Three Most Disastrous Kings Lineups From Last Season

When it comes to the 2025-26 season for the Sacramento Kings, it's hard to figure out was the worst part of the season for the 22-win team that had dreams of making it back to the playoffs. They had talent, but it was known going into the season that the roster didn't fit together, and that quickly became the case as the season got underway.

Yesterday, I wrote about the Kings best lineups of the season, but today, we look at the Kings worst lineups from last year. Warning, it's not a pretty site.

According to NBA.com's lineup page, the Kings had 692 lineups that took the court last season, but many of those were for a minute or so throughout the flow of a single game. When looking at larger sample sizes, there were 22 five-man lineups that played at least 25 minutes together throughout the year, which allows for a decent sample size to start looking at stats and data.

Worst Lineup #1: -41.7 Net Rating

D. Schröder, K. Ellis, Z. LaVine, D. DeRozan, D. Sabonis | Minutes Played: 33

It's never a good thing when your worst lineup includes your three highest-paid players, making a combined $115 million. That's even more so the case when the net rating sits at a whopping -41.7. Safe to say, that makes this lineup an unmitigated disaster from start to finish, and sums up the Kings' season as a whole.

Dennis Schröder was supposed to be the steady point guard presence that this team needed, and Keon Ellis was supposed to be one of two franchise cornerstones to build around going forward. But instead, pairing them with the Kings' three All-Stars was a disaster, and both were traded at the deadline.

The good news is that's 0% chance of this lineup returning next season with two of the five players already out of Sacramento. And hopefully the front office is able to move off LaVine, DeRozan, or Sabonis this offseason as Perry retools the team.

Worst Lineup #2: -34.5 Net Rating

D. Schröder, Z. LaVine, D. DeRozan, P. Achiuwa, D. Sabonis | Minutes Played: 26