Doug Christie’s first opportunity as an NBA coach was a bit of a roller coaster.
After being hired on an interim basis to replace the fired Mike Brown early in the season, Christie provided a quick boost to the struggling Sacramento Kings, watched star guard De’Aaron Fox get traded and then rebounded from a rough stretch in March to get into the play-in tournament only to lose the opener at home.
Now Christie gets a longer chance in the role after being hired by new Kings general manager Scott Perry to be the full-time head coach of a franchise that has made the playoffs only once in the last 19 seasons.
“We have unfinished business,” Christie said at his introductory news conference on Friday. “That’s my mindset going into it and how we’re approaching it right now. This game will leave a hole in your heart. It will. It’s difficult. It will take something from you. The odd thing about that is, it’s the only thing that can fill that void. With that, I accept the challenge and the opportunity.”
The Kings went 27-24 under Christie and earned the ninth seed in the Western Conference before losing to Dallas in the play-in opener.
Christie has strong ties to the Kings and the Sacramento area, having played for the team during its best stretch in the early 2000s, and later served as both an announcer and assistant coach before taking over from Brown last December.
Perry said he met Christie first when Christie was a player in the 1990s and got to know him better during his three-month stint as assistant general manager in 2017.
Perry said he was impressed with what he saw from Christie during his “baptism by fire” while watching the season unfold back home and quickly settled in on him as his choice of coach.
“The more we talked, the more seamless it felt to me,” Perry said. “It was just a natural fit because we see the game in a lot of the same ways. … The values and the core and the intangibles of this game of basketball, we both have a deep appreciation for and it was important for us that whoever is sitting in that head coaching seat could carry that out.”
The Kings have made the playoffs just once since 2006, losing in the first round to Golden State in 2023 in Brown’s first season as coach.
Sacramento has the fifth-worst record in the NBA since Vivek Ranadive took over as owner in 2013. The team has had five lead executives and nine head coaches — including interims — in that span.
The Kings hope the new team of Perry and Christie brings needed stability to the franchise. The team has a core in place led by Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Keegan Murray and Malik Monk.
The team likely won’t have a first-round draft pick; the Kings have a 3.8% chance of moving into the top four in the lottery. Otherwise the pick will go Atlanta as part of a previous deal made for Kevin Huerter.
Perry said building a title contender won’t be an immediate process.
“We’re both wired to win, obviously. But we’re not going to skip steps either,” he said. “This year is really about establishing an identity and a foundation of what it means to be a Sacramento Kings basketball player. That really for us in Year 1 will be our north star or true evaluator of where we’re at.”
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