Doug Christie to stay

Sacramento is expected to keep Doug Christie as head coach after a 2025-26 season that left the Kings near the bottom of the Western Conference. (nytimes.com) Christie was promoted from interim coach to full-time head coach on May 1, 2025, after Mike Brown was fired on December 27, 2024. Scott Perry, who was hired as general manager on April 21, 2025, backed Christie when the team made the permanent hire. (nba.com, nba.com, nba.com) The results this season were bleak. Sacramento entered the final day at 21-58, 14th in the Western Conference, and the club endured a 16-game losing streak in February, the longest in franchise history. (statmuse.com, espn.com) Keeping Christie gives Perry one major decision he does not have to make at the start of the offseason. The Kings changed coaches in December 2024 and changed general managers in April 2025, and another reset on the bench would have added to the turnover. (nba.com, nba.com, nba.com) The move also keeps in place a coach with deep ties to the franchise. Christie played for Sacramento from 2000 to 2005, worked as the team’s television color analyst from 2017 to 2021, and joined the coaching staff before becoming interim coach and then head coach. (pepperdinewaves.com) Christie’s first case for the job looked stronger a year ago. Sacramento went 27-24 under him as interim coach after a 13-18 start under Brown, and that finish helped convince Perry to remove the interim tag in 2025. (lastwordonsports.com, espn.com) This time, the front office appears to be weighing the roster and injuries as much as the record. NBC Sports Bay Area reported in February that Perry said Christie had done “a hell of a job” under difficult circumstances, and more recent reporting said internal evaluations considered the team’s health problems. (nbcsportsbayarea.com, clutchpoints.com) The next test is whether continuity leads to a different roster in 2026-27. Christie now looks set to stay, and Perry can turn to the harder question that defined Sacramento’s season: how much of this group to keep. (nytimes.com, msn.com)