The Sacramento Kings full schedule for the 2023-24 NBA Season has been released. Over the last few days we’ve gotten bits and pieces of intel about national TV games, as well as the schedule for the in-season tournament, but now we have a full view of the upcoming season.
The season kicks off on October 25th, just over two months from now, as the Kings visit the Utah Jazz. I’m too lazy to check the numbers, or even what happened last season, but it feels like the Kings always start the season on the road, doesn’t it?
The Kings quickly return to Sacramento for their home opener, hosting the Golden State Warriors on ESPN in a rematch of last year’s fantastic 7-game series.
The Kings release (linked above) breaks down the entire schedule in significant detail, but there are a few keys notes to highlight:
The Kings two longest homestands each feature six games: Thursday, Dec. 14 through Saturday, Dec. 23 hosting Oklahoma City (Dec. 14), Utah (Dec. 16), Washington (Dec. 18), Boston (Dec. 20), Phoenix (Dec. 22) and Minnesota (Dec. 23). Thursday, March 7 through Monday, March 18 hosting San Antonio (March 7), Houston (March 10), Milwaukee (March 12), L.A. Lakers (March 13), New York (March 16) and Memphis (March 18).
The Kings longest road trip features seven games: Thursday, Jan. 25 through Monday, Feb. 5 against Golden State (Jan. 25), Dallas (Jan. 27), Memphis (Jan. 29), Miami (Jan. 31), Indiana (Feb. 2), Chicago (Feb. 3) and Cleveland (Feb. 5).
Sacramento has 22 games that will be aired on national TV, including five on ESPN (2 home, 3 away), six on TNT (4 home, 2 away) and 11 on NBA TV (10 home, 1 away), their most nationally televised games in a season since 2004-05 (30).
The last season Sacramento had at least five games on ESPN and six games on TNT was during the 2006-07 season.
Of the team’s 15 back-to-back sets, six are home-home, six are away-away, two are away-home and one is home-away.
For those of you like myself who don’t trust numbers, believing math is an instrument of evil sorcery, and prefer the eye test, here’s the visual format:
Here is the 2023-24 NBA schedule for the Sacramento Kings: pic.twitter.com/24rXYSVOXm
— Jason Anderson (@JandersonSacBee) August 17, 2023
One final thing I find interesting is Strength of Schedule measurements. We’ve often joked about the Kings having a difficult SOS rating, which is normal when you’re not a good team. But the Kings were a good team last year and still have a relatively high difficulty measure. Why, you may ask? Because of division play, and the brutal gauntlet that is this year’s Pacific Division. Four games each against the Warriors, Lakers, Suns, and Clippers is going to skew any schedule towards being more difficult. Clearly, this is a conspiracy by the NBA to target Sacramento. No matter, we’ve run this gauntlet before, and we’ll do it again.
Now, somebody figure out how to fast forward us all to October.
LIGHT THE BEAM!!!!
Thought it would be the Griz for the first game, but not upset with the Jazz.
That home opener though. It better be loud !!!FTW
11 out of 14 at home to finish the season? Not even sure how I feel about that…
Only 1 home weekend matinee game makes me sad – I like those early/mid afternoon game times
This might be the reason to cancel my league pass subscription. 22 nationally televised games + 2 Warrior road games means I missing almost a quarter of the season watching from home in Oakland. The league really needs to figure out how to let people who don’t subscribe to a cable tv package still enjoy games.
Do you do full league pass, or just the 1 team package? I’ve been doing the 1 team(Kings) while living in Nashville and outside of the Grizz and I think Atl games its worth it. There’s a few good streaming sites to use also. On STR you couldn’t post the links or talk about them but if it’s all chill here I’ll happily send you the sites. Gotta deal with some pop up adds but it’s better than paying for cable lol
What a time to be alive. Can this season hurry up already
22 National TV games!!?? Lets go!
22 National Games? Makes me think of this famous Academy Award moment…
Kangz No More!
Sally Field was the best. Lol
I’m sad that they’ll be on the road during Thanksgiving weekend the Christmas Holiday week (since those are some of the few times I’m in Sac during the NBA season). And December 23rd is the most likely time I’m gonna be having my family gatherings for the holidays.
They do have a game on my birthday though! (even though I won’t be able to go to that one either)
Does anyone know which of those nationally televised games will also be televised locally?
For NBATV, I think the home team gets their broadcast shown IIRC.
Thanks, I appreciate it
I still don’t fully understand how the knockout round of the in season tournament works. From what I can gather the semi-finals and finals will be hosed at a “neutral location,” which is still to be determined, and just the semi-final games count towards the regular season standings. The 22 teams that do not make the knockout stage will play 2 regular season games between Dec. 6th and 8th. Where those games are played and who is playing them is a complete unknown until the first round of the tournament is wrapped up.
So…if the Kings make it to the knockout stage, they may or may not get additional home games. It is entirely possible the Kings get only 39 home games this year and 43 road games, or 43 home games and 39 road games. It will interesting to see how teams deal with revenue sharing and season ticket holders in this situation.
Unless they play eighty-three.
Kill the in-season tournament in-utero.
Might it be more depending on the mid/in-season tournament?
apologies for my inability:
is there a link to the above schedule that is available in printable format that someone could share please.
Here’s a link to the ESPN version of the Kings schedule:
https://www.espn.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/sac
What ! JMan- no poem????
Right now…no reason:
Saving for the season!
I think that’s called a performative contradiction: what you do contradicts what you say. I liked it!
Keep it on hold
But be hold
the kings will not fold
all the tickets are sold
The ESPN list has the games – I was hoping for a link to the schedule Jason Anderson has on Twitter and is printable
When the Kings put everything together, as they seem to do every 20 years or so, they really put out an entertaining product.
Imagine having to root for the Knicks. Yikes.
OT: does anyone have a recommendation for the best basketball coverage news outlet that isn’t Kings specific?
Athletic (various writers for each team) and Basketball Intelligence- a subscription service that sends out daily reports on all teams.
Much appreciated. I had an Athletic subscription a couple of years ago, for $18/yr I think I’ll pick it up again. I’ll check out Basketball Intelligence, I haven’t seen that one before.
There’s really only one correct answer:
Good Morning It’s Basketball, from Tom Ziller.
Is the playoff schedule released yet?
Who do we play in the third round before the Finals?
I’m calling it now – 96-0!
98-0?
sorry – not 96-0 (which is embarrassingly wrong), but not 98-0 either. It’s now an even 100-0 because you can’t forget (but you can try) the mid-season Tournament (maybe it’s 101-0?)
I’m so confused. Skal re-signs with the Kings on a partially guaranteed deal.
I don’t see any issue, the Kings aren’t on the hook for anything impactful.
Kinda wish we brought back Giles.
Badge Legend