Is the ‘Beam Team’ dead? How a season of change has reshaped the Sacramento Kings
The original “Beam Team” drew thousands to downtown Sacramento, clad in purple and black, taking tilted selfies in front of the giant purple light sent into the sky.
The Kings gave California’s capital region a rare moment in the national spotlight. Frustrations lasting 16 years were let loose in celebration as the team led by De’Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis and coach Mike Brown ended the longest playoff drought in NBA history in the spring of 2023. The giant purple beam atop the Golden 1 Center was becoming a fixture and not just a marketing gimmick.
“I’ve not had a better night as mayor of Sacramento in six and a half years than Monday night,” then-Mayor Darrell Steinberg said in a radio interview that April. “That was the most fun and the greatest feeling I have had. And yeah, there are more important things in life, I get it, but man, that is something to just remember and to continue just enjoy.”
The Kings, at that point, had jumped ahead of the defending champion Golden State Warriors 2-0 in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. Fox scored a combined 62 points in his first two playoff games. Sacramento seemed poised to advance to the second round for the first time since 2004.
Of course, the Kings lost the series in seven games. And they failed in their encore attempt to get to the playoffs last spring when they lost in New Orleans in the second game of the play-in.
Flash ahead to February 2025 and things are dramatically different. Less than two full years later, the “Beam Team” has been reshaped and is hard to recognize. It’s yet to be seen whether the reformation will work the way things did two seasons ago. The Kings’ chances of returning to the playoffs are very much in doubt after the 2023 team earned the No. 3 seed. As of Wednesday, ESPN’s Basketball Power Index gave the Kings a 22.7% probability of reaching the playoffs.
Suffice to say, though the laser atop the arena still shoots to the heavens after each Kings win, the “Beam Team” and its momentum have hit a wall.
Fox is now a San Antonio Spur, winning in his team debut Wednesday after Sunday’s trade.
Kevin Huerter and Harrison Barnes, two starters from 2022-23, now play in Chicago and San Antonio, respectively.
Brown became the first in history to win NBA Coach of the Year honors by unanimous vote for his efforts in the 2022-23 campaign. He’s now enjoying the fruits of a $30 million contract extension he signed in July — but remains jobless after being fired in December, when the Kings lost five straight.
Doug Christie, who played for the team from 2000 to 2005, has taken over for Brown after being an assistant on his staff the previous two seasons. The team is 12-8 under Christie after Thursday’s loss in Portland, which dropped the Kings below .500 to 25-26 on the season.
General manager Monte McNair on Wednesday, 40 days after firing Brown, took responsibility for the coaching decision to elevate Christie to interim role in his first news conference since the coaching change and Fox trade. McNair said the decision was his, even while The Athletic reported the team’s owner Vivek Ranadivé made the call to fire Brown.
“Doug ... not just being a former player, but a former Sacramento King and his connection to us as an organization,” McNair said Wednesday while outlining the decision, “I think a lot of what we’ve seen from Doug so far is what we hope for. Just his ability to lead these guys and give a different perspective. So he had that unique combination. I think that was ultimately the deciding factor.”
It was only one game, and surely the Kings will have a chance to get back on track, but the 130-111 loss Wednesday to the Orlando Magic during Zach LaVine’s Kings debut wasn’t a start to a new era that inspired optimism.
The Kings have gotten older, more prodding and less free-wheeling, and appear in danger of earning back the dreaded “Kangz” moniker of years past.
Fox’s exit shifts focus of Kings’ season
Fox’s departure has left Malik Monk as the team’s de facto point guard despite originally joining the team in 2022 to provide a scoring punch off the bench. Monk was moved to the starting lineup amid the team’s uneven start to the season in early December to play alongside Fox, as the two did during their college days at Kentucky.
Monk had seven turnovers to eight assists in the first two games running the point since the Fox trade, while the Kings didn’t add a traditional point guard ahead of Thursday afternoon’s trade deadline. Though they might in the buyout market.
Monk and Fox’s close relationship prior to teaming up in Sacramento was a reason Monk signed with the Kings in the first place.
“It was crazy,” Monk said Wednesday when asked about Fox getting traded, “because he was one of the reasons I came here, for sure. But we got to move on. I know it’s a business. By the looks of it, he said he wanted to be out of here, so he got what he wanted.
“... (this season) is not normal,” Monk continued. “It’s abnormal. But it’s part of the business.”
Perhaps the biggest change from the 2022-23 iteration to the current roster is DeMar DeRozan, the future Hall of Famer who as of Wednesday was 28th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.
