Sacramento Kings 2026-27 roster: a deep dive into a reshaped team and rotation

A 22-win season that forced a retooling

The Sacramento Kings closed the 2025-2026 NBA regular season with a 22-56 record across 78 games. The team also played four additional games in the Emirates NBA Cup, losing all four without registering a single win in that competition.

That kind of season rarely leaves a roster untouched, and Sacramento's did not. The Kings enter 2026-2027 with 19 players on the books: Darius Acuff Jr., Precious Achiuwa, Patric Baldwin Jr., Dylan Cardwell, Nique Clifford, Drew Eubanks, Adam Flagler, DeAndre Hunter, Alex Karaban, Zach LaVine, Doug McDermott, Jonathan Mogbo, Malik Monk, Keegan Murray, Daeqwon Plowden, Maxime Raynaud, Domantas Sabonis, Emanuel Sharp and Isaiah Stevens.

That group mixes established NBA scorers, a productive young frontcourt, and a wave of players who spent last season in college gyms or on G-League courts rather than in NBA arenas. The turnover reflects a franchise trying to find a new identity, and it sets up a rotation battle that will play out over training camp and the early stretch of the new season.

The 22-win mark also frames every individual stat line that follows. A team losing at that rate rarely has a settled rotation, and the numbers below — some built on 82 games played, others on as few as six — show just how unsettled Sacramento's roster was even before the offseason changes arrived.

The departures from last season's rotation

Three players who were part of Sacramento's 2025-2026 rotation now play elsewhere in the NBA. Dennis Schröder moved to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Devin Carter joined the Atlanta Hawks, and Isaac Jones landed with the Detroit Pistons — all three absent from the Kings' 2026-2027 roster and present instead on their new teams' books.

Two more departures went overseas. DaQuan Jeffries signed officially with Besiktas Istanbul on July 11, 2026, while Dario Saric joined Anadolu Efes Istanbul on June 16, 2026, both moves confirmed as official transfers to the EuroLeague.

Four other rotation regulars from last season are simply no longer on Sacramento's roster, and no destination for any of them could be confirmed. DeMar DeRozan, Russell Westbrook, Keon Ellis and Killian Hayes combined for 77, 64, 48 and 24 games respectively with the Kings in 2025-2026, real minutes in real games, yet none of them appear on a 2026-2027 NBA roster in the available records. Their situations remain the biggest open question hanging over this offseason's roster math.

Newcomers arrive from campuses, the G-League and an in-season addition

Three of Sacramento's new faces spent 2025-2026 in college basketball. Alex Karaban logged 1365.8 minutes last season with the UConn Huskies, Darius Acuff Jr. played 1263.0 minutes for the Arkansas Razorbacks, and Emanuel Sharp totaled 1085.2 minutes with the Houston Cougars — three college products walking straight into an NBA rotation that lost a lot of experienced bodies this summer.

Adam Flagler took a different route, spending 2025-2026 in the G-League with the Austin Spurs, where he logged 569.6 minutes before making the jump to Sacramento's roster.

Jonathan Mogbo's path was more layered still. He split last season between the Toronto Raptors' NBA roster and their G-League affiliate, Raptors 905, logging 767.25 minutes in the G-League against 252.02 in the NBA. His limited NBA action came in bursts — 71 games played, but only 3.5 minutes and 0.9 points per outing on average, albeit at a sharp 59.6% clip from the field.

DeAndre Hunter's arrival tells yet another story. He started 2025-2026 with the Cleveland Cavaliers, where he logged 1123.97 minutes, before joining Sacramento during the season, which netted him just 50.97 minutes with his new team — a split showing he joined the Kings during the season.

Sabonis, LaVine and Monk lead the scoring returns

Domantas Sabonis remains the clearest returning building block. In 22 games with Sacramento last season, the Kings big man averaged 13.7 points, 9.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 25.6 minutes, shooting an efficient 54.3% from the field even as his 3-point shooting stayed modest at 18.5%.

Zach LaVine posted the highest scoring average on the roster among players with meaningful playing time. Across 40 games and 37 starts, he averaged 18.7 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 30.6 minutes, connecting on 47.9% of his shots overall and 38.7% from 3-point range.

Malik Monk brought scoring punch off the bench rather than as a starter, appearing in 71 games but starting only 3. In 19.2 minutes per night, he put up 10.9 points and 2.6 assists while shooting 43.8% from the field and 39.5% from 3-point range.

Together, these three represent the offensive engine Sacramento carries into 2026-2027 — a veteran facilitator inside, a high-usage scoring guard, and an instant-offense bench weapon.

