De’Aaron Martez Fox
- Thread starter Tetsujin
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KingsFanSince85
All-Star
De’Aaron’s confidence, swagger, footwork, fluidity, smoothness, and calm demeanor as he makes his moves eerily remind both my wife and I of Kobe Bryant. Whenever he penetrates the paint then spins and fades away for a soft floater or jumper, my wife usually belts out “Kobe-esque!”.
Yeah, we realize De’Aaron isn’t 6-6 and isn’t anywhere near the level Kobe got to in his prime nor has he helped lead a team to a title let alone 5 of them — but nonetheless his movement, array of moves, and terminator-like mentality do spark some similarities.
Sac.Kings
All-Star
When a coach has your back like that, you walk through brick walls for him. Just trying to let all of this sink in deep so it can wash away some of those tough and ugly years we had to endure. This team can be special and I think they know it. I think we are just 1 piece away from “contender” special. Hope we find that piece.
This is not shade but is Indy really good?
They're above .500 but they've got some really nasty losses on their record including Chicago. I'm not sure how many of their wins right now qualify as quality wins, they've got one 2 point win over the Bucks nothing else really stands out but I haven't watched much of the East.
Tizzy Flip
Starter
They beat 76ers on the road in the 2nd game of a doubleheader. They almost pulled off the win in the first game too. I think they’re for real watching a few of their games. The NBA schedule is just weird. I think they last played on Tuesday before today’s game.
Kingz19
Hall of Famer
yeah, they’re good this season. That offense will carry them to the playoffs. They were ok last season when Tyrese played. Probably as bad as any team in the NBA if he didn’t.
Indiana would’ve probably made the play-in last season if Tyrese didn’t miss so many games with injury. They were 28-28 with Tyrese and 7-19 without him.
Kings are certainly a superior team post trade. Since it gave us a front court and left us a guard. Far more balanced. Indiana has guards. Undersized small forwards and soft bigs. Indiana is extremely weak up front but they certainly should be able to make noise once they balance their roster out more.
They are already pretty good with such a one note team..if Tyrese plays
They've been a top 3 offense so far this year, but a bottom 3 defense. So very similar archetype to us last year; play incredibly fast, but just hope you win games 131-130. But they're also very dependent on Hali continuing his prime Steve Nash tear for everything they do to keep running. If he has any sort of an off-game, the wheels fall off like they did today vs the Magic.
They need Mathurin to step into a much bigger secondary scorer or creation role for me to take them seriously as a top 4ish team in the East. It's a very "Luka-esq" type of team build right now where they have a bunch of pretty good role players that compliment Hali perfectly, but they can't function without him. Pacers are 14.7 points better on O (before tonights Magic game) with Hali on the floor lol. Absolutely bonkers impact.
I guess we'll see what happens but I take issue with comparing them to us last year. And I like guys like Benn, who I think is capable of playing defense, at least he was in college so I have no idea why they stink so bad but I always believed in Fox's ability to play D and the team's not giving a F under Walton's attitude the biggest thing that held him back. A little surprised everyone plays D like Buddy in Indy right now.
Tizzy Flip
Starter
They start Obi Toppin who is about as average of a role payer as you can get. But Hali has made him and Turner look like world beaters. They’re all the recipient of his lobs and some crazy passes.
Only in terms of "Amazing offense, bad bad defense". The way(s) we get there could not be any more different.
And while I'm not entirely sure if we're out of the "bad" defense category yet this year, we've clearly taken a serious leap on that end. I'll take "slightly below average" with a league best offense.
I think our defense was bad on the stat sheet but not on the eye test. We contested a lot of shots last year, and they went in. Maybe that was a size issue, but there were advanced stats showing that much of our poor defense was below average luck.
Plus our system, and that we seemed to be clamps at the end of the 4th quarter.
Plus our system, and that we seemed to be clamps at the end of the 4th quarter.
