{"id":258297,"date":"2026-04-08T22:27:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/258297\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T22:27:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:27:29","slug":"nba-investigating-doug-christie-sacramento-kings-for-potential-tanking-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/258297\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA investigating Doug Christie, Sacramento Kings for potential tanking play"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve\u00a0heard\u00a0that the Kings are still evaluating Doug Christie’s future<\/a> based on the premise that Sacramento’s various injury woes have made it difficult to gauge his true capability in the role. \u2014 4\/8\/2026 marcstein.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Sacramento Kings star DeMar DeRozan reveled in a memorable moment when he achieved another extraordinary feat in the city where his NBA career began. DeRozan passed Dominique Wilkins for 17th on the NBA\u2019s all-time scoring list while helping the Kings conclude a five-game road trip with a 123-115 victory over the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena. \u201cWe\u2019re over there and Woody (assistant coach Mike Woodson) looks at me and goes, \u2018Man, he just passed Dominque Wilkins,\u2019\u201d Kings coach Doug Christie said. \u201cI said, \u2018Well, if you pass Dominique Wilkins on the freeway or in line at the grocery store you\u2019re doing something.\u2019<\/a> \u201cHe just continues to move up the ladder. Super proud of and for him. It couldn\u2019t happen to a better person and a better pro. He\u2019s a pro\u2019s pro and to watch him have this type of success is exciting for all of us.\u201d \u2014 4\/2\/2026 Sacramento Bee<\/a><\/p>\n

Sam Amick: The assumption around\u00a0the league has been that Russell Westbrook\u00a0wouldn’t be back. I don’t know that we\u00a0can make that assumption 100%.<\/a> The assumption has been\u00a0that that Doug Christie very possibly wouldn’t be\u00a0back. We’ll see on that front. It is a big\u00a0summer for Scott Perry in the front office. \u2014 3\/20\/2026 YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike Bibby\u2019s former backcourt mate, Doug Christie, is currently in the midst of his second season coaching the Kings. After taking over the team midway through the last season and posting a respectable record (27-24), things have been nothing but a struggle this season, with Christie even calling out the team early in the season. \u201cI think Doug\u2019s doing the best job he could do with the cards that he was dealt,\u201d said Bibby<\/a> in a one-on-one interview with R.org. \u201cDoug has a lot of passion for the game. He has the greatest assistant coaching staff. It\u2019s unfortunate that it\u2019s a rebuilding year or however they want to put it. \u201cBut it\u2019s unfortunate for Doug because I think he has the passion to coach, and he loves the guys, and he has that,\u201d Bibby continued to say. \u2014 3\/17\/2026 R.Org Sports<\/a><\/p>\n

Matt George: Doug Christie doubled down on his stance about tanking. He says as long as he is here in Sacramento, the Kings will never tank.<\/a> Every time they step on the floor, they will try to win. He says tanking hurts the young guys on your team currently, and also pointed out that Dallas won the lottery last year after beating the Kings in the play-in. \u2014 3\/16\/2026 x.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTotally,\u201d Christie said. \u201cI went down and sat with him for a second just to talk to him. His frustration is more about, first of all, ending a skid, and also after being so close that it could go either way in so many games, this is the first time in a minute where we had this kind of result where we weren\u2019t really in a game.<\/a> That frustration paired with always trying to play the right way, making sure we\u2019re moving the basketball, getting into something \u2026 that was more his frustration tThan anything, but he\u2019s good. Deebo is a consummate professional.\u201d \u2014 2\/10\/2026 Sacramento Bee<\/a><\/p>\n

Brad Miller: Obviously with Scott Perry coming\u00a0in, I talked with him and obviously we\u00a0all know Doug Christie up here and it was going\u00a0to be a challenging year. There’s going to be\u00a0changes, that’s for sure, which is a\u00a0good thing. They need to retool, not\u00a0just stay in the same limbo that they\u00a0stand trying to make the playing\u00a0game<\/a>. \u2014 1\/31\/2026 YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n

Kings coach Doug Christie agreed that the trade rumors don\u2019t seem to be weighing on his players. \u201cWhen we get together and we have meals and we talk, most times they\u2019re just chilling,\u201d Christie said.<\/a> \u201cThis is the area that we come to and we relax. These are the 2 \u00bd hours that we come and everything goes away for a second. If you\u2019re feeling that, and I\u2019ve been in that position, it can happen, but this is a brotherhood. We\u2019re here together and we\u2019re going to ride together. That\u2019s what we do.\u201d \u2014 1\/24\/2026 Sacramento Bee<\/a><\/p>\n

Sacramento Kings guard Dennis Schroder didn\u2019t mince words when asked about the rumors swirling around his team with the Feb. 5 NBA trade deadline fast approaching. \u201cI don\u2019t give a f— about that,\u201d Schroder said. \u201cAt the end of the day, I enjoy every single day being in the NBA. I don\u2019t take it for granted.\u201d<\/a> \u2014 1\/24\/2026 Sacramento Bee<\/a><\/p>\n

Christie is on the first season of a three-year\u00a0contract, league\u00a0sources\u00a0said, but the final season is a team option. This is a trial period for a first-time head coach, but Perry has been firm in his backing of Christie. Despite the poor record, his job is safe, team\u00a0sources\u00a0said<\/a>. “He’s got an organization that’s behind him and believes that he will be there to help push us through and turn the corner,” Perry said. \u2014 1\/7\/2026 ESPN<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’ve\u00a0heard\u00a0that the Kings are still evaluating Doug Christie’s future based on the premise that Sacramento’s various injury woes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[243,121,123,122,17732,17733,509,2717,506,114071,379,500,508,499,377,246],"class_list":{"0":"post-258297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-sacramento","10":"tag-sacramento-headlines","11":"tag-sacramento-news","12":"tag-sstssportsnba","13":"tag-sstsnnba","14":"tag-tagbasketball","15":"tag-tagcontains-commerce-or-affiliate-content","16":"tag-tagespn-inc","17":"tag-tagmike-woodson","18":"tag-tagnational-sports","19":"tag-tagnba","20":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","21":"tag-tagsacramento-kings","22":"tag-tagsports-news","23":"tag-typestory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258297","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=258297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}