Raynaud's 82 games lead a retooled frontcourt

Maxime Raynaud was the iron man of Sacramento's frontcourt last season, appearing in all 82 games and starting 56 of them. He averaged 11.2 points and 6.8 rebounds in 23.9 minutes, shooting 57.1% from the field and a surprising 32.4% from 3-point range for a player logging that much interior work.

Precious Achiuwa was also a regular, playing 75 games with 57 starts. He put up 9.8 points and 6.5 rebounds in 23.2 minutes, shooting 52.9% overall, giving the Kings two rebounding, high-efficiency big men who logged starter-level minutes across the full season.

Keegan Murray's season was more limited, with 38 games and 22 starts. In 20.9 minutes, he averaged 8.4 points and 3.5 rebounds, but his shooting numbers dipped to 42.0% from the field and 27.7% from 3-point range.

Behind that trio, Jonathan Mogbo and DeAndre Hunter arrive with thin track records in Sacramento's system — Mogbo's NBA minutes came almost entirely in Toronto, and Hunter played only a handful of games after joining Sacramento — leaving open competition for frontcourt minutes once training camp begins.

Bench depth and the young developers to watch

Nique Clifford gave Sacramento steady two-way production off the bench and occasionally as a starter, appearing in 78 games with 28 starts. He averaged 8.3 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 24.1 minutes, shooting 41.7% from the field and 33.3% from 3-point range.

Daeqwon Plowden logged 8.6 points in 21.1 minutes across 40 games, while Dylan Cardwell carved out a rebounding niche in limited action — 4.2 points and 5.8 rebounds in 15.9 minutes across 57 games, shooting an efficient 58.3% from the field and 50.0% from 3-point range on low volume.

Drew Eubanks appeared in 72 games but averaged just 7.7 minutes, contributing 3.0 points and 1.8 rebounds at a 59.6% clip. Doug McDermott played all 82 games without a single start, averaging 5.4 minutes and 2.0 points while shooting 39.0% from 3-point range. Patric Baldwin Jr. saw 10 games and 8.8 minutes, posting 2.3 points and 2.1 rebounds.

Isaiah Stevens' 2.0 points and 1.5 assists came in only 6 games and 7.1 minutes with Sacramento, mirroring the small sample sizes that also define Hunter's early tenure with the team. Those thin bodies of work, combined with three newcomers who spent last season in college basketball, mean Sacramento's true bench pecking order for 2026-2027 will only take shape once games begin to count.

Doug Christie returns for a second full season

The man overseeing this retooled roster is a familiar figure in Sacramento. Doug Christie was named the Kings' head coach on a full-time basis on May 1, 2025, according to an official team release. That promotion followed a stint as interim head coach that began on December 27, 2024, during which he guided the Kings to a 27-24 record and the ninth seed in the Western Conference.

Christie's ties to the franchise run deeper than the coaching bench. He played for the Kings from 2000 to 2005 during a 15-season NBA career spent with seven teams after being selected 17th overall in the 1992 NBA Draft by the Seattle SuperSonics, and he earned NBA All-Defensive First Team honors in 2002-03 while wearing Sacramento's colors. After his playing days, he served as the team's full-time color analyst from 2017 to 2021, then spent three seasons as an assistant coach before stepping into the interim head coaching role.

Multiple reports indicate Christie will remain in charge for 2026-2027. TheScore reported that "The Sacramento Kings will bring back head coach Doug Christie for his second full season in 2026-27," and a second search result relaying a headline from The Athletic titled "Sacramento Kings expected to retain head coach." That continuity gives Sacramento's retooled roster at least one constant heading into a season defined elsewhere by turnover.

What to watch as Sacramento retools

Sacramento's 2026-2027 season opens with more questions than settled answers. The rotation that produced a 22-56 record has been reshuffled but not clearly upgraded on paper, and the biggest unknown is not on the roster at all — the destinations of DeMar DeRozan, Russell Westbrook, Keon Ellis and Killian Hayes remain unresolved, with none of the four appearing on any confirmed 2026-2027 NBA roster.

On the floor, three newcomers arriving straight from college — Alex Karaban, Darius Acuff Jr. and Emanuel Sharp — will need to prove they can contribute at the NBA level after logging significant college minutes rather than NBA ones last season. And in the frontcourt, Maxime Raynaud, Precious Achiuwa, Keegan Murray, Jonathan Mogbo and DeAndre Hunter all enter camp with a case for minutes but no settled pecking order.

How Doug Christie sorts through those competing claims, with continuity at head coach as his one fixed variable, will shape whatever comes next for a franchise still searching for its footing.