In a season full of losses for the Sacramento Kings, this one was a doozy. The Hornets crushed them by 44 points, one of their toughest beatings this year. It wasn't much of a surprise, though, being that Sacramento walked into that game with 10 injured players and only eight active players available.
The 2025-2026 NBA Season has been a story of injuries for the Kings. Their planned starting five never played a single minute together on the court, though that likely wouldn't have made much of a difference. It wasn't going to be a great season for the Kings, regardless of who played.
Still, overcoming the insane number of injuries Sacramento has had to deal with would have been borderline impossible under the best of circumstances. It certainly was against the Charlotte Hornets last night, who absolutely mopped the floor with the Kings.
Charlotte had multiple advantages over Sacramento
It's no secret that the Hornets have finally found themselves this season, and that they will likely secure at least a Play-In spot in the Eastern Conference. This is the long, polite way of saying they're a far better team than the Kings. Most of the NBA falls in that category.
On top of that, Sacramento walked into Spectrum Center down an amazing 10 players. Russell Westbrook, Precious Achiuwa, Nique Clifford, Zach LaVine, Doug Eubanks, Isaiah Stevens, Domantas Sabonis, De'Andre Hunter, Keegan Murray, and Killian Hayes were all out.
The Kings ended up starting Malik Monk, which is rarely a good sign. Monk is an incredible player off the bench, but doesn't play as well as a starter. To his credit, he did rack up 14 assists as the point guard, which shows he was definitely facilitating the team's offense. Well, what little offense they had.
Are the Kings suffering from bad luck or tanking?
Given how terribly this season has gone and how many injuries the Kings have dealt with since day one, none of this is a shock. At the same time, 10 players being injured at the same time this late in the season seems like a rather big coincidence, especially with a lottery spot on the line.
Sacramento wants a top-three lottery pick, which gives them a 14% chance of selecting first in the draft. Those spots only go to the three teams in the league with the worst records. The Kings needed to lose last night's game to stay in the bottom three.
Many of those injuries are legit, with several players out for the season. Yet, 10 injuries at the same time, particularly the more recent ones, are more than a little odd. The Kings want one of those lottery spots, but they need to be careful lest they incur the wrath of Adam Silver's anti-tanking crusade.