Former Kings guard and NBA coach Vinny Del Negro: Sacramento is built for playoff success

Add former Kings guard and NBA head coach Vinny Del Negro to the list of basketball voices impressed with what Sacramento did this season.

“The future is bright with a young nucleus,” Del Negro said at the American Century Championship golf tournament media day on Thursday. “It’s great to see. I love seeing young players develop, respect the game, improve their craft, and be well coached like Mike (Brown) did last year.”

The Kings and former general manager Bill Russell, who had a forgettable tenure running Sacramento, drafted Del Negro with the 29th overall pick in the 1988 draft. He averaged 7.1 and 9.7 points in two seasons with the Kings before spending two seasons in Italy playing for Benetton Treviso, where he helped win the Italian championship in 1992 while averaging 25 points per game. He returned to the NBA in 1992-93 to play 11 more seasons before coaching the Chicago Bulls from 2008-10 and the Los Angeles Clippers from 2010-13.

The 56-year-old still has a soft spot for Sacramento, where he hosted a basketball clinic for 12 years despite only playing for the Kings for two. He’ll be returning to Northern California and Nevada next month for the ACC celebrity golf tournament played at Edgewood Tahoe July 12-16. Del Negro won the event in 2021.

“One thing that’s never changed about Sacramento is the fans have always been there,” Del Negro said. “... Sacramento deserves everything. The city’s getting bigger and having the team back is exciting for everybody.”

The Kings, of course, had one of the best seasons in franchise history following their 16-year playoff drought. They earned the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference. They had two third-team All-NBA players and All-Stars in De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. Brown earned Coach of the Year honors and general manager Monte McNair was named Executive of the Year.

Fox, 25, won the NBA’s inaugural Jerry West award given to the league’s most clutch player. He continued his dazzling play in the playoffs despite a fractured finger on his shooting hand by scoring the second most points in a postseason debut, 192, during Sacramento’s seven-game series loss to the Golden State Warriors.

All of which has Del Negro optimistic about the Kings taking the next step and going further in the playoffs in the coming seasons.

“(Fox) was spectacular,” Del Negro said. “(He was) an All-Star this year. I don’t think any of that’s going to change. Sabonis, playing with him the way they did, (Malik) Monk giving them a spark off the bench, all the different pieces that they have and some nice young players as well that played well in the playoffs for them.

“So I don’t think Sacramento’s going anywhere. I think they gave Golden State all they wanted.”

Dell Curry, whose son, Warriors star Stephen Curry, scored 50 points in Game 7 of the series, was also on the Zoom call at the ACC media event, and had glowing things to say of the Kings, who he watched closely in the playoffs and as a television analyst for the Charlotte Hornets.

“The experience is priceless,” Dell Curry said. “You got a hungry group, a hungry coach, go through that experience, and they can say, ‘We took the reigning champs to Game 7 in the playoffs.’ That’s an experienced that is unmatched. So continuing to gel as a group, get your chemistry together, understand how difficult it is to win in the playoffs, remember that experience and be ready to play next year.”