Doug Christie’s coaching staff continues to take shape as the Kings have now reached agreement with three new additions per reports from Chris Haynes and James Ham. Per those reports the Kings are adding Chris Darnell, Mike Miller and Paul Jesperson to the staff. The Kings had previously reached an agreement with Mike Woodson to be associate head coach, Bobby Jackson to return as an assistant and Leandro Barbosa, the sole remnant from the prior regime.
Darnell comes to Sacramento after spending last season as the head coach of the Cleveland’s G-League Team, the Cleveland Charge. Darnell led the Charge to a 16-18 record last season in his loan year as head coach. He had previously spent three years as the Charge’s lead Assistant, and before that was a Video Analyst and Player Development coach for the Cavaliers. He also spent several years as an assistant for both the Phoenix Suns and briefly the Utah Jazz.
Miller might seem like a familiar name but he’s not the same person as the former NBA player Mike Miller. Miller is a longtime NBA assistant, having spent the last three seasons as an Assistant for the Washington Wizards. Miller has also spent time as an assistant with the Washington Wizards, New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs. Miller’s time with the Knicks saw him named Interim Head Coach during the 2019-20 season after the Knicks fired David Fizdale after a 4-18 start. The Knicks went 17-27 under Miller’s tenure as interim coach, a time during which new Kings General Manager Scott Perry was a lead executive for the Knicks as well. Miller had also served as the head coach of New York’s G-League Affiliate, the Westchester Knicks, for two seasons during which he won G-League Coach of the Year honors.
Jesperson joins the Kings staff as the head of Player Development. Jesperson is the least experienced of the new hires at just 32 years old with one year of experience in the G-League as an assistant for the Valley Suns, but has experience playing in both college, the G-League and internationally in Spain. Jesperson had a very cool career highlight in the 2016 March Madness tournament when he hit a Tyreke Evans-esque game winner from halfcourt in the first round against Texas.
It’s happening!!!! – gif.
Assembling the greatest coaching staff in the NBA!
Okay.
(I’d be 0.00000074% more excited if it was the other Mike Miller!)
None of these guys has any connection to the glory era Kings!!??!!??
None of these guys play PG either. /shucks
Apparently the Kings are “damned if they do, damned if they don’t”. At least two of them have decent NBA and G-League experience, while the other is younger and may bring some new energy and ideas to the game. Won’t know until the season starts.
You got the joke!
You’re sippin all the Kool Aid Vivek is pouring. The eternal optimist.
I am not an enteral optimist. Just looking at a list of coaches being hired. Do you know if they will be good or bad hires? Just assume they are bad because Kangz?
At least you are partly optimistic. The guys above don’t know how to be optimistic about anything.
Or the guys below.
Maybe you all should wait until everything is said and done. Or Christie’s staff might need one or two of you to fill out the roster. This would really help. I hope things will be looking up after all is said and done then I will bring up this post. GO KINGS!
You’re optimism is appreciated. The rest of us are not pessimists, we’re just realists.
Thank you for some support. I to am a realist but more on the positive side than the negative side. This summer and next IMO will tell the tale. About the 3 new coaches. IMO Doug must have had a lot to do the hiring so for that I will support the hiring unless something happens to negate the positions. IMO (if Vivek stays out of the way) Perry will do his job along with Armstrong and Chtistie to bring the Kings back to a good team that will challenge for playoffs and eventually a championship. It will take some time and hard work and smart decisions. Time will tell but we all need to support at least on the positive side of realism to help those involved to accomplish those goals. We certainly can question those decisions and as Kings supporters we have a right to do so but not to the extent that it is all negative. That in itself would be complete destruction of the Sacramento Kings. GO KINGS!
My concern isn’t the coaches, I’m okay with that and even with Perry running the show.
My concerns are two:
Until I have evidence to the contrary of these two concerns, I remain bearish on this franchise.
I agree with you on both counts. Vivek needs to let Perry be the GM and Chrisrie and his coaches need to coach without interference. If that happens we are half way there.
I wouldn’t call you a pessimist…
Meatballs – It just doesn’t matter
We’ve been waiting for how many years?
Is this good? I can’t tell.
I’d kinda like 1-2 more well-known, well-respected assistant coaches to help round out the staff but I guess the likelihood of that is pretty slim at this point.
Yeah, someone to implement an actual offense would be good. And someone to run that non-offense stuff that I don’t know the word for because I’ve been watching the Kings too long.
Hey, we got Woody!
We have highlight-worthy coaches!
This has been your “We don’t have a 1st round draft pick to discuss” moment for Friday, May 30, 2025. Have a pleasant weekend.
No 1st rounder, no California Classic, just assistant coaches, assistant coaches everywhere…
We know Ms. Anjali is the Asst to the Asst to the GM.
I’m waiting for more “Just Wait Till Next Year” articles to get me through this offseason!
They’re stacking up and circling like planes over Newark.
Who exactly is he supposed to develop?
speaking of player related developments:
As a longtime Kings fan, I believe somewhere there lies the rotten core of what might be, (having seen what has been) but does anybody else figure that with today’s Zion Williamson accusation news (a self destructive guy digs deeper), that he might end up a King?
(the foot shooting team: Ja Morant, Miles Bridges, Zion Williamson. These are guys that not only shot themselves in the foot, but reloaded, and shot some more).
We can say what we want – but at the least, the coaching staff and players seem to be a group of solid citizens, which is some consolation. Yay!?
The Collison/Matt Barnes/Ty Lawson Kings say hello!
“He’s just passionate and hates to lose.”
