Kings star center Domantas Sabonis is out for the remainder of the 2025-26 NBA season after opting to undergo surgery on an injury he sustained one month into the season.
Sabonis had surgery last week to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. He originally sustained the injury in mid-November and missed 27 games before returning in mid-January. He played eight games before ultimately opting for surgery.
Stanford Medicine’s Marc Safran, M.D., spoke to NBC Sports California to further detail the injury and explained what could have led to the decision to shut Sabonis down for the rest of the season.
“Meniscus tears are very common,” Dr. Safran said. “The meniscus is like an adaptor between the rounded thigh bone and the flatter leg bone. It’s a rubbery structure and it can break down and tear with time — particularly in cutting and pivoting sports, or doing a lot of deep squatting and deep kneeling. But a lot of times, people have meniscus tears and have no symptoms from them. So my guess is that when he tore his meniscus, and it being earlier in the season, they were trying to see if they could get it to calm down and see if the meniscus tear doesn’t bother his knee.
“So that’s probably why they took those 27 games that he missed to get the swelling down and get his strength back up and make sure he was comfortable with that knee, and it probably did feel pretty good because there’s minimal pain fibers actually in the meniscus itself, but it can cause irritation. So that’s probably why he went back out and tried to play, and once he became symptomatic again, they decided that probably this is not going to be one of those things that’s going to go away on its own and needs to be addressed. The concern is when you have a small tear, it can become a bigger tear. Not all small tears become bigger tears, but all big tears were probably small tears at one time.
“So my guess is he tried to play and something changed or he just didn’t feel quite as normal or he just became symptomatic again is probably why they ended up changing what they were doing with him.”
Sabonis, who turns 30 in May, averaged 15.8 points, 11.4 rebounds and 4.1 assists in the 19 games he played this season.
With the postseason out the window for Sacramento, which currently is last in the Western Conference with a 13-46 record, the Kings’ focus will shift to bolstering their roster for the 2026-27 campaign.
That includes, at least for now, getting Sabonis fully healthy for his 11th NBA season. Dr. Safran broke down what that rehab process could look like for the Lithuanian big man.
“It depends what was done. If he had a meniscus cleanup, that usually takes a few weeks, where you get the swelling down and get your strength back up,” Dr. Safran explained. “People usually come back anywhere between six weeks to three months, depending on which meniscus is torn and how your knee responds. A true meniscus repair, where they’re actually sewing the meniscus back together, you don’t want to put those stressors on the meniscus too early because it can affect its ability to heal. There’s a limited blood supply in the meniscus.
“So it’s kind of a slower process. Usually we wait six months before we get back to pivoting and cutting activities or doing deep squats again. So once six months come around, if he has full motion, he has full strength and his knee’s not swelling in response to the activities that are being applied in physical therapy and rehab, then he’ll be ready to go back.”