How Long Will Kings Give 2026-27 Season Before Blowing It Up?

The Sacramento Kings may not be entering the 2026-27 NBA season with many expectations league-wide, but that doesn't mean they don't have internal goals and expectations they are trying to reach.

Coming off an extremely disappointing 22-win season, the Kings don't have a very high bar to reach in order to gain momentum in their rebuild. But another season in the low 20's, or even worse in the teens like some are predicting around the NBA, would be disappointing for Sacramento. They are still fairly early in their roster turnover under Scott Perry, but they have enough talent on paper to make it out of the NBA basement.

Who Sticks Around?

Feb 4, 2026; Sacramento, California, USA; Sacramento Kings guard Zach LaVine (8) during a free throw in the second quarter against the Memphis Grizzlies at Golden 1 Center. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The question for the Kings is how long they would wait to pull the trigger on a full-sale turnover from top to bottom. Whether it be selling Domantas Sabonis and Malik Monk for pennies on the dollar at the deadline or telling Zach LaVine to wait out the rest of his contract at home, there are drastic measures the Kings could take this season to accelerate their rebuild.

It's harder with the new draft lottery odds, but there's no guarantee the Kings' roster looks anything like it does now at the end of the year. From a player perspective, the Kings will have to gauge how much they are going to try and win now vs how much they want to lean into playing the young players as much as possible.

Last season, it took until around 60 games in before they fully pulled the plug on the vets, and even then, DeMar DeRozan and Russell Westbrook continued to go out and perform on a nightly basis. If the Kings are losing at a high rate, it may be better to give the young players more minutes earlier in the upcoming season than they did last year.

The Coaching Staff

Apr 3, 2026; Sacramento, California, USA; Sacramento Kings head coach Doug Christie during the first quarter against the New Orleans Pelicans at Golden 1 Center. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Turning from the players to the coaching staff brings up even more questions. Scott Perry was the one to give Doug Christie the head coaching job, but Christie was already here as the interim and a fan favorite in the 2025 offseason. The two seem to get along well and have the same goals for the team's playstyle, but until Perry gives Christie an extension, there will always be question marks around the pairing.

Christie enters his second full season as head coach after taking over as interim head coach for Mike Brown in the 2024-25 season. Christie has an extremely low salary for this season, around $2 million, and a team option for next year that the Kings will have to decide on.

Looking back at the Kings' last two coaching changes, Brown made it through 31 games (13-18) before he was let go, and Luke Walton made it through just 17 (6-11) before the Kings went away from him. Both of those coaching changes were made under Monte McNair's watch, but theoretically, it gives Christie about 25 games to show enough improvement for the Kings to stick with him throughout the year. Changes could always come later in the year as well, but an early collection of losses could force Perry's hand to make an early-season change.

In an ideal world, the Kings will improve enough to continue their momentum after drafting Darius Acuff Jr, but it's safe to say that Sacramento rarely operates in ideal circumstances.

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