Let’s all just forget about that disaster of a basketball game that took place on Wednesday night. The Kings are back in home territory tonight to take on the Portland Trail Blazers in what should hopefully be a more competitive matchup, even if Portland is probably a much better team than the Los Angeles Clippers will be this season.
Who: Sacramento Kings (0-1) vs. Portland Trail Blazers (1-0)
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
When: 7:00 PM PT / 10:00 PM ET
Watch: NBCSCA / League Pass
Sacramento’s first game was a stinker, and that’s being kind. Domantas Sabonis and Zach LaVine were pretty much the only two Kings who could have come out of that game looking even semi-good. The Kings were outclassed in almost every way, and by a team that isn’t expected to do much this season. Now they’ll look to bounce back against a Portland team with some real playoff hopes, coming off their own blowout win as they beat the Suns by 41 in their opener.
Portland has a few new additions this year, namely Ja Morant who they acquired via trade this summer, but they also have Damian Lillard back and healthy after missing all of last season. Lillard looked every bit like his old self in their first game, scoring 25 points in just under 24 minutes. Deni Avdija is also coming off an All-Star year, Toumani Camara is becoming one of the NBA’s premier 3-and-D players and Donovan Clingan is a 7’2 behemoth anchoring the middle. That’s not even to mention that the Blazers are bringing in guys like Jrue Holiday and Scoot Henderson off the bench; This is a very good and deep team that will give the Kings and many other teams a lot of trouble this season.
But hopefully the home crowd and some introspection will get the Kings fired up. Early season is when teams still have optimism and everything is possible. The Kings are also getting a little bit of reinforcements back as Malik Monk is listed as probable after missing all of preseason and the first game with an ankle injury. That should provide a nice scoring punch off the bench and also relieve Darius Acuff from some of his Point Guard duties while allowing Nique Clifford to play his more natural shooting guard position. Maxime Raynaud and Dylan Cardwell are both still out but the Kings hope to get them back sooner rather than later.
It’s not going to be an easy game, but hopefully it’s at least competitive and the Kings can give their fans something to root for tonight.
Prediction: Kings 112, Trail Blazers 123
I was just having this convo with Will Griffith.
It’s just so sad that the org fails to keep good coaching. I mean, as bad as this roster is – and yes, it’s bad – Domas and Zach are actually good NBA players. So are Keegan (scoring disappointments acknowledged) and Hunter and others. A good coach should be able to come up with a scheme/gameplan/etc to conjure 30-40 wins out of this group. Even if it’s Joerger’s “run them off the floor” approach, or Brown’s DHO through Sabonis game plan, or whatever.
But this shit looks so unorganized that I have no idea what Mike Miller is doing as the offensive coordinator. Per James Ham, Brenden Suhr is also there a sounding board for DC. Are they just bad at their jobs or something? It’s brutal!
Anywho, I’ll still watch every game cuz I’m dumb.
Yes, they are bad at their jobs. Seems like the game has passed them by. All of them are older, in a league that is young and innovative.
Yep. Some coaching staffs have young up and comers. We have old down and dumber’s.
Having said that, if the whole coaching staff looks bad, it usually starts at the top of coaching tree.
No lies told. Look no further than the Clippers. Ty Lue is an excellent coach who has continually maximized the skills of his players. On paper two days ago, there was far less talent on that Clippers team then there was on the Kings team, yet the opened a can of whoop us on Sac.
Until Perry grows a pair and Vivek is willngt o pay to get a real head coach for this team, they will continue to be a joke.
There are dudes out there right now that would be an incredible upgrade to Doug. Stotts, Borrego, Budenholzer all come to mind. There are also some very quality assistants out there. Go poach a guy like Chris Quinn from Miami before someone else does.
Uncle Ineptitude V has shown willingness to hire a real coach, the problem is one of retention.
The history of what happens to Kings’ Head Coaches who (1) know what they are doing; (2) are well respected; and (3) have no interest is placating the delusional basketball musings of a meddling owner is clear. There is a very obvious pattern!
It starts and ends with the head coach . This isn’t the NFL and if a head coach isn’t responsible why have him . Imagine any quality team blaming assistant coaches ?
After reading my comment, did you get the impression I was in any way, shape or form absolving DC of responsibility?
And yet, there are all kinds of head coaches. Some are geniuses in their own right (take Kyle Shanahan as on offensive guru for example) and then there are others who are great overall but rely on good coordinators to come up with the details/creative strategies.
I don’t think anyone expected DC, even on his best day, to be the former. And while DC has been an utter failure so far at his job, I think it is important to shed light on the others and ask quesions, such as, “who is coming up with this offensive ‘scheme?'” And, “why does it appear that they don’t know what the hell they are doing?”
