DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine face incessant trolling after another play-in loss - “Went out west to lose play-in game at 10 pm ET”

The Sacramento Kings’ season came to an end following a 120-106 loss against the Dallas Mavericks in the 9-10 play-in game. Reacting to the Kings’ loss, fans can’t seem to prevent themselves from trolling the Zach LaVine-DeMar DeRozan duo.

Naysayers took to X, highlighting how LaVine and DeRozan have now suffered their third straight elimination from the play-in tournament.

“Zach Lavine and Demar Derozan went out West to lose the Play-In Game at 10:00PM EST instead of 7:30PM EST,” a fan wrote.

Considering their results from the past two seasons, social media users seemed surprised that Sacramento’s front office would display their faith in LaVine and DeRozan in the first place.

“The kings GM really watched years of film of Derozan/ Lavine playing miserable basketball together and still decided to trade for Lavine,” another user said.

“Sacramento Kings front office really seen Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan be failures in the Eastern Conference and said let them be total failures here in the West,” @big_business_ wrote.

“Kings being like "Man, you know what would be sick? Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan TOGETHER.”,” NBA beat reporter Esfandiar Baraheni said.

“that Kings GM watched Lavine/Derozan fail together for years in the weaker conference and said “let’s do this again!” @adryanashton added.

Fans also expressed frustration with the front office’s decision to abandon their promising young core—De’Aaron Fox and Tyrese Haliburton—to fulfill their win-now strategy.

“The kings had deaaron fox and haliburton on the team and ended up with sabonis lavine and derozan as the core a few years down the line,” another fan wrote.

Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan were teammates at the Chicago Bulls for three seasons. In the first campaign (2021-2022) together, they led the Bulls to clinch the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference standings.

Eventually, they suffered a 4-1 first-round series loss against the Milwaukee Bucks. The following two seasons witnessed the team fail to get past the play-in tournament - winning the first game but ultimately failing to clinch a playoff spot.

In 2023, Chicago fell 91-102 to the Miami Heat in the second play-in round. The same fate met them in 2024, when the Heat, once again the 8th seed, eliminated the Bulls with a 112-91 blowout.

DeMar DeRozan reflects upon the Kings’ 2024-2025 season

DeMar DeRozan had a terrific performance during Wednesday night’s do-or-die game. He spent nearly 43 minutes on the floor and finished the contest with a stuffed stat line – 33 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals. Unfortunately, he didn’t receive much help from his teammates to get the job done.

Moments after his heroic effort, DeRozan left an emotional message following the conclusion of his 16th professional season.

"It's probably the most I've been through in my 16-year career. The season that we had, it was a lot, it was too hard to kind of like fathom right now. But I am pretty sure over the next couple of days, it’ll kinda hit. The reality of everything, what we all went through,” DeRozan said.

At 35 years old, DeMar DeRozan showed remarkable durability and consistency, appearing in 77 regular-season games and averaging 22.2 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per contest. Despite this strong performance, the season ends in disappointment, extending DeRozan's personal postseason drought - last appearance in 2022.