Doug Christie is Kings’ owner Vivek Ranadive’s guy. The latest piece of evidence showing Christie’s favorite child status among ownership and some team management members came on Tuesday.
The Kings are about to remove the interim tag and make Christie the head coach in Sacramento. The news of Christie’s hiring is not a surprise and is a story broken by ESPN’s Shams Charania.
It’s a great narrative. Christie was the popular starting point guard in Sacramento in the early 2000s who has come back “home” to be the head coach. The Kings went 27-24 after Christie took over last season, winning some close games early on that they had not under the deposed Mike Brown, but also not looking appreciably better than under their previous coach. While they advanced to the Play-In Tournament, the Kings were eliminated there for the second consecutive year.
After the All-Star break, under Christie (and with key changes to the roster after the trade deadline), the Kings went 12-15 with a bottom-10 defense in the league.
The real challenge in Sacramento falls not on Christie but on Scott Perry, who has taken over as general manager and head of basketball operations. He needs to provide clarity on the team’s direction, both in the short and long term. Perry is now counting on Christie to be part of the stability for this franchise going forward.
Not long after Brown was fired (and it was handled clumsily by ownership), face-of-the-franchise De’Aaron Fox asked for a trade. As part of the deal that sent Fox to San Antonio, Sacramento brought in another scorer in Zach LaVine to pair with Domantas Sabonis and DeMar DeRozan. That becomes the first big question for the Kings: Can they win enough with that trio as their core? The Kings had a -3.5 net rating when those three were on the court together last season. Plus, Sabonis said he wants to sit down with ownership and get a sense of the club’s plans and direction. Like Fox before him, Sabonis wants consistency and to see a coherent, reasonable plan to build out the roster.
Perry has work to do to find a new point guard and some defenders to add to this roster if Sacramento is going to compete for a playoff spot in next season’s still deep Western Conference. He has financial flexibility and the full non-tax mid-level exception to use.
Whatever roster Perry puts together, Christie will be the coach.
Published April 29, 2025 01:20 PM
Doug Christie is Kings’ owner Vivek Ranadive’s guy. The latest piece of evidence showing Christie’s favorite child status among ownership and some team management members came on Tuesday.
The Kings are about to remove the interim tag and make Christie the head coach in Sacramento. The news of Christie’s hiring is not a surprise and is a story broken by ESPN’s Shams Charania.
It’s a great narrative. Christie was the popular starting point guard in Sacramento in the early 2000s who has come back “home” to be the head coach. The Kings went 27-24 after Christie took over last season, winning some close games early on that they had not under the deposed Mike Brown, but also not looking appreciably better than under their previous coach. While they advanced to the Play-In Tournament, the Kings were eliminated there for the second consecutive year.
After the All-Star break, under Christie (and with key changes to the roster after the trade deadline), the Kings went 12-15 with a bottom-10 defense in the league.
The real challenge in Sacramento falls not on Christie but on Scott Perry, who has taken over as general manager and head of basketball operations. He needs to provide clarity on the team’s direction, both in the short and long term. Perry is now counting on Christie to be part of the stability for this franchise going forward.
Not long after Brown was fired (and it was handled clumsily by ownership), face-of-the-franchise De’Aaron Fox asked for a trade. As part of the deal that sent Fox to San Antonio, Sacramento brought in another scorer in Zach LaVine to pair with Domantas Sabonis and DeMar DeRozan. That becomes the first big question for the Kings: Can they win enough with that trio as their core? The Kings had a -3.5 net rating when those three were on the court together last season. Plus, Sabonis said he wants to sit down with ownership and get a sense of the club’s plans and direction. Like Fox before him, Sabonis wants consistency and to see a coherent, reasonable plan to build out the roster.
Perry has work to do to find a new point guard and some defenders to add to this roster if Sacramento is going to compete for a playoff spot in next season’s still deep Western Conference. He has financial flexibility and the full non-tax mid-level exception to use.
Whatever roster Perry puts together, Christie will be the coach.
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