My point was an NBA Head coach is responsible for the offense and defense. Agree , that entire staff is not much help and all top ones are Perry connections . Woodson, Miller Knicks and Suhr, Pistons . Just a thought .
I agree that coaching is a problem, but this team has major, major issues with talent. Namely that they don’t have any. There are basically no potential difference makers (or even solid starters) under 30 except Acuff. I don’t see a universe where this team wins 30 games with any coach. Coaching is a problem, but EVERYTHING on this team (talent, coaching, the GM, the owner, the freaking announcers) is a problem.
They won 22 last year with Zach/Domas/Keegan out for most of the season.
It’s doable with good coaching.
From Blazers Edge:
“Sacramento went from boom to bust in record time. The poor fans.”
“Beam to Bust*.”
We need Puke Guy to come back.
I hope “sell the team” and “Vivek you suck” chants are loud and clear.
Make a statement, King’s fans. We are all tired of this crap.
Puke Guy:
It’s the Blazers tonight in Sac town;
Just last week they beat the Kings down.
Our starters will play,
But that won’t save the day.
Chances are we’ll get battered around!
+1 Just getting my Kangz gear ready.
Slamson!
I don’t see any way we win this game.
Is there any player on our team that is better than who they will match up with?
Domas, but he doesn’t do well against big tall Cs and he only shot 5 times in the good matchup vs the Clips, all within 10 feet of the basket.
Sabonis has won the head to head matchups against Clingan pretty handedly. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
We got 1!
Just for fun I looked. We’re 2-2 in the 4 games both have played against each other, but there are 0 games where they’ve both played 20+ minutes.
Domas has done well in the 3 games Clingan played less than 20 minutes all in Clingan’s rookie season.
The one matchup last season Domas came off the bench for 19 minutes and Clingan destroyed Max (21 points 17 rebounds on 6-9 shooting in 37 mins). Domas & Max combined for 14 points 17 boards on 5-14 shooting in 42 combined minutes) Domas had 8 & 8 on 2-3 shooting off the bench.
Realistically, here comes blowout loss #2. And, for game #n, here comes blowout loss #n. The players seem as if they’re just playing pickup games at the local park – no cohesion, no plan, no serious effort. If Doug remains the head coach all season, in all seriousness I think this team may not even reach 5 total wins.
Doug isn’t making it to the end of the season, but Woodson won’t be appreciably better.
When a team has committed to building around the number 7 pick in the draft, you know your team is in trouble.
So much this.
Yup.
Didn’t do that with Bagley at #2, Fox at #5 or Keegan at #4, but I’m sure Acuff at #7 is going to the cornerstone going forward.
The irony is failing to build around their 12th pick!!! lol
Boom! Roasted.
Curry 😊
Ben McLemore. I can play this game too.
#NeverForget
7, total number of wins this year???
7- the number of brain cells used by Vivek when he’s involved with Kings basketball
The Warriors were complete idiots for building around that guy they drafted 7th
They did NOT consider building around him in his rookie season. In fact they attempted to trade him for Andrew Bogut. It worked out well for the Warriors that the Bucks wanted Monta Ellis instead.
This. There wasn’t the local hype around Curry like there is around Acuff. The Kings are putting all of their eggs in his basket right now.
I think folks forget that Curry was retained on a cheap rookie extension because his ankles were suspect and he wasn’t an all-star until his 5th season. As to Monta, he was the man in the Bay. The fans booed the team brass in a game after the trade. Hindsight is always 20/20.
There are superstars drafted at damn near every spot in the draft, but it doesn’t mean you anoint them the future of the franchise before they play a single game.
Well thank the maker that the Kings signed an undersized guard! We are short on those!
Shams Charania
@ShamsCharania
Guard Sean Pedulla has agreed on a two-way NBA contract with the Sacramento Kings, his agent George S. Langberg of
@GSLSportsGroup
tells ESPN. Pedulla was the 2025-26 G League Rookie of the Year.
1:41 PM · Oct 23, 2026
·
124.4K
Views
https://x.com/ShamsCharania/status/2113732499436359787
A 6’1″ scoring guard. What the hell are they doing? It’s like Vivek just googled “best players in G-League” and this dude’s name popped up because he was G-League ROY.
Pedulla was waived by the Clips AND the Rockets in August.
Probably used Google Gemini…
“…should get a new coach. Should develop their young players. Should find pieces that fit. Should have a system in place.”
Can we just save these discussions for franchises that aren’t run by idiots?
They did it for a hot minutes with Monte, Brown, and the Beam Team, but Vivek got impatient and ruined it all in less than 18 months after making the playoffs for the first time in damn near a generation.
McNair was EOY , Brown was COY and the dismissive little chap got jealous, petty and more involved . He is who we thought he was .
Hey, we’re only the 16th oldest team in the league this year after being 3rd oldest last year. Progress!
