Among a horde of tanking NBA teams, the Sacramento Kings stand alone with the worst record in the NBA. It didn’t get any better Thursday.
The Kings extended their losing streak to 15 games with a 131-94 defeat by the Orlando Magic, breaking the franchise record for consecutive losses. That low mark was previously held by two different streaks during the team’s days of operation as the Cincinnati Royals.
Their record is now 12-45.
Sacramento hasn’t won a game since Jan. 16, a 128-115 win over the similarly futile Washington Wizards. To give a sports fan some perspective on how long ago that was, the NFL divisional round started the next day.
Thursday’s loss was the most lopsided of the bunch with a 37-point scoring margin. Five of the 15 were actually by fewer than five points, but the Kings couldn’t get it done.
As a reminder, the Kings fired current New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown after his team suffered a … five-game losing streak.
The Kings will get their next chance to break the streak with a road game against Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday. After that, their next three opponents are the Memphis Grizzlies, Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better for the Kings
There is hardly reason to expect an improvement in the latter stage of the season, beyond the idea that an NBA team just can’t be this bad. The Kings announced Wednesday that All-Star big man Domantas Sabonis had undergone season-ending surgery to repair the torn meniscus in his left knee. Zach LaVine, the team’s leading scorer, is already out for the season following a hand surgery.
With those two out, Thursday offered a vision of how the Kings will be operating moving forward. DeMar DeRozan scored 13 points on 3-of-11 shooting. Russell Westbrook had 5 points on 2-of-8 shooting, with 1 assist and 3 turnovers. The bench scored 30 points on a combined 9-of-29 shooting with 8 assists and 9 turnovers.
A bright spot might have been rookie Maxime Reynaud, who started at center in Sabonis’ place and posted 17 points on 8-of-13 shooting with 14 rebounds and 4 assists. The Kings were outscored by 14 points in his 39 minutes on the floor, which was actually tied for the team’s second-best plus/minus among the 10 players who got minutes.
Maxime Reynaud actually had one of the Kings’ better performances against the Magic. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images)
(Lachlan Cunningham via Getty Images)
It’s tempting to say the Kings won’t even be trying for the rest of the season, but that’s not exactly how it works. Ownership and the executive suite might not mind more of the same, which would guarantee them a top-5 pick in the loaded 2026 NBA Draft, but the players still have plenty of reason to compete. This just happens to be an extremely broken roster right now.
There is now quite some distance between Sacramento and the rest of the NBA in the standings. The Wizards, Brooklyn Nets, Indiana Pacers and New Orleans Pelicans all have 15 wins as of Thursday night, with the Kings three wins clear of their closest “competition” for the lottery’s top position.
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