The Kings Dodged a Bullet With Maxime Raynaud — They Still Have to Survive October Without Him

For a few minutes on Saturday night in San Francisco, the Sacramento Kings' season looked like it might have ended before it began.

Second-year center Maxime Raynaud went down with a right knee injury during the preseason matchup against the Golden State Warriors and had to leave the floor in a wheelchair. ESPN's initial report framed it as an apparent serious knee injury. That is the kind of scene that reshapes a rebuilding season in a single possession.

The follow-up was the best news Sacramento could have reasonably hoped for. An MRI revealed a right patellar subluxation, and the team announced Raynaud will be reevaluated in two weeks. Yahoo Sports noted he will miss the start of the season, but that the injury "looked much worse" than it turned out to be. ClutchPoints called the diagnosis a best-case scenario given the circumstances.

The relief is real. The timing is still brutal.

Why two weeks matters more than it sounds

The Kings' regular season opens Oct. 21 on the road against the LA Clippers. A two-week reevaluation window from the Oct. 11 announcement pushes Raynaud past opening night and into the heart of an early schedule that includes home dates with Portland on Oct. 23 and Memphis on Oct. 25, followed by a trip to San Antonio. Even if the reevaluation comes back clean, he will need ramp-up time after a knee scare that required a wheelchair.

This is the worst possible player for Sacramento to lose, even temporarily.

Raynaud was the one thing working

As a rookie in 2025, Raynaud appeared in 74 games and averaged 26.6 minutes, 12.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 0.5 blocks while shooting 57.1 percent from the floor. He got better as the season went on. Over his final 10 games, he averaged 16.3 points and 8.9 rebounds in 31.8 minutes, including a 28-point, nine-rebound outing on April 3 and a 23-point, nine-rebound game on April 10.

On a team that went 22-60 and was outscored by 10.0 points per game (111.0 scored, 121.0 allowed), Raynaud was the development story worth watching.

He also sat at the center of Sacramento's stated schematic identity. The Kings have leaned into a double-big look this preseason, and with Domantas Sabonis limited to just 19 games last season — he averaged 15.8 points and 11.4 rebounds when available — Raynaud isn't a luxury. He's the second pillar of the only plan the roster is built around. FanSided's Kings coverage has already framed the pairing as legitimately important to the team's future.

The season was always about more than wins

Nobody in the organization is pretending this is a contending roster. The Kings finished 26th in the site's power ratings with a -10.9 neutral-court rating, and their listed key injuries already included Keegan Murray, Zach LaVine and Drew Eubanks. The market's preseason win total sat around 21.5, which tells you how the year is expected to go.

That's why Raynaud's health is the whole ballgame. Sacramento's own coverage has argued the season can be a success even in the standings basement — if the young core grows. Ben Simmons was signed as a backup point guard on a deliberately slow rollout, and rookie Darius Acuff has been the preseason's other rollercoaster. Neither addresses the middle of the floor if Raynaud is out longer than hoped.

The next two weeks will determine whether Saturday's scare was a footnote or the first chapter of a long, thin season in the paint.