 Franchise Record Alert 🚨
The 🐻 dished out 42 assist. Watch them all here ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/eWBMP7gGlY
— Memphis Grizzlies (@memgrizz) November 21, 2025
After delivering a profanity-filled 13-minute monologue following the Kings’ 133-100 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Nov. 12, Christie was more subdued Thursday.
“They know the message. What I’m saying to you isn’t necessarily what I said to them,” Christie told reporters. “But you’re not in the locker room, so that’s not privy to everybody.”
The result comes hours after the Kings announced that star big man Domantas Sabonis suffered a partial meniscus tear in his left knee. He will be reevaluated in three to four weeks.
“We know that Domas is out, Keegan is just coming back, there’s a lot of different things that have transpired that we’re trying to work through on the fly,” Christie said. “It’s not an excuse. It’s just a reality of what it is.”
The Kings traded Tyrese Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers for Sabonis in February of 2022. The next season, alongside De’Aaron Fox in Mike Brown’s first season as coach, Sabonis and the Kings secured their first Pacific Division championship since 2003. The Kings were eliminated by the defending champions Golden State Warriors in seven games in the first round and have not matched the success of that season ever since. They fired Brown early last season and traded Fox to San Antonio just before February’s trade deadline.
In addition to injuries to Sabonis, Murray and others, the Kings just can’t seem to find the right shots even with sharpshooters LaVine and DeRozan on the court. Defensively, Sacramento is among the worst in the league; its 121.8 defensive rating puts them just behind the floundering Pacers and only slightly better than the Pelicans, Wizards and Nets.
Even if the Kings’ front office, led by newly hired general manager Scott Perry, wants to rebuild, it’s unclear how much trade value their top players have. LaVine has a $49 million player option for the 2026-27 season, while DeRozan has a $10 million partial guarantee for 2026-27 should he be waived. This offseason, the Kings signed Dennis Schröder to a three-year, $44.4 million contract with their full nontaxpayer midlevel exception. Sabonis, meanwhile, is owed $42.3 million this year, $45.5 million in 2026-27 and $48.6 million in 2027-28 before he becomes an unrestricted free agent in 2028.