Much higher ceiling than any core we’ve had since the Glory Era Kings.
We can be the new and hipper version of the Jailblazers.
why not bring in Marvin Bad News Barnes ?
Players like Zach, DDR, MM and Sabonis who have been in the NBA for years and haven’t won anything. Even with this foursomes combined damn near half century of NBA experience, they need developing.
Two things:
GrEaT cAReEr MoVe FeLLaS
Can’t have enough nobodies on the bench…
Not a whole lot of noteworthy, game changing stuff going on there. I don’t think a single one of us thought there would be. Ownership isn’t willing to spend so we get what they can find on the cheap while they put positive spin on “we just don’t want to spend to compete.”
Its going to suck watching Coach Christie have to flounder with a subpar think tank sitting next to him while what’s left of our talent wastes away next year. He was terribly outcoached in the play-in this year and its obvious he needs some help (and talent on the floor.) I’d be happy to be wrong but I don’t feel like there’s much to be enthused about with this group.
Kings need a top 15 PG. Oh yeah. had Fox and Hali but gave them away
IMO going after Ja, LaMelo orTre isn’t going to help the overall team concept the Kings want.You pay out half you assets both in players and picks for one player. There are more PG’s out there that might fit want the Kings are looking for. A couple would be Tre Jones, Scotty Pippen Jr., Andrew Nembhard, Jpse Alvarado, even Ivey, White or Prichard. If you could get let’s say a Tre Jones who would fit really well with his skill set and only 25 then you could make a few more trades using DeRozan, Monk and even Carter. A lot more avenues to go to without selling the farm for one player.
Pippen, Jones, Nemb, Ivey, O’Connell, would all be upgrades over what we have at PG now. There’s no way a lot of these teams can keep all the talent they have with these aprons. Solid PG’s will be available this offseason, it’s on Perry (Vivek) to navigate that.
I personally like Tre Jones. 25 can defend head to head. His IQ is really good. Great team player who can facilitate. Setting up other players is one of his strong points. Really good passer, His turnover rate to assets is fantastic. Team player. Good locker room guy. Can probably get him with our MLE. Won’t have to use other players or draft picks to get him. IMO a perfect fit as starting point guard next year. Now work on other decisions to upgrade the roster.
I like Tre Jones too, he’s a steady if unspectacular kind of player. Not a bad shooter (career 49% from 2) but he won’t spread the floor (career 31% from 3). He is excellent in setting up his teammates (7.8 Asts per 36) and not turning the ball over (7:1 Ast/TO). He makes up for his lack size and athleticism with fundamentals and high BBIQ.
He’s not a good defender though. The per 100 and Defensive Rating numbers below represent how many Pts per 100 possessions a team scores against any lineups containing Tre Jones (negatives are good, positives are bad). For percentiles, higher is good and lower is bad.
His defensive rating (117.7) is +2.0 above league average (115.7) and most of his career he’s been a negative on that end of the floor with last year (+8.3) being his worst since his rookie year (+10.9) as he was in the 3rd percentile in DEF On/Off in 2025 per Gleaning the Glass. He did have an outlier year (2023) with SAS where he was in the 94th percentile (-7.6 pts), but was otherwise below league average every year he was in the NBA (2nd/29th/64th/94th/68th/3rd).
If the Kings can’t swing a trade for a better PG, I would be more than okay with Tre Jones being brought in but I think he’s a much better fit as a backup PG than a starter. He is not really a good fit defensively next to Lavine, but offensively he fills the secure ball-handling and plate-setter roles rather nicely.
Lack of size and athleticism. A Kings guard, no doubt.
It’s on Perry, Armstrong and Christie to navigate. Lord leave out the name Vivek.
Ty Jerome
The Kings really don’t need a pg. They just need to acquire draft capital and young talent we can take some chances on. They don’t have any chance to put a competitive team on the court now and it’s going to take a 4 year rebuild to be championship competitive. So to me worrying about a particular position at this point is superfluous.
A short story. Yes he was out coached in that playin game.
One of my pet peeves is what’s called the participation ribbon given out to those who basically lost. IMO and as a coach losing has its benefits. You can learn from losing as I expected Doug has done. That doesn’t mean he is a terrible coach, It means he takes that lose and applies it to becoming a better coach. No participation ribbons for me and I expect Doug doesn’t want any either.
I don’t have any opinion on any of these guys as I don’t know much about them (I knew Mike Miller as a coach only because I knew there was a coach named Mike Miller who wasn’t that Mike Miller).
When I peruse most coaching staffs, I can honestly say that I only recognize 2-3 coaches who aren’t the head coach on each staff. On our staff, we have Mike Woodson and Bobby Jackson as guys I’d recognize on any other staff. None of this seems out the ordinary to me.
I was more disturbed at the lack of Cali-Classic participation than I am about the hiring of young non-descript (but potentially-good and up-in-coming?) coaches. I get it, young also equals “cheap” (and we all know how broke Vivek is) but there are so many other verifiable issues to be frustrated with that this doesn’t even register with me.
I just hope the FO brings in someone (whether a known quantity or not) whose only responsibility is to design and implement an offense that makes the best use of whatever talent is on the roster. I want to see some synergy as the only way this team will be able to compete in the West is when the sum is greater than the parts.
Total irrelevance but I guess it has to be reported.
FWIW Phoenix has narrowed their head coaching search to 2 Cavs assistants I’ve never heard of. At least our never heard ofs are just for assistants.
https://bsky.app/profile/shamsbot.bsky.social/post/3lqn5khpqo226
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