Basically, for as long as the league has been in existence, the NBA has been playing games on Christmas Day (the NBA started playing on December 25 in 1947 – the league's second season). It is one of the hallmark features of the league's storied history.
Unfortunately, the Sacramento Kings will not be contributing to that storied history (because the NBA does not love them). But that does not mean that the team has not put together some legendary performances of their own. So, here are the best individual Christmas Day performances in Kings' history.
Best Sacramento Kings Christmas Day Performances
The Kings have played 29 Christmas Day games in their 77-year history. Remember, this not only includes their time in Sacramento, but also Rochester, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Kansas City-Omaha.
As we always say here at A Royal Pain, there are many ways to impact a basketball game outside of scoring. However, for the sake of simplicity, we will use scoring volume and efficiency to guide our discussion. So, here are the top 10 scoring performances (and their accompanying true shooting percentages) in Kings/Royals Christmas Day history (per Stathead).
Player Name | Year | Points | True Shooting % |
|---|---|---|---|
Oscar Robertson | 1961 | 40 | 62.4% |
Tiny Archibald | 1975 | 39 | 59% |
Oscar Robertson | 1964 | 38 | 52.2% |
Oscar Robertson | 1966 | 38 | 71.8% |
Oscar Robertson | 1969 | 38 | 56.7% |
Oscar Robertson | 1963 | 37 | 62.2% |
Wayne Embry | 1961 | 35 | 62.1% |
Oscar Robertson | 1962 | 35 | 58.3% |
Oscar Robertson | 1965 | 35 | 60.9% |
Oscar Robertson | 1960 | 32 | 50.1% |
As is usually evident when we do these historical deep dives, Oscar Robertson was an absolute machine. He owns eight of the ten highest scoring Christmas Day games in franchise history.
As we already said, scoring isn't everything, but Robertson's 40 burger in 1961 may be the Kings/Royals' best performance on December 25. Not only did he score a ton, but he did so efficiently (62.4% true shooting) and while rebounding (12 rebounds) and assisting (17 assists) well.
The only other performance that truly has a case of topping that is his 37-point game in 1963. His true shooting was 62.2%, he had 15 rebounds, and 16 assists. The big difference is that they won the game in 1963 113-107 against the St. Louis Hawks (they lost in 1961 to the Los Angeles Lakers).
As you may have noticed, none of these performances occurred after the Kings moved to Sacramento in 1984. That makes sense, considering the Kings have only played two Christmas Day games since going to Northern California.
If you were wondering, the owner of the highest Sacramento scorer on Christmas Day is Peja Stojakovic, who scored 26 points in 2002 against the Lakers (a 105-99 win). Other notable performances include Christ Webber (25 points in 2002), Mike Bibby (23 points in 2003), and Vlade Divac (21 points in 2003).