NBA draft lottery is ‘excitement for the unknown’ to Sacramento Kings GM Scott Perry

BERKELEY, Calif. – Sacramento Kings general manager Scott Perry will be in Chicago on Sunday to see if his franchise catches a much-needed break at the 2026 NBA draft lottery after two decades of frustration.

The Kings have an 11.5% chance to land the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA draft after finishing 22-60 last season, the fourth-worst record in franchise history. Owners of the fifth-best draft odds, the Kings have a 45.2% chance of landing a top-four pick and a 0.6% chance of falling to ninth, the lowest they could drop.

Sacramento is due for a break in what is expected to be a talented draft after making just one playoff appearance over the past 20 seasons.

“There is a little excitement for the unknown,” Perry said to Andscape from the Claremont Hotel while on family business late last month. “But I always try to go into events like this level-headed because the lottery is all about a chance. There’s nothing necessarily strategic about it. It’s about how number combinations fall your way or not. That’s what you’ll find out sitting on that stage.

“Sitting on the stage, you won’t know the results until they announce the names and the number of pick they are. So, we’re going in at five and we’re going to start listening at nine, which is as far as we can drop off. You have to get your mind around not having to hear your team name until hopefully the very end.”

The Kings hired Perry as general manager for his second stint in the front office on April 21, 2025. Perry drafted two players in 2025 who had solid rookie seasons in Kings swingman Nique Clifford and center Maxime Raynaud on the fourth-oldest team in the NBA. Perry also re-signed forward Keegan Murray to a five-year, $140 million contract extension that begins next season.

On the veteran side, guard Zach LaVine has a player option for $48.9 million next season, forward DeMar DeRozan has a $25.7 million salary next season ($10 million guaranteed) and forward/center Domantas Sabonis has two years remaining on his deal. Head coach Doug Christie is also returning.

The Kings need a starting point guard and defensive talent, but first, Sacramento must determine its position in a draft projected to be deep in talent.

The following is a Q&A with Perry, who discusses with Andscape about the best and worst-case scenarios for the draft lottery, this year’s talent, the type of player he seeks, his selling point to prospects and much more.

Have you sat on the NBA draft lottery stage representing a team before?

I have. One time when I was in New York and once when I was in Detroit. When you’re on the stage, you still don’t know what’s happening. I’m learning just like everybody else was learning at that time what’s going to happen.

Are you a lucky charm type of person?

I’ve been asked that a number of times. I stopped that in my life going back to when I became a head college coach [at Eastern Kentucky University]. You win your first game. You figure, “OK, well, I’m going to keep wearing this tie because it brought me luck with a win.” And then you go on a five-, six-game losing streak and you think, “Well, it’s not the tie.”

But I will accept [lucky charms] from outsiders who believe in it. I don’t begrudge any of that. I know that a lot of people in Kings Nation have those superstitions. So, hopefully they bestow that upon Kings Nation and we get some good news with the lottery. But, however it falls out, we’re going to be prepared. That’s the big thing.

The worst-case scenario is the Kings drafting ninth overall. Is there value at the ninth pick in this draft?

This potentially is a really good draft, a deep draft, potentially. So you have to get comfortable with nine players. That is how I look at it. But it could be fine. You can stay where you’re at, because we’re coming in at five [fifth-best odds]. So, there’s a number of different outcomes that can happen.

Is this a generational draft?

I’m going to reserve judgment on that. And that’s not to try to sidestep the question, but it’s hard to tell. There are a lot of good players in this draft. Again, so much is dependent upon where all these guys land, because so much of it becomes fit, too, wherever they’re drafted. Do they fit with the current coaching staff, the current roster, with the city they’re drafted into? So, there’s a lot more that goes into them becoming successful as players. There’s only a handful of players, in my humble opinion, each year that probably can be great wherever they’re drafted.

How deep is this draft?

This is a deep draft. And I’m going into this thing confident that wherever we land, we’ll be able to find somebody that improves our talent base on this roster. That’s what we got to do. We’re in the early stages of building. And at this stage, you’re just trying to add more young talent to the roster. And then from that point, it’s incumbent upon us to develop that young talent. That’s the second part. …

You need that player, whoever he is. Whether you’re drafting one or nine, you got to help that player get better, because he’s coming into a totally new environment for himself. And it’s incumbent upon us as an organization to develop them and get them better.

How did you feel about your rookie class from last season?

