A courtside incident behind the Kings’ bench sparked major attention last night in Sacramento, and the fan involved is now speaking out the following day. After staying quiet in the moment, he has come forward with his version of what led to the heated exchange with Zach LaVine.
“After the sixth time Zach LaVine leaves his man wide open for a three, Doug Christie calls a timeout, and they come over to the bench,” said the fan. “I say, ‘Yo, we do not pay to watch you not play defense.’ And Zach LaVine looks at me and says, ‘Go home.’ He did not call me a b*tch cause if he did it would have been way worse.”
From there, the tension escalated as he fired back in frustration over the Kings’ collapse and LaVine’s performance.
“So I start letting him have it, like, ‘No, I pay to be here. You go home, you are getting paid over 40 million per year and you got eight points in the fourth quarter. You did not show up.’”
It has been that kind of season for the Kings, who are currently 13th in the West at 5-14. Just a few years removed from their “light the beam” era, the downfall has been swift for Sacramento, leading to the mismatched roster of veterans we see today.
With De’Aaron Fox traded and Domantas Sabonis injured, Keegan Murray is the last remnant of that previous era. Still, even he is getting drowned out behind the play of Zach LaVine, Russell Westbrook, and DeMar DeRozan. Together, they have led the Kings on a downward spiral that has put frustration at an all-time high.
For LaVine specifically, this is not the first time in a toxic situation. Coming from the Timberwolves and then the Bulls, this is his third NBA stop, and it is also somehow his worst one yet.
In 17 games this season, he is averaging 20.1 points (lowest since 2023-24), 3.2 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game on 49.0 percent shooting and 37.5 percent from three. Those are decent numbers on paper, but they fail to tell the story on defense, where LaVine is known to be a major liability.
Thanks partly to his mistakes on Wednesday, the Kings gave up 112 points in the loss to Phoenix, and it was the final straw that set the fans off.
What is even more worrying for the Kings is that LaVine refused to take any accountability in the moment, instead choosing to tell off the fan who tried to demand better from a max-level player.
Typically, these types of encounters are avoided as much as possible, but they tend to happen when the situation turns toxic for an organization. In the case of the Kings, it could not be truer right now as they navigate this season with no clear plan.
As it stands now, they’ll need more than heated moments to fix what is slipping. The roster is struggling, the frustration is growing, and the season is getting away from them quickly. How they respond from here will define the rest of their year, but without real change, nights like this will keep happening.
