Sacramento Kings Trivia
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58 free Sacramento Kings trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Sacramento Kings trivia quiz covers the NBA's oldest franchise across five cities: the Rochester Seagrams and Royals, the 1951 championship, Maurice Stokes and Jack Twyman, Oscar Robertson in Cincinnati, Tiny Archibald and the Kansas City–Omaha Kings, the roof that fell in at Kemper Arena, the 1985 move west, Mitch Richmond, the Greatest Show on Court and the 2002 Game 6 controversy, the 16-season drought, Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins, the near-move to Anaheim, and the Fox-Sabonis team that finally lit the beam. Expect easy questions on the arena, the mascot and the biggest names, plenty of history for regular fans, and hard ones about the circus that bumped a playoff series, the GM who failed in four cities and the executive who embezzled $13.4 million. Uniforms and logos, from the surname-under-number jerseys to Sactown, get a turn too. Every answer was checked against primary and encyclopaedic sources before it went in, so when you miss one you can trust the explanation. Play it solo or run it as a round at your next watch party. For the wider league, our NBA trivia page is the natural next stop.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the name of the Kings' downtown Sacramento arena, opened in 2016?
Golden 1 Center
Golden 1 Center runs entirely on solar power, some of it from panels on its own roof, which helped make it the first indoor sports venue to earn the top LEED Platinum green rating.
Q 02The Kings franchise began as the Royals in which New York city?
Rochester
Rochester: the Royals won a league title in their very first season there, but the NBA outgrew so small a market and the club left for the much larger Cincinnati in 1957.
Q 03Which Canadian distiller gave its name to the semi-professional club that preceded the Royals?
Seagram
Seagram put its name on the semi-pro club where Les Harrison played and later coached; in 1945 he and his brother launched the professional Royals in its place.
Q 04Which team did the Royals beat in the 1951 NBA Finals?
New York Knicks
New York Knicks: the Royals won the first three games, lost the next three, then took Game 7 by four points, 79–75, for the only championship the franchise has won.
Q 05Which guard on the Royals' 1951 title team later coached two NBA championship teams?
Red Holzman
Red Holzman played eight seasons for the Royals, then coached New York to the 1970 and 1973 titles, making him one of the few men with NBA rings as both a player and a coach.
Q 06Which Royals star, a namesake of the NBA's Teammate of the Year award, was paralysed after a fall in 1958?
Maurice Stokes
Maurice Stokes hit his head in the season finale and fell gravely ill on a team flight three days later; teammate Jack Twyman became his legal guardian and raised money for his care until Stokes died in 1970.
Q 07Which local superstar joined the Cincinnati Royals in 1960 and averaged a triple-double in 1961–62?
Oscar Robertson
Oscar Robertson came as a 'territorial pick': the NBA then let a team give up its first-round choice to claim a college star from its own area, and he had starred at the University of Cincinnati.
Q 08Which Celtics great coached the Royals from 1969 as both of their biggest stars were traded away?
Bob Cousy
Bob Cousy stayed through the 1972 move and into the Kansas City years, and at 41 he even put himself back on the court for seven games in his first season in charge.
Q 09Why did the Royals become the Kings in 1972?
A local baseball team already used the name
A local baseball team already used the name: Kansas City's Royals had begun play only three years earlier, so the NBA arrivals took the nearest regal alternative and became the Kings.
Q 10With which Nebraska city did the Kings share their home games from 1972 to 1975?
Omaha
Omaha: the club was the Kansas City–Omaha Kings for three seasons, then settled into Kansas City's new Kemper Arena and cut the second city from its name in 1975.
Q 11Which point guard led the NBA in scoring and assists in 1972–73, the Kings' first Kansas City season?
Nate Archibald
Nate Archibald, 'Tiny', averaged 34.0 points and 11.4 assists, the first player to top the NBA in both per game in one season, yet the 36–46 Kings still missed the playoffs.
Q 12Which guard from the Kings' first Sacramento team returned as their head coach in 2007?
Reggie Theus
Reggie Theus led the 1985–86 Kings in assists and nearly in scoring; as coach he won 38 games in his first season but was fired 24 games into his second.
Q 13Which North Carolina point guard won 1979 Rookie of the Year with the Kings?
Phil Ford
Q 21The 1990–91 Kings won 24 games at home; how many of their 41 road games did they win?
1
1: the single road win came at Washington in November, and the Kings lost every away game after it, 37 in a row, to finish 1–40 on the road, the worst mark in NBA history.
