Sacramento Kings rookie Maxime Raynaud put up a career-high 32 points against friend and French countryman Victor Wembanyama in Tuesday’s loss to the San Antonio Spurs.
Raynaud had another big game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday, but he was outdone by fellow rookie VJ Edgecombe.
Edgecombe had a career-high 38 points, six rebounds and 11 assists to lead the 76ers to a 139-118 victory over the Kings before a crowd of 15,067 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
Justin Edwards, a second-year forward from Kentucky, scored a career-high 32 points for the 76ers (38-32). Quinton Grimes had 27 points, five rebounds and seven assists.
Raynaud scored 30 points to lead the Kings (18-53), going 11 of 17 from the field and 3 of 4 from 3-point range while making all five of his free throw attempts.
Daeqwon Plowden scored 10 points for Sacramento. DeMar DeRozan had 13. Russell Westbrook had 11 points and eight assists.
Kings coach Doug Christie said Raynaud has exceeded expectations since coming out of Stanford as a second-round draft pick last summer.
“He smashed through the ceiling,” Christie said. “First of all, the kid is ready, and he wants the opportunity to continue to improve. Sometimes you get an opportunity and you’re not ready to seize it, but he has seized the opportunity.”
The Kings selected Raynaud with the 42nd overall pick in the second round of the 2025 NBA draft. He entered the season as the team’s third center behind Domantas Sabonis and Drew Eubanks, but he quickly replaced Eubanks as the backup center and ultimately took over as the starter with Sabonis missing most of the season due to injuries.
Raynaud has appeared in 63 games with 45 starts, averaging 11.4 points and 7.3 rebounds while shooting 56.6% from the field. He is shooting just 25% from 3-point range, but he has made 5 of 9 over the past two games.
Over the past 10 games, Raynaud has averaged 17.7 points and 9.1 rebounds, but he isn’t ready to reflect on his rookie campaign and the opportunity he has received in Sacramento.
“I think I’ll look back at it once the season is over, but definitely we had a lot of injuries,” Raynaud said. “Pretty early on it was Keegan and Domas, and it just kept going on with all the guys. Obviously not an ideal situation. For me as a rookie, it definitely opened up a spot that was not necessarily there at first, so I’m trying to take advantage of it.”
When these teams met on Jan. 29 in Philadelphia, the 76ers rallied from an 11-point deficit over the final 7:29 to win 113-111 on a driving layup by Tyrese Maxey with 1.3 seconds remaining. Maxey finished with 40 points, Joel Embiid had 37 and Paul George added 15 for Philadelphia.
This contest had a much different cast of characters.
Maxey (right finger tendon strain) and Embiid (right oblique strain) were out due to injuries. George is serving a 25-game suspension for violating the NBA’s anti-drug program.
The Kings were missing Devin Carter (right calf contusion), Nique Clifford (left hamstring soreness), Eubanks (left thumb UCL tear), De’Andre Hunter (left eye retinal repair), Zach LaVine (right pinky finger tendon repair), Murray (left ankle sprain) and Sabonis (left knee meniscus repair).
The 76ers went up by 13 in the first quarter. They led 45-33 after shooting a sizzling 69.2% with seven 3-pointers in the opening period.
Philadelphia extended its lead to 14 early in the second quarter, but Sacramento staged a 17-2 run to take a 50-49 lead on two free throws by Killian Hayes. The 76ers reclaimed the lead and carried a 71-62 advantage into the halftime break after outscoring the Kings 9-1 over the final 1:24.
The 76ers led 107-89 at the end of the third quarter. They went up by as many as 31 points in the fourth.
Up next
The Kings will conclude a four-game homestand when they play host to the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday in a game that could have major NBA draft lottery implications.
The Nets (17-52) have lost five in a row and 15 of 17 going into Friday’s game against the New York Knicks. They have the third-worst record in the NBA. The Kings have the fourth-worst record.
The teams with the three worst records will have a 52.1% chance of securing a top-four pick and a 14% chance landing the No. 1 pick.
This story was originally published March 19, 2026 at 10:51 PM.
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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.