DeRozan indicated in the days leading up to the Fox trade, when it became public the Kings were fielding offers from other teams, that he was unsure of his own status in Sacramento.
“I don’t have much time left,” DeRozan said on the “Run it Back” podcast. “I’m not trying to play another five years to try to maximize the opportunity we have now to play with a great team. You never know. When the dominoes fall the wrong way when it comes to an organization, it makes it tough. It’s something we’ve just got to wait out and see, but in the meantime make the most out of it, so we’ll see how it pans out.”
How it panned out was the Kings landing DeRozan’s close friend and teammate of three seasons, LaVine, from the Chicago Bulls. LaVine was in the midst of his most efficient scoring season with Chicago, providing the Kings a similarly productive offensive weapon to what the team lost in Fox.
And it appeared to smooth over DeRozan’s uncertainty regarding his immediate future.
“For sure,” DeRozan said after a 33-point performance in a win over Minnesota the day after the Fox-LaVine trade. “It’s hard to come across an All-Star player, a dynamic player like a Zach LaVine. That would ease anybody’s mind, and the relationship I have with him makes it that much better.”
Changes to the Kings’ playing style
The original “Beam Team” was all about pace and space. The Kings, under Brown in 2022-23, averaged 299 passes per game, the fourth most in the NBA. It helped them set an NBA record in offensive efficiency when they averaged 118.6 points per 100 possessions. They shot 37.3 3-pointers per game, sixth in the league. They were 12th in pace.
The Kings are playing a dramatically different brand this year. They entered Thursday ranked 20th in attempted 3s, and 22nd in total makes.
That can be attributed, in part, to DeRozan working as a primary ball handler and shot creator. The drive and kick offense has morphed into a slower version based on DeRozan’s famous mid-range game. DeRozan averages 2.7 attempts from distance per night, which ranks 119th among all NBA forwards.
That’s less than half of what Keegan Murray attempted when he was the Kings’ small forward in 2022-23. Murray went from averaging 2.6 made 3s — when he set a rookie record for total made 3s — to 1.8 this year.
Huerter went from starting every game two seasons ago to out of the rotation by the time he was traded Sunday. He shot 40% from 3 on nearly seven attempts per game in 2022-23. This season, he was down to 30.2% on just under five attempts before Sunday’s trade.
Though a tiny single-game sample, LaVine’s debut painted a picture that suggested Brown’s “turn the jets on” mantra might not longer be part of the Kings’ ethos. The Kings against the Magic passed just 263 times and had 23 assists for the game. Through three quarters, before the fourth was predominately garbage time, the Kings had 15 assists on 30 made baskets.
They ranked seventh in the NBA in assist rate on made baskets two years ago. Wednesday’s rate paced out to a full season would be one of the lowest in the league.
Where do the Kings stack up in a new-look West?
The Fox trade to San Antonio was one of a handful that could have substantial implications on the Kings’ hunt for their return to the postseason in the NBA Western Conference.
The Spurs figure to get better with Fox in the lineup while not giving up any of their core rotation players in the trade. Entering Friday, they were 22-26 in the No. 12 seed and 1.5 games behind the Kings.
Meanwhile, the Warriors added former Heat star Jimmy Butler in a trade agreed to Wednesday night. Golden State and Sacramento shared a 25-26 record going into Friday, a half-game behind the Phoenix Suns (25-25).
But unquestionably the biggest move of the deadline, and one of the most stunning trades in NBA history, came Saturday night when the Dallas Mavericks agreed to send five-time All-NBA honoree Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. The Mavericks received big man Anthony Davis. Dallas entered Friday at 27-25, a game and a half ahead of the Kings.
The Lakers, meanwhile, occupy the No. 5 seed and have the 4-0 advantage in the season series against Sacramento.
“I think everyone sees how open it is,” Sabonis said of the Western Conference playoff race. “We’re all super tight with a couple games (separating teams). And everyone’s trying to make moves to try and put themselves in the best position for the playoffs.”
The good news for Sacramento is a top-six seed, and avoiding the play-in, isn’t far out of reach. The Kings on Friday were 3.5 games behind the Minnesota Timberwolves for the No. 6 spot. But the competition is crowded; six teams are within five games of sixth, with four to make the play-in.
“We’re right there in the hunt,” LaVine said. “I think these next games are important for us. We have to buckle down and work through some grooves. But I think we’ll be okay because it’s a competitive group, an encouraging group.
“I think we’ll be all right.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