Q 22Which shooting guard, acquired from Golden State in 1991, made six All-Star teams with the Kings?
Mitch Richmond
Mitch Richmond, who cost the Kings rookie Billy Owens, led them in scoring in all seven of his seasons and was the 1995 All-Star Game MVP, yet they made the playoffs only once in that time.
Q 23Whom did the Kings receive from Washington in the May 1998 trade of their six-time All-Star guard?
Chris Webber
Phil Ford, the second overall pick, averaged 15.9 points and 8.6 assists and made an All-NBA team as a rookie, as the Kings jumped from 31 wins to 48.
Q 14Which Moses Malone-led team beat the Kings in the 1981 West finals, a meeting of two 40–42 clubs?
Houston Rockets
Houston Rockets: the Kings had stunned the top-seeded Phoenix Suns in a seventh game to get there, but they had no answer for Malone and went out in five.
Q 15Why did the Kings spend most of 1979–80 away from Kemper Arena?
The roof collapsed in a storm
The roof collapsed in a storm on 4 June 1979, a day after America's architects had gathered in Kansas City for a convention; three years earlier they had given the arena a national honour award.
Q 16Which Kings guard won the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year award in 2003?
Bobby Jackson
Bobby Jackson had climbed the ballot a step at a time, fourth in 2001 and second in 2002, before winning it with 15.2 points a game off the Kings' bench.
Q 17What was the name of the Kings' WNBA sister team, league champions in 2005?
Monarchs
Monarchs: one of the WNBA's eight original teams, they won the 2005 title and reached the finals again in 2006, yet the club was shut down just three years later.
Q 18Which oil company's name was on the Kings' first two Sacramento arenas?
ARCO
ARCO first put its name on a 10,333-seat temporary arena thrown up for the Kings' arrival in 1985; the team outgrew it in three seasons and moved to a far larger ARCO Arena.
Q 19Which NBA legend coached the Kings in 1987–88, early in the Sacramento era?
Bill Russell
Bill Russell, an 11-time champion as a Celtics center, lasted only 58 games on the Kings' bench, going 17–41 before Jerry Reynolds took over.
Q 20Which Louisville centre did the Kings take first overall in the 1989 draft?
Pervis Ellison
Pervis Ellison had been 'Never Nervous Pervis' in college, but injuries cost him 48 games as a rookie, earned him the nickname 'Out of Service Pervis' and got him traded after one season.
Chris Webber led the NBA in rebounding in his first season, and the Kings, losers in each of their first 13 years in Sacramento, began a run of eight straight playoff trips.
Q 24Which flashy point guard, drafted in 1998, thrilled fans with his passing before being traded for Mike Bibby?
Jason Williams
Jason Williams, 'White Chocolate', was the seventh pick in 1998 and an All-Rookie First Team choice; traded to the Grizzlies in 2001, he went on to win the 2006 title as Miami's starting point guard.
Q 25Which Hall of Fame college coach became a Kings assistant in 1996, bringing his cutting, passing offense?
Pete Carril
Pete Carril arrived after three decades at Princeton, and his 'Princeton offense', built on constant cutting and passing, became the trademark of the early-2000s Kings.
Q 26What was the title of the February 2001 Sports Illustrated cover story on the Kings?
The Greatest Show on Court
The Greatest Show on Court: the magazine put the team on its cover, and the Kings lived up to it, winning 55 games and, that spring, their first playoff series in 20 years.
Q 27Who coached the 61-win Kings of 2001–02?
Rick Adelman
Rick Adelman took the Kings to the playoffs in all eight of his seasons; they let him go in 2006 and did not get back to the postseason until 2023.
Q 28Which team shot 27 fourth-quarter free throws in Game 6 of the 2002 West finals?
Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers: they had averaged 22 free throws a game in the series before taking 27 in that one quarter, won 106–102 and then took Game 7 in overtime in Sacramento.
Q 29Which team, led by that season's MVP, eliminated the Kings in the 2004 West semifinals?
Minnesota Timberwolves
Minnesota Timberwolves: Kevin Garnett marked his 28th birthday with 32 points and 21 rebounds in Game 7, an 83–80 win that put Minnesota in its first conference final.
Q 30Which volatile forward did the Kings acquire from Indiana in 2006 in exchange for Peja Stojaković?
Ron Artest
Ron Artest arrived from Indiana that January and the Kings finished 44–38 to reach the playoffs, which they would not see again until 2023.