On Saturday night, the league announced it has suspended Sacramento Kings guard Dennis Schröder three games without pay for “confronting and attempting to strike another player” in an arena hallway roughly 40 minutes after Sacramento’s 125–101 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena on Dec. 28.
The NBA has suspended Sacramento Kings guard Dennis Schroder for three games for confronting and attempting to strike another player 40 minutes after Kings’ loss to the Lakers in Los Angeles on Dec. 28.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 11, 2026
Schröder will begin serving the suspension Sunday when the Kings host the Houston Rockets, and he will also miss games against the Lakers and New York Knicks, according to the NBA.
The league’s statement did not identify the other player involved. But multiple reports indicated it was Luka Dončić.
The reported spark was personal, and it carried over from the court to the corridor. Schröder sought out Dončić after the game and told him he “can’t call him a ‘b*tch’ on the court and pretend like everything is fine off the court,”while attempting to strike Dončić. Lakers center Deandre Ayton tried to pull Schröder away as security intervened.
All of it traces back to a night where the tension was visible even before anyone reached the tunnel. During the Dec. 28 game, Schröder and Dončić jawed at each other in multiple moments, and during a timeout Dončić taunted Schröder with a pointed jab; “should’ve signed that contract”, in reference to a widely discussed Lakers extension Schröder was once reported to have declined.
What makes this episode feel different isn’t that two competitors talked. Trash talk is the sport’s native language. It’s that the confrontation allegedly migrated into the back halls after the final horn. That’s why the suspension reads as preventative as much as punitive: the league is treating postgame pursuit and attempted escalation as a category of behavior that can’t be normalized, especially with another Kings–Lakers meeting immediately ahead on the schedule.
For Schröder, the suspension lands in a season already defined by turbulence. Sacramento is 8–30, second-worst in the league, and that Schröder is averaging 13.0 points, 5.7 assists and 3.3 rebounds across 31 games. In other words, this isn’t a contender absorbing a brief absence; it’s a struggling team losing one of its primary ball-handlers while trying to stabilize anything at all.
