Kings’ Starting 5 Receives Underwhelming Grade Before 2025-26 NBA Season

Despite all the negativity around the Sacramento Kings from outside the organization, it’s clear that ownership, the coaching staff, and the front office expect a lot from their current group. 

The issue with the Kings isn’t talent, it’s fit. Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan, and Zach LaVine have a collective 11 all-star selections and make over $114 million per year. Keon Ellis, Keegan Murray, Nique Clifford, and others should be perfect complements on paper as well. 

For some reason, it hasn’t translated to the court so far. The team did go out and add Dennis Schröder over the summer, but it doesn’t seem like that changed the opinion of most of the league. Bleacher Report’s Greg Swartz released a ranking of all 30 NBA starting lineups, and the Kings ended up 23rd, while Grant Hughes handed them an underwhelming “D” grade.

“There is certainly talent in the Sacramento Kings’ projected starting five, but figuring out how all of it fits together is a different story,” Swartz wrote.

Swartz was actually more kind than many may have expected in his explanation. As Swartz mentions, the talent in Sacramento isn’t the problem. It’s important to have good players, of course, but those players have to complement each other. 

In Sacramento, there are way too many on-ball players in the starting lineup and too few high-level role players. Keegan Murray is the only player in the starting lineup who can be successful offensively with low usage. The more movement off the ball, the better, and Sacramento falls victim to iso-ball way too often with it’s current group. 

Trying to force ball-dominant players into a lineup together negates their impact and forces them to play roles they aren’t suited for. LaVine and DeRozan are both at their best with the ball and taking a lot of shots. Sabonis and Schröder are both initiators at heart and wouldn’t be the same as low usage players. Swarts mentions the team should be better, but adding Schröder didn’t suddenly tie everything together. 

“Schröder joins as the team’s new starting point guard, although the 31-year-old is probably best suited for a reserve role at this point in his career,” Swartz continued. “There’s a lot of talented passers in this group, but no true floor general to tie everything together.”

The short answer is yes, the Kings should be slightly better with a point guard in the starting lineup. The long answer is that the boost will be so small that it probably wouldn’t have mattered if the Kings didn’t sign the German guard. That isn’t to say that Schröder is a bad player at all. 

If you’ve watched any EuroBasket, you’d see that Schröder has been consistently one of the best players on the court while playing with Franz Wagner and against Luka Doncic, Lauri Markannen, and other stars. On a team like the Detroit Pistons in a backup role, Schröder excels. He can play a lot of minutes, but you would be hard-pressed to find a starting point guard that he’s ahead of. 

It’s certainly possible that Devin Carter, Malik Monk, Keon Ellis, and Nique Clifford just can’t play point guard at all, and Schröder was necessary, but it isn’t clear how he truly elevates the team. 

Monk had a down shooting year, but the team did have a winning record with him starting last season. The defense will certainly be better with Schröder, but as a career 34% three-point shooter, is Schröder a good enough offensive player to be a better option than Carter or Ellis? On top of that, DeRozan and LaVine are both more than capable of playing the lead guard role. 

This might be the most important question of the season. Does head coach Doug Christie make a change early in the season, or should we expect to see the same five until the trade deadline? 

As frustrating as it may be, politics play a significant role in why certain players start, despite not being great fits. There is a world where bringing DeRozan off the bench makes sense, but he’s a six-time all-star, which complicates the decision. 

The other piece is that if Sacramento wants to trade any of their stars, they will need to play and play well to have value. As of now, everything points to the starting five taking the court (barring injury) in every game before the trade deadline and possibly beyond. 

All in all, placing just above the Portland Trail Blazers ‘ starting lineup feels fair for Sacramento. They may have much more talent, but the defensive questions haven’t gone anywhere. 

Since 2014, ten out of the 12 championship teams have had defensive rankings in the top 10, with only the Golden State Warriors (11th) and Denver Nuggets (15th) as exceptions. The Kings coincidentally ranked 23rd defensively last season, and the path to being in the top 10 or even 15 just isn’t there. 

This team won’t be together forever, but don’t be surprised to see the Kings end up at the bottom of more rankings until big changes are made.