Sacramento Kings coach Doug Christie has used 30 different starting lineups this season with Zach LaVine, Keegan Murray and Domantas Sabonis combining to miss 114 games due to injuries.
The one constant has been DeMar DeRozan, a 36-year-old forward who missed his first game of the season in Sunday’s 126-110 victory over the Chicago Bulls at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
DeRozan was ruled out due to illness, ending his streak of consecutive games at 126. DeRozan played the last 62 games of the 2024-25 season and the first 64 games of the current season. He had not missed a game since November 2024, when he was ruled out for two games against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Portland Trail Blazers due to lower back inflammation.
Kings coach Doug Christie often talks about how much he enjoys coaching DeRozan, a 17-year veteran who ranks 19th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list with 27,109 points.
Christie praised DeRozan for his pride, professionalism and durability before Sunday’s game.
“I think for him, it’s like an honor thing,” Christie said. “He respects the game in a way that he wants to be available for every possibility. It’s kind of sad because, as someone who played 82 games, there’s a badge that goes with that to say every night I’m lacing them up and I’m getting after it.
“How he approaches the game, how he goes about his offseason, how he goes about his in-game work, how he goes about his film work, comes back at nighttime, gets shots up, has a routine that he goes through. There’s no mistake that you score almost 30,000 points or wherever he’s at right now in the pantheon of the greatest of the greats in our game because of how he goes about his business.”
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Jason Anderson is The Sacramento Bee’s Kings beat writer. He is a Sacramento native and a graduate of Fresno State, where he studied journalism and college basketball under the late Jerry Tarkanian.