Tizzy Flip
Starter
Their pace of play is very similar to ours. I don’t have the numbers but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re both 1 & 2 in that category. Their major issue I think watching a few of their games is, similar to us last year, if they’re not making their 3s, it gets really ugly. Hali gets them wide open 3s (even Turner is making a high %) but they’ll have a game like today where they go ice cold and they don’t have an interior game to fall back on
Sac.Kings
All-Star
Also just want to point out Fox is shooting 42% from three this season. Granted, the season is still young and who knows if he can keep this up, but his volume has increased significantly and the percentage has climbed significantly as well. Very encouraging to say the least and it has completely transformed him and the way teams have to play him now.
Vinny Basketballerino
Starter
I remember when teams would sag off Fox like 8-9 feet and basically just give him the open three. What was so impressive is he could still get to the basket.
It was always going to be the case that if he developed a 3pt shot, the league is cooked. That's precisely what seems to have happened. If he keeps up 40+% on the year, we are, as Coach Brown said, looking at the league MVP. Believe that!
NewArena
All-Star
LOL! Fox is a flat out superstar, man. It’s crazy how i still questioned it before this season began, even after what he’d shown in the playoffs (before and after his broken finger) simply from my own PTSD as a fan. There isn’t a single person in the league that can guard him. No one. Can you imagine what his consistent jumpshot is about to do for our offense going forward? This opens the game up for EVERYONE.
NewArena
All-Star
He’s a much better version of John Wall lol
NewArena
All-Star
This. Remember Fox saying he actually spoke to Kobe for like 3-4 hours months or weeks before he’d passed? I’m sure he asked Kobe a lot of questions and it’s clear he respected Fox’ game enough to have the conversation in the first place. Pretty cool
SLAB
Hall of Famer
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
When Fox is aggressive it makes all the difference even if the shots aren't falling. It opens up the O boards, shots for others, etc.
Fox becoming a top 10 player and Sabonis shooting 3s is changed the ceiling on this team.
It really is amazing to think that not so long most pundits were saying it'd take Fox PLUS draft pix to pry Ben Simmons from the Sixers as that saga played out.
My point isn't to throw shade at anyone here for whom that kind of deal once made sense. Again, almost ALL the hoops talking heads took that view of the players' relative values. My point is that it's amazing how brightly Fox's star shines now and equally amazing how much Simmons' has dimmed.
We all know about DFox. Simmons rebounding and assist numbers are good - 10.8 boards per over 6 games played this year is especially strong. But after averaging 16 ppg in Philly - more than respectable - he's averaged a touch under 7 in Brooklyn (in somewhat reduced PT).
After averaging 4.4 FT/game in Philly, Simmons has TAKEN FOUR (4) - TOTAL - in six games this year, making one. That's just an UGLY reflection on the state of the man's game.
I almost feel sorry for the guy.
My point isn't to throw shade at anyone here for whom that kind of deal once made sense. Again, almost ALL the hoops talking heads took that view of the players' relative values. My point is that it's amazing how brightly Fox's star shines now and equally amazing how much Simmons' has dimmed.
We all know about DFox. Simmons rebounding and assist numbers are good - 10.8 boards per over 6 games played this year is especially strong. But after averaging 16 ppg in Philly - more than respectable - he's averaged a touch under 7 in Brooklyn (in somewhat reduced PT).
After averaging 4.4 FT/game in Philly, Simmons has TAKEN FOUR (4) - TOTAL - in six games this year, making one. That's just an UGLY reflection on the state of the man's game.
I almost feel sorry for the guy.
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On a related note, I feel sorry for a lot of players who never had a Coach Brown come into their life at the right time to help push them to become the best on-court version of themselves. Certainly Fox deserves the majority of the credit for accepting the challenge and putting in the work (and also for having that potential in the first place) but when you look at where he was just two years ago (an afterthought and a punchline) and where he is now (a top 10 player who is in the MVP conversation and deserves to be there) it really highlights how enigmatic the pathway to success can be and also the true value of having a mentor in your life (and being a mentor for others when possible).
