The Sacramento Kings almost did the unthinkable Tuesday night: win a game. Engaged in an incredibly close battle with the Golden State Warrior, the Kings 21-59 had to make sure they lost and keep their recruiting dreams alive, and damn if they didn’t go above and beyond the call of duty.
With 3:25 left on the clock, Sacramento realized they were actually leading the game due to the Warriors’ terrible shooting, which meant it was time to sink like no one had before.
Doug McDermott was so far away from the play it was comical, and he fouled Seth Curry for no reason other than to intentionally try to lose the game while leading by a point. It was part of a simply incredible job by veteran McDermott to achieve the franchise’s goal of losing.
After this foul, he made a three-pointer and needed to recover. He immediately committed a turnover on a bad pass, then missed two 3-pointers at the start of the shot clock with less than a minute left to kill any potential Sacramento offense and ensure the Warriors could pull away.
It worked, as the Kings went from leading 101-100 to losing the game 105-110.
This is Sacramento’s entire reason for being this season. They are currently tied with the Utah Jazz for fourth place in the NBA, and they can’t afford to finish and be better. If they won on Tuesday night, their No. 1 lottery pick odds would have fallen from 11.5% to 8.3%, and their Top 4 pick odds would have fallen from 45.2% to 34.8%. The 2026 NBA Draft is loaded with talent, but there is serious competition to try to land one of the top three prospects in the class between Cameron Boozer, Darryn Peterson and AJ Dybantsa.
Even with the stakes so high, the collapse in the NBA is out of control, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Adam Silver impose some sort of penalty for committing such a blatant and unnecessary foul.
