The Sacramento Kings finished in ninth place in the Western Conference last season, good enough to earn a spot in the Play-In Tournament. With a new full-time head coach, a new front office, and a new starting point guard, the Kings will be looking to improve upon that play-in loss and make the playoffs next season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the Pacific Division Preview edition of The Hoop Collective, Senior NBA Writer for ESPN Tim Bontemps laid out the case for the Sacramento Kings to make the playoffs next season. In his view, the Kings\u2019 chances will largely be dictated by health, not only of their roster but also of the other teams in the bottom half of the Western Conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bontemps explained, \u201cThe Kings have a bunch of guys who are durable and should be on the court, and I think the best thing they have going for them is that a lot of their other competition to try to get in the playoffs has a lot of questions, from a health and availability standpoint.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As you would expect, simply being healthier on average than their competition will increase the Kings\u2019 chances of success.<\/p>\n
More specifically, Bontemps questioned whether the Los Angeles Clippers and Dallas Mavericks were going to be fully healthy, and whether stars such as Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs and Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers would be available for the bulk of the upcoming season.<\/p>\n
The Sacramento Kings will make the NBA Playoffs in the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 LaVineMuse (@LavineMuse08) September 1, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Bontemps continued, \u201cOf all of those teams in that group, I would say Sacramento has the lowest ceiling of any of those teams, but Sabonis is always going to play, DeMar is always going to play, Schr\u00f6der is always going to play. Keegan Murray has been incredibly durable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In his view, Sacramento might also have the highest floor because its roster contains several solid players who are generally durable. If other teams experience significant injuries to key players,\u00a0 that could be enough to move into the seventh or eighth spot in the West.\u00a0<\/p>\n Predictions vary<\/a> among NBA analysts<\/a>, but to earn the seventh or eighth seed next season, Sacramento would likely need to win somewhere between 44 and 48 games. Not impossible, but that doesn\u2019t strike me as likely for a team that won 40 games last season and is bringing mostly the same team back.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are questions around defensive consistency, especially on the perimeter. Frontcourt and wing depth might be an issue as well. In addition, competition in the Western Conference is projected to be just as stiff as ever. Several teams have made improvements in the offseason, so the Kings\u2019 margin of error is small.<\/p>\n Only Dennis Schroder could pull this move out in the #EuroBasket<\/a> final \ud83d\ude33\ud83c\udde9\ud83c\uddea pic.twitter.com\/41KDlMvgrD<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 BasketNews (@BasketNews_com) September 15, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n