I really liked our class from last season. All of those guys got needed experience. And that showed their daily approach to work, their commitment to wanting to get better and their maturity that they showed both on and off the court. They had a real willingness to not only listen and learn from the coaching staff, but also some of the veteran players that we have. That was impressive.

What you look for in any class is: Did they get better over the course of the season? And the answers to that, when you talk about Nique Clifford, Maxime Raynaud and Dylan Cardwell, who was undrafted and on a two-way contract, who we converted his contract — each and every one of those players got better. Now, it can’t stop there, though. That’s reasonable for us to expect. And they have the same expectation as well, that they’d be better next year. So, they can’t live on whatever they were able to show this past season. You got to improve on it. If you don’t improve on it, then they’re not moving forward as players, and we’re not moving forward as an organization.

You have been back in Sacramento for just over a year now. How do you reflect on this year?

I’ve really enjoyed it. Obviously, the first time I was here [for less than three months in 2017], it was a very short stint. And it was during the offseason during the draft and free agency. So, this was my first year getting the chance to be in an arena with the team and really experience the fan base and the community as part of the Kings. I’d always been here as a visitor and was impressed with the energy and enthusiasm of the community, but now being a part of it and the type of season we have with a great number of injuries and not winning as much as we would have liked to win, the support was still tremendous and unwavering. I’m excited about the days ahead.

When rookies come in and work out before the draft, what will be your selling point about the Kings to them?

We’re here to build a sustainable winner. And I think any player would be attracted to a place that has stable leadership, like I know that we will provide. And they will get an opportunity to achieve not only their team goals, but individual goals. We’re building this thing for the long run. We’re building this thing to become a very meaningful presence eventually in the Western Conference. But it does take time to get there. But the guys that want to be a part of that and establish something for themselves, it becomes a tremendous opportunity.

Will your roster look different next season? I know Kings fans are quite curious about the veterans and who will be back.

There’s so many moving parts to that with the impending draft, offseason and free agency. One thing I’ve always preached is we’re going to be both prudent and opportunistic. So, my job and my position as general manager is to explore every avenue to improve this team this year. And we’ve got some work to do both on the financial front and also on the talent acquisition front. We’re going to be on parallel tracks.

There has been a lot of hype about four freshmen in particular: BYU forward AJ Dybantsa, Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson and Duke forward Cameron Booker. Is there a clear-cut No. 1 pick?

I’m going to stay away from that. For me, I have to meet all these individuals. When you evaluate the talent, the player, you can see the talent from afar and you can hear from people who are involved with the talent. But until we, me, as an organization, get a chance to really sit down and meet all these young individuals, it’s hard for me to make a declaration on who’s the top one.

I say this all the time, I’m going to say it again: You have the talent, and you have the person. And they don’t come in the door separately. It comes in together. So, you’ve got to be comfortable with both. Until I get to that point, I can’t answer that question.

What would you tell Kings Nation about how they should look at things after such a tough season and some up-and-down years?

I understand the Kings fans’ frustrations from last season and previous years where I personally was not here. But I would say to them that any organization that you see that’s winning now had to go through a process in the number of years of building. That’s where we’re at right now. Someone like me who’s been a part of some organizations that had to do that and been a part of organizations that have seen it through to a high end — ultimately when I was in Detroit when we were champions — understands that it takes time.

I look at this past season and there is no secret that we were besieged by a lot of injuries to some of the top veteran players that we had. But it opened up an opportunity for a lot of young players, and I thought what those young players — Raynaud, Clifford and Cardwell — did, it showed you a glimpse that they can be players that can help a team become a winner one day.

My philosophy has always been we want to try to build a team that is 10 [players] deep. Depth is important to me. Your better teams now, the teams that sit on top of the league, have quality depth. Now they also have maybe a star player or two. I get that. But you’ve got to have depth. I was very encouraged by our young guys that we have now, and they can be part of us being a sustainable winner. When we turn the corner, I can see those guys being a part of it.

What type of players are you attracted to for the Kings?

I talk about six pillars all the time. Competitive, tough, team-oriented, accountable, professional, and disciplined. When you’re dealing with young people, some may have all those six qualities at the beginning. Others may need a little work in there, but they have it inside of them and they’re willing to allow you to help them exhibit all those six pillars. So that’s what we look for. Those six pillars have nothing to do with how well you shoot, how high you jump, how fast you can run. I just know in this league, all 30 teams have some measure of talent.

If you’re fortunate enough to become a good team one day and you’re competing against all the top teams, you’re going to be looking at talented people across from you. The biggest separator is these intangibles that I’m talking about, those pillars.

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