Not to worry. We’ll be the worst team in the league this year after being only the fifth worst last year!
Zowie!
[…] Kings vs. Trail Blazers Preview: Home sweet home — The Kings Herald […]
A good coach is not always a good hire, and a non-coach (one with no experience) can still be good given the right support. We’ve seen it before. I could make a list, but what’s the point?
If I rank the careers of the coaches Vivek has hired, I put Karl first even though I don’t think he ever won a title. Brown is second, Malone third, Joerger, then DC.
If I rank their performances in Sac it’s; 1) Malone 2) Brown 3)Joerger 4-5) between Karl and DC call it a toss-up for complete incompetence.
The best coach doesn’t always do the best job. I loved Malone, never liked Brown (still don’t) loved Karl but the job he did here hurt. I still love DC, but he’s not a legitimate NBA coach, no experience and no chance of gaining any legitimate experience playing coach for a G-league caliber franchise. He’s obviously in way over his head and not responding well.
DC did a legitimately good job for what? 8 games? Since then, for whatever reason (I don’t want to even bother speculating,) he’s been objectively terrible, and seems to only be getting worse. I don’t want to see him fired mid-season because I don’t think it will help, but I also can hardy envision someone (anyone?) doing worse. Hopefully he gets better. Adamsite mentioned some competent coaches and it looks like a pretty good list. I’ve no confidence any would help given the level of dysfunction at the top, even if one of them could be talked into coming here. Right now Scott Perry can’t entice Dalton Knecht to accept a position with this team.
And 1 Vivek now seems to be emulating his buddy J Fischer.. How ironic would it be for him to break the lease and sell to an ownership group in Seattle?
For anyone playing Kangz bingo, Sidy Cissoko is on pace to score his career high.
Former King—for two days as part of the Fox trade. We then traded him to the Wizards for Valanciunas.
Kinda felt like the other shoe was waiting to drop for most of the second quarter. There it goes
They were really feeding off the energy of the opening night crowd, and played about as well as I think they can play for 24 minutes…
…and were just barely hanging on.
Coming out for the second half, you could see that the emotional wave was gone, and the inevitable happened in less than 4 minutes.
Gonna be a long, long, long season, folks.
There is a glimmer of two man game between Sabonis and Acuff. You can see Domas leading Acuff with intention. Use your big man young fella!
Avdia has discovered the secret to beating the Kings that’s gotten exploited for years: run in a straight line as fast as possible and get fouled or an easy layup because we have zero transition D
I just want to say having Lillard, Morant, Holiday and Scoot is an insane guard rotation. They are running the Kings out of the gym.
Also Acuff is going to need his shots falling if he has the green light to shoot. Just praying his college averages catch up or something
From what I’m seeing just run a bunch of Acuff and Sabonis PnR/DHO and go from there. Let those 2 set the offense.
Already 30 in his second game as a rook, not too shabby
10 for 26 is opponent approved.
He looked great down the stretch though
Where’s Keegan? Benched?
Down the stretch, every time we needed a solid possession and a good shot… Lavine threw up a rushed, out of rhythm 3, or turned it over.
Anytime Lavine is moving fast towards the basket to finish at the rim, it’s a TO.
Nice to see Acuff bounce back even with the shooting splits still being pretty egregious. Keegan’s regression/plateau genuinely makes me sad. Kagnz.
Jaylen Brown led the league in shot attempts last year with 1,543. Acuff is on a pace for 2,050.
Your comparing Jaylen brown to a 19 year old rookie on the Sacramento Kings
I’m comparing the shot volume of a 19 year old rookie to last year’s league leader in field goal attempts. /Shrugs
It’s not some big surprise, we all knew he was going to be taking a bunch of shots
The last player to take over 2k shots in a season was Kobe Bryant in 05-06. I don’t think it’s maintainable, but it’s a helluva pace, especially while shooting 30%.
Yes ,and a 19 year old rookie shooting more than a MVP candidate makes zero sense .
Jaylen brown ain’t no real mvp candidate lmao
Two things can be true: The Kings don’t have much talent outside of Domas, LaVine and Acuff, and almost doubling-up everyone else on the team in shots is not good basketball, short or long-term.
33 points is nice, but spamming 26 shots, plus 12 free throws (which is even more shots) isn’t.
Stats aren’t updated yet, but I’m guessing Acuff is top 5 in the NBA in usage among players who’ve played rotation minutes.
On pace…after 2 games.LMAO
The smallest of sample sizes, to be sure. Yet, 30% on 50 shots over two games is the raw stat, with no real defense or offensive leadership to add to that.
He’s 19. The Kings suck. He may not be a top 30 PG in the NBA right now. We’ll see how that changes as the season progresses.
Badge Legend