{"id":644473,"date":"2026-03-07T03:00:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T03:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/644473\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T03:00:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T03:00:26","slug":"kings-notes-monk-achiuwa-westbrook-christie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/644473\/","title":{"rendered":"Kings Notes: Monk, Achiuwa, Westbrook, Christie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking to Sean Cunningham of KCRA News after Thursday\u2019s loss to New Orleans (Twitter video link<\/a>), Kings guard Malik Monk<\/a> admitted 2025\/26 has been \u201cprobably the craziest year of my career.\u201d Like several veterans on the roster, Monk\u2019s name came up in several trade rumors leading up to last month\u2019s deadline, but he ultimately stayed put.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s up and down,\u201d Monk said. \u201cAnd of course we losing games too so that makes it even worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if the tumultuous nature of the season has prepared him for \u201calmost anything at this point,\u201d Monk heartily agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHell yeah,\u201d Monk said. \u201cIt can\u2019t get no worse than this. \u2026 It can prepare you for anything. The young guys are learning a lot, the vets are trying to teach them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monk told Cunningham he had a simple individual goal for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet through healthy,\u201d Monk said. \u201cJust get through this s\u2013t, man. Get to the summer time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more from Sacramento:<\/p>\n

The play of forward\/center Precious Achiuwa<\/a> has been a bright spot for a Kings team which has the worst record (14-50) in the NBA, writes Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee<\/a>. The former first-round pick, who signed with Sacramento in early November after being waived by the Heat prior to the start of \u201925\/26, tied his career highs with 29 points and five assists on Thursday while also contributing 12 rebounds. Achiuwa, a six-year veteran, has played some of the best basketball of his career over the past eight games. \u201cThere\u2019s a level of energy that he brings, and when he does that on a consistent basis, he changes a lot of different things,\u201d head coach Doug Christie said. \u201cHe\u2019s a grown man, rebounds, driving, running the floor, his physicality on defense. Maybe the biggest thing was I didn\u2019t really realize was how versatile he is defensively. He\u2019s guarded point guards, but he can also guard (centers).\u201d
\nPoint guard Russell Westbrook<\/a> fired back at media members for their criticism of the team following Thursday\u2019s loss, as Cunningham of KCRA News relays (Twitter video link<\/a>). Westbrook declined to go into specifics and said he wasn\u2019t upset about criticism of him personally, but rather his teammates and the organization at large.
\nAt his own post-game press conference, Christie said he didn\u2019t pay attention to media coverage of the team, preferring to focus on his doing his job and not external distractions (Twitter video link<\/a> via Cunningham). Christie said the team was understandably frustrated with its results this season. \u201cWe\u2019re all frustrated,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to win games. There\u2019s just the short stints where you drop the rope. You don\u2019t box out. You allow second-chance points. You close out with your hand down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking to Sean Cunningham of KCRA News after Thursday\u2019s loss to New Orleans (Twitter video link), Kings guard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3792],"tags":[7,4056,1267,6,10745,254,986,477,4055],"class_list":{"0":"post-644473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento-kings","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-kings","10":"tag-malik-monk","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-precious-achiuwa","13":"tag-russell-westbrook","14":"tag-sacramento","15":"tag-sacramento-kings","16":"tag-sacramentokings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116185663270657926","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}