A short 30 months ago, the final buzzer blared at Golden 1 Center to the sound of 18,000 roaring Kings fans.
Sacramento, the laughingstock of the NBA for decades, had just taken a 2–0 series lead over the Warriors with a 114–106 win in the first round of the 2023 playoffs. Two days earlier, the Kings beat Golden State 126–123 to break a 17-year playoff drought—the longest in North American professional sports at the time—in style.
The Kings’ future looked brighter than the purple beam that lights up the sky in California’s capital city after every win. Mike Brown changed the culture in Sacramento, and the pairing of De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis led an offense that broke the all-time NBA record for offensive rating over a single season.
Fast forward to today, and it’s like the magic of the “Beam Team” never happened. Brown is now in New York and Fox is starring alongside Victor Wembanyama in San Antonio. Following a 137–96 blowout loss to the struggling Grizzlies on Thursday night, the Kings have lost eight straight games and are 3–13 on the year. They have lost games by by 41, 33, 31 and 27 points over the last 14 days and sport a roster that looks more equipped to compete in 2017, not 2025. As one Eastern Conference scout told ESPN, “They’re expensive, bad and aging.”
The Kings are back in the basement of the Western Conference—a spot all too familiar for one of the NBA’s most loyal fan bases. What the heck happened? Here are three moves that dimmed the Beam Team:
The De’Aaron Fox trade goes horribly wrong
Fox was royalty in Sacramento as the former No. 5 pick who stayed with the Kings through thick and thin. He played for five different coaches in eight seasons and saw three general managers get fired.
Things between Fox and the Kings started to go south last season. The on-court chemistry between Fox and star center Domantas Sabonis wasn’t working as well as it was in 2022-23. That was reflected off the court too when Fox unfollowed Sabonis on social media after the trade and doubled down on his decision to do so. Fox also reportedly wasn’t pleased by the organization firing Brown, and by the 2025 trade deadline, it appeared the two sides were going to split ways.
On Feb. 5, 2025, the Kings traded Fox to the Spurs in a three-team deal and received Zach LaVine, Sidy Cissoko, three first-round picks (2025, ‘27, ‘31) and three second-round picks. Three first-round picks seems like a lot, but it’s really not. The 2025 first-round pick (via Charlotte) was top-14 protected, so it’s turning into two second-round picks in ‘26 and ‘27. The 2027 pick (via San Antonio) was traded to Oklahoma City on draft night for rookie Nique Clifford, and the ‘31 pick is via the Timberwolves, who plan to be selecting late in the draft for years with Anthony Edwards at the helm. Additionally, the Kings. traded Cissoko to Washington for Jonas Valanciunas, who played 32 games for Sacramento before signing with Denver this offseason.
LaVine reunited with former Bulls teammate DeMar DeRozan in the deal, a pairing that won one (1) playoff game over three seasons in Chicago. Cue the meme.
So where the trade currently stands: The Kings traded their face of the franchise in Fox (as well as Jordan McLaughlin and Kevin Huerter) for LaVine, Clifford, a 2031 first-round pick, five second-round picks and 32 games of Valanciunas.
That is a disaster.
Mike Brown is fired
The Brown era started on a high note in Sacramento. Brown’s first training camp featured a couple of fun, viral clips—like the coach sprinting down the court instructing his players to “turn the f—ing jets on.” He preached hustle and players taking accountability for their mistakes. It seemed like the culture was changing in Sacramento.
The Kings snapped their 17-year playoff drought in Brown’s first year. They were bounced in the play-in tournament in his second season, but still finished 46–36—the franchise’s best record (outside of the year prior) since 2004-05. Thirty-one games into his third season, Brown was fired, a move speculated to be another example of the never-ending impatience of Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé.
Since Ranadivé bought the team in 2013, the Kings have had eight different head coaches on the bench, and only two of those were on an interim basis. Based on how things are going this season, Doug Christie doesn’t look long for the job, either.
Since the franchise moved to Sacramento in 1985, Brown ranks second in Kings history in win percentage (107–88; .549), trailing only Rick Adelman (395–229; .633).
Brown was hired to be the Knicks’ new head coach in July.
The curious case of Keon Ellis
One of the few young pieces the Kings do have is Ellis, who signed with Sacramento in 2022 as an undrafted free agent. When he’s on the floor, Ellis has proven to be an effective two-way player—he is a career 42.9% shooter from three-point range and a swarming defender who averages two steals and a block per 36 minutes over his career.
Ellis’s playing time—or lacktherof—is a head-scratcher. His minutes have decreased from 24.4 minutes per game last year to 18.1 minutes this season. He has started two games and has played as many as 30 minutes and as little as 10 minutes.
On a 3–13 team that’s going nowhere with aging veterans Russell Westbrook and Dennis Schroder taking up minutes in the rotation, getting your 25-year-old two-way guard more time on the court to develop seems like the right move to make. It’s this type of head-scratching decisions that have the Kings in the basement yet again.