Ben Simmons' Torn Achilles Was the First Domino. The Kings' Defense Is the Avalanche.

The Sacramento Kings lost their season before they played a game that counted.

On Sunday, Oct. 18 — three days before the opener at Intuit Dome — Ben Simmons tore his right Achilles tendon in practice. He'll undergo surgery and miss the entire 2026-27 season, a brutal end to a comeback year for a player who sat out all of 2025-26 and was expected to start in Sacramento. The team announced it. Simmons issued a statement. The preseason buzz, which had been genuinely positive, was gone.

It would be tidy to say that injury explains everything that followed. It doesn't. It explains some of it.

What the first three games actually look like

The Kings are 0-3, and the margins are ugly: a 121-96 loss to the Clippers, a 120-128 home loss to Portland, and a 112-123 home loss to Memphis. That's 124.0 points allowed per game against 109.3 scored — a minus-14.7 differential, minus-44 in total.

The defensive numbers are the story. Sacramento's defensive rating sits at 122.8 over the last five games and 123.7 weighted toward the three most recent, with a net rating of minus-14.5. Their 28.6% mark from three (26-of-91) hasn't helped, but it's the other end that's burying them. FanSided's Kings coverage put it plainly this week: the starting five are still terrible on defense. Walker Kessler's individual performance against them became its own talking point.

An SRS-style power rating slots Sacramento 30th of 30 at minus-10.99, essentially unchanged from last season's minus-10.903 — and last season finished 22-60. That's the part that stings. This isn't a small-sample blip; it's a stable baseline. The model notes a soft 0.82 strength of schedule and no key absences to blame, which is its way of saying the roster is the problem, not the schedule or the injury report.

The Simmons ripple effect

Losing a projected starter at the wing/ball-handler spot forces a domino: Darius Acuff Jr. is now a 36-minute-per-game rookie point guard, and the results are a split screen. He's scoring 22.3 a night, but on 32.9% shooting and 14.8% from three (4-of-27). He put up 33 on 26 shots against Portland, then 12 points on 5-of-24 in the opener. The talent is visible; the efficiency isn't there yet, and asking a rookie to absorb that usage while the defense collapses is a rough apprenticeship.

Zach LaVine has been the one reliable engine — 29.0 points on 49.2% shooting, including 37 in the Memphis loss — but he's minus-13.0 per game across the three. Domantas Sabonis is doing his part on the glass at 17.3 rebounds and 7.0 assists. Individual production isn't the issue.

Where this goes

Keegan Murray is listed as out with an ankle issue, and Sacramento is also missing both backup centers, per the Spurs-Kings injury report — so the depth that was supposed to survive the Simmons loss isn't surviving it. The Kings head to San Antonio on Oct. 27 to face a 1-2 Spurs team that is far healthier, and the market-matching projection has Sacramento as a heavy road underdog.

The honest reading of the week: the Simmons injury was a genuine gut punch, and it cost this team a starter and a stabilized rotation. But the 0-3 start is being driven by a defense that has been bottom-tier for years and hasn't changed. Sacramento can absorb losing Simmons if the scheme and the starters hold up. Through three games, nothing is holding up.