With the 2024-25 NBA season now over for the Sacramento Kings (courtesy of the Dallas Mavericks), now is a great time to reminisce on better days (and also prepare for the 2025 offseason).
For the Kings, the glory days came in the early aughts. From 2000 to 2004, the Kings won at least 55 games in each season and five total playoff series in that stretch.
One moment that often gets lost from this glorious stretch has recently resurfaced thanks to the invaluable NBA Cobwebs Twitter page. The moment in question came on April 29, 2001 (nearly 24 years ago today) in the Kings' first round series against the Phoenix Suns.
In Game 3, Christie pulled a Tayshaun Prince before the latter became famous for it three years later:
April 29, 2001: Doug Christie with the hustle play during Game 3 of Sacramento's first round series with Phoenix.
— NBA Cobwebs (@NBACobwebs) April 29, 2025
Christie had 17 PTS/6 REB/4 AST and Chris Webber had 23 PTS/7 REB in a 104-96 win that gave the Kings a 2-1 series lead. Jason Kidd had 19 PTS/16 AST for the Suns. pic.twitter.com/XZfpB9q2Wb
Christie isn't all talk, he practiced what he preached
On Tuesday, the Sacramento Kings announced that they would be removing Doug Christie's interim tag and making him the official head coach of the team heading into the 2025-26 NBA Season. This decision marked the first major one of the Scott Perry regime.
While addressing the media, Perry cited Christie's embodiment of the team's core tenets ("toughness, discipline, professionalism, a defensive mindset, and a selfless, team-oriented approach on offense") as the main reason for keeping him on.
For anyone who follows sports teams, this type of talk is pretty typical. At the end of the day, a sports organization is no different than a Fortune 500 company in the way it is run. There are certain buzzwords that everyone uses to describe certain/things or people – regardless of whether or not that praise is actually deserved.
But in this case, Perry genuinely means what he says. Christie was an integral part of the most successful era of Sacramento basketball. But he didn't do it as a glamorous 20 PPG scorer. He did it by being their gritty three-and-D ace – the kind that every great team seems to have. In his four full seasons with the team, he earned three All-Defensive Second Team honors and an All-Defense First time nod in 2002-03.
It remains to be seen whether Christie is truly the right man to guide the Kings into their next era of winning basketball, but no one can say that he doesn't practice what he preaches.