{"id":461601,"date":"2026-09-12T11:22:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T11:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/461601\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T11:22:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T11:22:23","slug":"report-sacramento-kings-doug-christie-is-lowest-paid-nba-coach-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/461601\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Sacramento Kings’ Doug Christie is Lowest-Paid NBA Coach in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> owner Tom Dundon<\/a> received a lot of public criticism from coaches around the NBA<\/a> for the contract head coach Micah Nori signed. While the controversial deal is effectively a \u201clame duck<\/a>\u201d contract that is viewed as one of the worst among his peers, Sacramento Kings coach Doug Christie has it worse.<\/p>\n

On a recent episode of Brian Windhorst\u2019s The Hoop Collective podcast<\/a>, ESPN NAB reporter Tim MacMahon shared that Doug Christie is the lowest-paid coach in the NBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got the lowest-paid coach in the league\u2026That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told.\u201d<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Tim MacMahon on Sacramento Kings coach Doug Christie<\/p>\n

Related: Sacramento Kings Turned Down Zach LaVine Trade<\/a><\/p>\n

Portland signed Nori to a three-year deal with only the first season of it guaranteed. It is been reported that he is making around $1 million to $2 million. For comparison, top NBA assistant coaches reportedly make more per year than the Trail Blazers and Kings head coaches.<\/p>\n

Christie, age 56, has spent his entire coaching career in Sacramento. Following his retirement as a player, he became a color commentator for the Kings ahead of the 2018-19 season. He then transitioned into coaching ahead of the 2021 campaign, first working under Luke Walton and then Mike Brown.<\/p>\n

After signing Brown to a multi-year contract extension in July 2024, Kings owner Vivek Ranadive fired him in December of that same year. With Brown\u2019s salary still on the books, Sacramento promoted Christie to interim head coach, and the interim tag was removed in May 2025.<\/p>\n

Since taking over as the Kings coach, Christie has posted a 49-84 record (.368 winning percentage) and has largely been viewed as the worst coach in the NBA. Even coming off a 22-60 campaign, Ranadive opted to keep Christie around with the decision largely driven by the money.<\/p>\n

While Christie signed a three-year contract when he was officially named the full-time Kings head coach, the final season isn\u2019t guaranteed. Given that Sacramento is widely projected to be one of the two worst NBA teams in the upcoming season, it\u2019s relatively safe to assume that this will be Christie\u2019s last year as a coach.<\/p>\n

\t\t\"avatar\"<\/p>\n

\t\tMatt Johnson is Senior Editor of NFL and College Football for Sportsnaut. His work, including weekly NFL and college … More about Matt Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon received a lot of public criticism from coaches around the NBA for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[8874,121,123,128,122],"class_list":["post-461601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-nba-news","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461601","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=461601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}