Sacramento Kings Rookie on an Added Skill to His Game

With the No. 42 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, the Sacramento Kings selected Maxime Raynaud out of Stanford. The 7-foot-1 Frenchman is, as Kings GM Scott Perry put it last week, "a double-double machine." He's also looking to add a new facet to his game during his rookie season.

After he was selected by the Kings, Stanford head coach Kyle Smith revealed in an interview that they weren't allowing Raynaud to block shots last season, since he was a big part of their team and they didn't want him to get into foul trouble.

The Sacramento rookie big man spoke about this with local reporters after practice this week in an interview posted by Sactown Sports 1140.

When asked about his increase in blocked shots down the stretch of the 2024-25 season at Stanford, Raynaud confirmed that he was told by coaches to "stay on the ground and don't foul" for three-and-a-half years.

"The last ten games I started working with James Reed who was doing video analysis with us. I love to learn with watching film, and he would just show me where I was positioned, timing, what the best in the NBA do, and I just started to pick it up.

"I talked to my coach, he was like, 'look, as long as you rebound the ball afterwards I'm fine with you blocking shots.' I went from one blocked shot a game to I think three at the end of the season. Like anything, you just start working on it and naturally you improve."

In his final two games of the season in the NIT, he blocked five shots against Cal State Northridge, and then four against Kent State, putting up 22 points in each contest while recording 21 total rebounds between the two games.

What's nice about having Raynaud in his rookie season is that he won't be relied upon for a starter's level of minutes per game with the Kings, at least to start, so that will give him the opportunity to practice this skill a little bit more--potentially while making contact--before he's called upon as a bigger presence on the roster.

Heading into Summer League action he's going to be focused on growing defensively, since the center is the "quarterback of the defense" as he put it. With the Kings signing him to a three-year contract--two of those being fully guaranteed--it's likely that he'll be in some sort of a rotation early on with Sacramento as he continues to learn and grow as an all-around player.

He'll have his first opportunity to show Kings fans a glimpse of his game on Thursday, July 10 when they take on the Orlando Magic in Summer League action.