Scheduled
Portland Trail Blazers at Utah Jazz
2026-27 · Regular season
Darius Acuff Jr. joins LeBron James, Luka Dončić and Stephon Marbury as the only teenagers with 30 points and 10 assists, and the Kings are still 0-5
The 19-year-old Kings rookie had 34 points and 14 assists in his fifth NBA game, tying Tyreke Evans' Kings rookie scoring mark, but 25 turnovers sent Sacramento to a 132-120 loss in New Orleans. Next is Cameron Boozer and the 5-0 Grizzlies.
In this article
Darius Acuff Jr. had 34 points and 14 assists in New Orleans on Thursday night, in only his fifth NBA game. The 19-year-old became the fourth teenager in NBA history with at least 30 points and 10 assists in a game, joining LeBron James, who did it three times, Luka Dončić and Stephon Marbury.
It still was not enough for a first win. The Sacramento Kings lost 132-120 to the New Orleans Pelicans, who had also been winless, and are now the only team in the league at 0-5.
Acuff’s 34 points, 14 assists and six rebounds, posted by the Kings on X.
The line
Acuff went 13-of-26 from the field, 3-of-11 from three and 5-of-5 at the free-throw line in 41 minutes. He added six rebounds, a career high, and had six turnovers. Both his points and his assists were career highs, and the night was his first career double-double. He was plus-3 in a game Sacramento lost by 12.
He was the first Kings rookie with 30 points and 10 assists in a game since Kenny Smith in 1988, and his 34 points tied Tyreke Evans’ 2010 mark for the most by a Kings rookie in a game in the play-by-play era. The previous high for the No. 7 pick in the 2026 draft was 33, in his second game, the home opener against Portland on Oct. 23.
That makes two 30-point games in his first five. Only eight other players in NBA history had done that, among them Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson. The game’s TV broadcast noted that the only other rookies with a 30-point, 10-assist game within their first five career games are Oscar Robertson, Isiah Thomas and Trae Young.
Twenty-one by halftime
Most of the damage came early. Acuff had 12 points on 4-of-5 shooting in the first quarter, and he went into halftime with 21 points and six assists on 8-of-11 shooting, with the Kings down only 63-61. He became the fourth Kings rookie with more than one 20-point half, after Jason Williams, DeMarcus Cousins and Evans.
The second half was harder. Acuff made 1 of his 6 shots in the fourth quarter, and he ran into Jeremiah Fears all night. The Pelicans’ second-year guard had 22 points, 13 assists, eight rebounds, two steals and four blocks, at least one of them a chase-down block on Acuff in transition.
A first-half dunk was the Kings’ pick for dunk of the week on Friday.
Twenty-five turnovers
Sacramento shot 52.3% and made more threes than New Orleans, 12 to 10, but turned the ball over 25 times, its most in a game since January 2023. The Pelicans scored 40 points off those turnovers, made 50 of their 84 shots and scored 80 points in the paint. Domantas Sabonis had nine points, 15 rebounds and seven assists but also seven turnovers, and the Kings gave the ball away nine times in the third quarter alone, when New Orleans took over with 39 points.
Precious Achiuwa and De’Andre Hunter each scored 24 and Zach LaVine had 21, but the Sacramento bench scored eight points to New Orleans’ 41. Zion Williamson scored 22 on 10-of-12 shooting for the Pelicans, all of his field goals in the paint.
Kings coach Doug Christie singled out Acuff’s passing when he spoke to reporters after the game.
‘All that matters is winning’
Acuff has shot a lot from the start. He has taken at least 20 shots in each of his five games, beginning with a 5-of-24 debut, and through five games he is averaging 24.0 points and 6.6 assists. He has had the fifth-highest usage rate in the league among players with at least 100 minutes.
He has also made it clear that the numbers do not mean much to him while the Kings are losing. After the 33-point night against Portland, a 128-120 loss, he said, “We lost,” and added, “Ain’t nothing I want more than a win.”
“He’s special,” Christie said that night. “He wants to win. He wants to be good. All that matters is winning. If he didn’t score 33, and he scored 13 and we won, he’d be happy. But at the same time, if he would have scored 44 and we won, he would have been happy. The bottom line is he wants to compete and win.”
It is the same tone he set at Summer League in July, when he said, “I got to be better, I’m playing terrible,” after a 19-point game in a win over the Clippers. On a radio show on Wednesday, he dismissed the idea of working out with other players from his draft class, saying there was “no point” in it.
Next: Boozer and the 5-0 Grizzlies
The Kings were off on Friday and play the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, which is 2 a.m. Sunday in Cairo. Memphis is 5-0 and also rested on Friday, and Acuff will see Cameron Boozer, who had 18 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists at Portland on Thursday to become the second-youngest player to record a triple-double. It is the second time the two rookies have met: Memphis beat Sacramento in Sacramento during its 4-0 road trip to open the season.
After Memphis, the Kings visit Dallas on Monday and host the Lakers on Wednesday.
Join the discussion
0 commentsTalk basketball. Keep it respectful. You can use a name or stay Anonymous. Comments publish immediately.
Be the first to start the conversation.