The Sacramento Kings are in a terrible place, possibly the worst since the franchise moved to the West Coast. It would be easy to blame head coach Doug Christie, mainly because he's not great at his job. At the same time, Christie inherited most of the problems. He's just not making things better.
After the Kings relieved former head coach Mike Brown of his duties towards the end of 2024, they installed then assistant coach Doug Christie as the interim bench boss. That was quickly made official during the back half of the season. He's now in his first full season as head coach.
It's not going well. The Kings are the worst team in both the Western Conference and the league, and went into the All-Star break on a 14-game losing streak. All Sacramento needs to do is lose their first game back after the break, and they will officially have the longest losing streak of the season.
The team is at the beginning of a major rebuild, one that will take years to complete and will hopefully bear fruit. There are some who believe that Doug Christie will not see the end of this process. While that might be the case, it's important to remember he's not totally to blame for this mess.
Doug Christie is stuck in the same quagmire as everyone on the Kings
Much like Dylan Cardwell, Maxime Raynaud, and Nique Clifford, Christie is also a rookie in Sacramento. This is his first time as a head coach in the NBA, so he's learning a lot on the job. It's hard to do that when your roster is constantly in flux thanks to an endless stream of injuries.
It also doesn't help that he was left with a mess of a team that was horribly imbalanced and was not even remotely close to being a contender. Frankly, Mike Brown inherited the same problems. The difference was that the ownership blamed him for those problems instead of trying to fix them.
So far, that doesn't seem to be the case for Christie. Publicly, general manager Scott Perry has been incredibly supportive of his rookie head coach. That doesn't guarantee that Doug won't be shown the door if the rebuild isn't going according to plan. And that is a distinct possibility.
Tried and true coaches like Tom Thibodeau are out there and are likely better suited to see the Kings through the rebuild process. However this all plays out, it would still be unfortunate if Doug Christie's career becomes another victim of the uncertainty that has plagued the Kings for years.