Leopards never change their spots, and that’s true of the Sacramento Kings. Just look at how they made a mess of things after appearing to turn the page on a laughably forgettable chapter.
De’Aaron Fox, an ascendant point guard in the prime of his career, has been replaced by a 37-year-old past-his-prime Russell Westbrook. The other headliner in the Fox trade, Zach LaVine, is basically in their dog house. Two players they were convinced would be key to their next era, Malik Monk and DeMar DeRozan, are on the trading block. Keegan Murray, who looked like a building block as a rookie, has been devolving. 15-year NBA veteran Doug Christie, who took over as head coach after Mike Brown’s unceremonious firing, routinely makes rotation decisions like he’s never seen a basketball.
‘Approximately’ 10 Teams Attempting To Trade For Kings Wing
Christie’s most glaring misuse of his personnel involves Keon Ellis. A popular 3-and-D wing, Ellis is averaging just 17.3 minutes per game in 2025-26. He’s been as likely to play 10 or fewer minutes (15 games) as 20 or more (15). In fact, he’s racked up four straight DNPs and only played 23 total minutes across the three preceding games.
On the one hand, Ellis hasn’t been shooting as well as normal. After shooting 41.5% from 3 in the first 20 games of the season, he’s been ice cold. In his last 20 games, he’s only hitting 29.5% of his 3s, his only standout performance coming in a six-point win over the Dallas Mavericks. Even so, Ellis converted over 41 percent of his 3-point attempts in 2023-24 and 2024-25. Furthermore, even when Ellis was shooting lights-out in the first 20 games of 2025-26, he was playing just 16.5 minutes per game.
Is Christie jealous of Ellis’s hair? Is he scared to drop out of the top-three in Kings’ all-time steals? Or is it just incompetence?
