{"id":258082,"date":"2026-04-08T20:02:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T20:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/258082\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T20:02:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T20:02:19","slug":"stanford-alum-maxime-raynaud-thriving-as-sacramento-kings-rookie-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/258082\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanford alum Maxime Raynaud thriving as Sacramento Kings rookie"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Kings center Maxime Raynaud<\/a> bounced around the Chase Center court<\/a> during pregame warmups, sinking floaters and slamming dunks 34 miles north of the Stanford campus he called home for four years<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once an All-Pac 12 and All-ACC selection on The Farm, Raynaud is now wrapping up a debut season that could see him add an All-Rookie honor to his collection of accolades.<\/p>\n

Sacramento drafted Raynaud No. 42 overall, and he has gone from a seldom-used backup to the team\u2019s featured scorer over the past month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI went through, really, every phase, starting off pretty slow individually, and then eventually getting more time and then taking advantage of the opportunity,\u201d Raynaud told the Bay Area News Group on Tuesday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Playing against the Warriors on his 23rd birthday, Raynaud put up 17 points on 7 of 14 shooting and gobbled up seven rebounds in a 110-105 loss.<\/p>\n

Although the Kings are among the worst teams in the league at 21-59, his coach Doug Christie said that he hoped the game against Steph Curry and Co. was a learning experience for Raynaud and the young Kings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gift is to play Steph Curry in a high-leverage game \u2026 and find out how you need to respond and the things that you need to do to be able to take that next step,\u201d Christie said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"GoldenMaxime Raynaud matched up with playoff veteran Draymond Green (23) in an experience his coach hopes the rookie benefits from (Ray Chavez\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raynaud\u2019s individual performance on Tuesday was not out of the ordinary for the Parisian big man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raynaud is averaging 12.1 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game on the season. His form has been exceptional since the calendar turned to March.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He is averaging 17.4 points and 8.9 rebounds over that stretch, which includes individual outbursts of 32, 30 and 28 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The key to his scoring success?<\/p>\n

\u201cJust being confident, knowing your spots, and letting it fly when you have to,\u201d Raynaud said. \u201cAnd having some teammate that trust you and pass the ball to you in those little pockets.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is the kind of mindset his coach usually expects from veterans, not first-year pros.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally you don\u2019t see that type of poise from a young player like him, but he\u2019s been extremely impressive,\u201d\u00a0 Christie said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Raynaud reflected upon his rookie season, it was the length of the NBA grind that stood out to the center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always a game the next day, and the truth of one day is not necessarily going to be the truth of another day,\u201d Raynaud said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Christie\u2019s attention to what will be Raynaud\u2019s first full NBA offseason, the coach identified areas of improvement in Year 2. For his offensive gifts, the 7-foot-1 center is far from a deterrent at the rim and even less effective on switches. <\/p>\n

Part of that has to do with technique, a large amount of it has to do with playing on a dysfunctional team, and the rest can be blamed on a lack of strength.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously he has incredible touch, but it\u2019s probably more on the defensive side of things with verticality, physicality, and understanding leverage and things like that,\u201d Christie said. \u201cBut he\u2019s been awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"StanfordMaxime Raynaud was a star at Stanford, is now well on his way to being an All-Rookie selection in Sacramento (Nhat V. Meyer\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Kings center Maxime Raynaud bounced around the Chase Center court during pregame warmups, sinking floaters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2454,184,7,4213,1327,7000,402,181,129,195,395,121,123,122,101,396,198,200,127,202,494,12200],"class_list":{"0":"post-258082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bay-area","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-college-basketball","12":"tag-college-sports","13":"tag-golden-state-warriors","14":"tag-inside-sports","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-palo-alto","18":"tag-peninsula","19":"tag-sacramento","20":"tag-sacramento-headlines","21":"tag-sacramento-news","22":"tag-san-francisco","23":"tag-san-francisco-county","24":"tag-santa-clara-county","25":"tag-south-bay","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-stanford","28":"tag-stanford-cardinal","29":"tag-warriors-hq"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}