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Team Profile
Sacramento Kings: Five things you need to know
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Matthew Dellavedova is the one Australian to have played for Sacramento. He now plays in Sydney
- Matthew Dellavedova is the only Australian to have played for the Sacramento Kings.
- Sacramento went 22-60, its second 60-loss season in franchise history.
- The Kings took Darius Acuff Jr with the seventh pick of the 2026 draft.
Sacramento has the shortest Australian list in this series. One name.
Matthew Dellavedova signed with the Kings in July 2022 and spent a season in California before heading home. He played for Melbourne United, then joined the Sydney Kings, which means the only Australian in Sacramento's history now plays for a club with the same name on the other side of the world.
There is a second, more recent connection. Anthony Dell'Orso wore Sacramento colours at this year's Summer League before signing with the Perth Wildcats.
Neither is a long association. On a masthead that counts these things, one is still one.
Australians who have played for the Sacramento Kings
Matthew Dellavedova is the only Australian to have played a regular-season game for this franchise.
The guard from Maryborough in Victoria signed with Sacramento on July 29, 2022, on a one-year deal, arriving as a 31-year-old with an NBA championship already behind him from Cleveland's 2016 title run and a reputation as one of the toughest guards in the league.
He had made his name at Cleveland alongside LeBron James and later played for Milwaukee. Sacramento was the last stop of an NBA career that ran a decade.
Dellavedova went home after that season, first to Melbourne United on a two-year deal and then to the Sydney Kings, who announced him as the biggest signing of NBL26 free agency. A four-time Olympian, he remains one of the most decorated Australians the game has produced.
Anthony Dell'Orso is the recent footnote worth watching.
The sharpshooter came out of Arizona, where he reached a Final Four, and played for Sacramento at the 2026 NBA Summer League while chasing a contract. He has since signed with the Perth Wildcats for the NBL27 season.
2026-27 team snapshot
Sacramento is starting again, and from a long way back.
The Kings went 22-60 last season under Doug Christie, finishing 14th in the Western Conference and reaching 60 losses for only the second time in franchise history.
Availability was most of it. Zach LaVine played 39 games, Keegan Murray 23 and Domantas Sabonis 19. A roster built around three players who were rarely on the floor together was never going to hold.
The reward was the seventh pick, which the Kings used on Arkansas guard Darius Acuff Jr.
The offseason has been about clearing the decks. DeMar DeRozan was waived on July 6 and Precious Achiuwa re-signed the following day.
Why the Kings matter
Every NBA franchise has a story.
The Boston Celtics built a dynasty. The Los Angeles Lakers became basketball's glamour club. The San Antonio Spurs defined sustained excellence.
Sacramento is the oldest franchise in the league and the one that has moved the most.
Founded in Rochester in the 1920s, the club won a championship as the Rochester Royals in 1951, then moved to Cincinnati, then to Kansas City, then to Sacramento in 1985. It has been chasing that first title in California ever since.
It also owns the loudest arena in the sport and one of the most loyal fanbases, which has been tested harder than most.
The Rochester Royals and the 1951 title
The franchise's only championship came 75 years ago, in a different city and almost a different sport.
The Rochester Royals beat New York in seven games in 1951. Nobody currently associated with the club was alive for it, and it remains the only banner Sacramento can claim.
Oscar Robertson in Cincinnati
The franchise moved to Cincinnati in 1957 and drafted the player who would define its middle era.
Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double across an entire season in 1961-62, a feat not matched for more than 50 years. The Royals never won a title with him and traded him in 1970.
The 2002 Kings
The best team Sacramento ever assembled came within a game of the Finals.
Chris Webber, Mike Bibby, Vlade Divac and Peja Stojakovic played some of the most watchable basketball of the era and pushed the Los Angeles Lakers to seven games in the 2002 Western Conference finals. Game 6 of that series remains one of the most disputed in NBA history.
They lost Game 7 in overtime. That group never got closer.
The long drought and the brief return
What followed was one of the longest playoff droughts in league history, broken in 2023 when Sacramento finally returned to the postseason and the beam went up over the city.
It did not last. Three years later the Kings won 22 games.
The greatest Kings of all time
Oscar Robertson is the greatest player in franchise history by a distance, and one of the greatest in the sport.
Chris Webber defined the era Sacramento remembers most fondly, the fulcrum of the 2002 side.
Mitch Richmond carried the club through the lean 1990s and made six All-Star teams doing it.
Vlade Divac, Peja Stojakovic and Mike Bibby completed the team that came within a possession of the Finals.
And Matthew Dellavedova, for one season, is the entirety of Australia's presence in this franchise's history.
[PHOTO: Sacramento Kings action. Caption: "The Sacramento Kings finished the 2025-26 season 22-60 under head coach Doug Christie, the second 60-loss campaign in franchise history, with Zach LaVine, Keegan Murray and Domantas Sabonis restricted to 39, 23 and 19 games respectively. Photo: [agency]/Getty Images."]
Five Fast Facts
1. Matthew Dellavedova is the only Australian to have played a regular-season game for Sacramento.
2. The Kings are the oldest franchise in the NBA and have played in four cities.
3. Sacramento's only championship came as the Rochester Royals in 1951.
4. Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double for the franchise across the 1961-62 season.
5. The Kings went 22-60 in 2025-26 and drafted Darius Acuff Jr seventh overall.
Historical Timeline
- 1923: Franchise founded in Rochester.
- 1951: Win the NBA championship as the Rochester Royals.
- 1957: Relocate to Cincinnati.
- 1962: Oscar Robertson averages a triple-double across the season.
- 1972: Relocate to Kansas City.
- 1985: Relocate to Sacramento.
- 2002: Lose the Western Conference finals to the Lakers in seven games.
- 2022: Sign Matthew Dellavedova.
- 2023: Return to the playoffs after a long drought.
- 2026: Finish 22-60 and draft Darius Acuff Jr seventh overall.
Looking ahead
Sacramento has a lottery pick, a cleared roster and very little else settled.
Darius Acuff Jr arrives into a rebuild rather than a contender, which is probably the healthier version of the job. Doug Christie needs LaVine, Murray and Sabonis on the floor together far more than the 2025-26 season allowed. The seventh pick in a bad year is not a plan, but it is a start.
For Australian readers there is nothing on the current roster. What there is instead is a small piece of trivia worth keeping: the only Australian ever to play for the Sacramento Kings now plays for the Sydney Kings, having gone from one to the other by way of Melbourne.
