After spending most of the season pretty healthy, the Sacramento Kings have been dealing with a handful of untimely injuries over the last few weeks. For instance, their iron man All-NBA big man, Domantas Sabonis, missed nine of eleven games at one point with two separate injuries. Meanwhile, Malik Monk just recently returned from an illness that cost him three games.
Now that both of them are back, it would only make sense that the Kings suffer another injury to a rotation-level player.
Jake LaRavia to be out at least 7-10 days with a thumb injury
On Friday, it was announced that Jake LaRavia has sustained a bone contusion in his left thumb. LaRavia won't be re-evaluated for another 7-10 days, which means that he'll miss all their games until then.
As fate would have it, LaRavia was really starting to hit his groove with the Kings. In the game he got injured (against the Oklahoma City Thunder), LaRavia tallied 11 points, three steals, two rebounds, and two blocks in 21 minutes of action. On top of that, LaRavia has been a part of one of the Kings' most destructive trios on the defensive side of the ball.
The Carter-Keon-LaRavia lineup was hilariously disruptive. Just 19 minutes played together this season, but they've forced 29.2 turnovers per 100 possessions lol pic.twitter.com/PVdu0hm3YG
— Skyler (KFR) (@SacFilmRoom) March 18, 2025
LaRavia is set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer, which is notable because now, with this injury, the Kings are missing out on valuable time to evaluate his fit with the team and how hard they will push to retain him.
If LaRavia misses ten days, that could put him in danger of missing the entirety of the team's six game road trip. Remember, the Kings aren't as comfortably wedged into the play-in mix as they were a few weeks ago. As it stands, they are only one game ahead of the eleventh-seeded Phoenix Suns.
The good news here is that just because the team is saying that LaRavia won't be re-evaluated for 7-10 days right now doesn't mean it will necessarily take that long. As you'll recall, the Kings said Sabonis would be out for at least ten days just last week, only for him to return to the lineup six days later.
Maybe LaRavia has the same fast-healing superpowers as Sabonis. In any event, the Basketball Gods won't let the Kings catch a break right now.