DeAaron Fox

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
#62
Love watching the 2H highlights when Bazemore and Lin were guarding Fox.

You could tell that defenders are now in no-mans land. They're giving him a foot of space and their posture is shaded for him to drive. Fox has perfected his game by slowing down there, holding defenders in no mans land, drawing help defenders his way then passing the ball to open teammates, pulling up, or driving depending on the situation. Simply Beautiful.
It's especially deadly next to Buddy who is now a dead-eye shooter whenever he even gets an inch of daylight.
 
#64
Fox has been very, very impressive and light years ahead of where I was expecting him to be this year.

I always knew he could become a great attacking point guard, but he has developed into a top notch floor general too! He controls the game brilliantly when he is on the floor!

Fox is the total package and he could become the BEST point guard in the NBA in the next 2-3 years! :)
 
#66
Yea i honestly think Luka handling the ball so much would have taken away from Fox. Clearly Sac knows what they have in him
I think it's conceivable that there's a future where Doncic ends up the better player, but Bagley ends up the better fit next to Fox. Fox I honestly believe is on the way to being one of the fastest paced PG's in League history. He needs a potent 3 point shot maker to stretch the floor on the break (Buddy). And he needs a dynamic big target wide receiver galloping right next to him (Bagley).

What Luka provides can be found elsewhere in smaller doses that fit better in our fast pace system.
 
#72
I only have one question about Fox? Is he human??
He’s so good he pulled me out of KF retirement!
I don’t think you are the only one who has been awoken by this version of the Kings. ;) I have been a die-hard fan since they relocated to Sacramento in 1985. The only winning era was the 98/99-2006 one. This is even different since the core of this team is shaping up to be very “home grown” compared to the Webber teams. I’m not going to lie: I’ve been on the ropes as a fan given the last five years of futility. This really does seem to be coming out of nowhere, but I’ll take it!
 
#74
Yea i honestly think Luka handling the ball so much would have taken away from Fox. Clearly Sac knows what they have in him
Yet we signed LaVine who a higher usage player with minimal playmaking. How many shot or how is fox ball handling gonna work with a guy taking 19 shots a game. 14.5 last year and 15 shots in Minnesota so I don’t know about that Fox/Doncic
 
#75
Yet we signed LaVine who a higher usage player with minimal playmaking. How many shot or how is fox ball handling gonna work with a guy taking 19 shots a game. 14.5 last year and 15 shots in Minnesota so I don’t know about that Fox/Doncic
The Lavine offer was admittedly a head scratcher for me personally. I didn't feel it was necessary given our untapped talent ( in my opinion at that time at least.)

I can't be mad about a dang thing right now. Winning the way we are, playing the way I want ( we need) to play ( if not old school ball). I can;t even fathom looking longingly at other bottom dwellers situations right now, regardless of who they picked or how their future looks.

I really like how our future looks, at least as it has panned out so far.
 
#76
The Lavine offer was admittedly a head scratcher for me personally. I didn't feel it was necessary given our untapped talent ( in my opinion at that time at least.)

I can't be mad about a dang thing right now. Winning the way we are, playing the way I want ( we need) to play ( if not old school ball). I can;t even fathom looking longingly at other bottom dwellers situations right now, regardless of who they picked or how their future looks.

I really like how our future looks, at least as it has panned out so far.
I didn’t like it either he’s playing well but his 2nd in usage in the league. That signing should’ve silenced the we didn’t want to take the ball out of Fox hands but here we are
 
#79
I didn’t like it either he’s playing well but his 2nd in usage in the league. That signing should’ve silenced the we didn’t want to take the ball out of Fox hands but here we are
Who knows what the ripple affect would have been had the bulls not matched; however, I think the plan was simply to take a swing at adding talented, athletic, fast players to the roster to ultimately do what we now see them doing. I suspect Levine’s usage would have generally been lower had he been on the team. Probably lessening the start buddy has had.

The thing I did, which I suspect most on this forum did, was to not take them seriously in their stated goals to play fast. Seeing them play at the pace they are now actually puts that offer sheet in much better perspective to me. I’m fine with the way things turned out, however, would have been fun seeing Lavine’s attacking the rim on the break with Fox. It could have actually been devastating.
 
#80
I have another idea. Since Doncic is not part of this team, let's stop imagining that he is.
The Kings opted to not draft a consensus top two prospect (and the player the majority of Kings fans wanted) with the second pick in the draft. Rightly or wrongly that decision is going to tie Doncic to the Kings for the foreseeable future and perhaps for his whole career. I think Bagley has shown enough to say (barring injuries) that it won't be a Sam Bowie/Michael Jordan situation but it will still be a topic.

But another way to look at it is this: Doncic looks as good or better than advertised playing the PF spot for the Mavs. And yet, on a per minute basis Bjelica has better stats across the board other than slightly fewer assists but with far fewer turnovers and with significantly lower usage. In my mind we have a guy adding similar contributions as Doncic while also having a guy with huge potential who seems to improve each game in Bagley.

Another thing worth noting is that the Kings were picked by most to be the absolute worst team in the NBA and yet they are at 6-3 while the Mavericks (with veteran FA signings like DeAndre Jordan this year and Matthews & Barnes previously) we're expected to be significantly better and yet they sit at 2-7. Doncic is IMO already their best player but fairly or not, his strong start to the season hasn't translated to wins.

But we'll see. It's a long season and we'll be hearing about Doncic for years.

As long as the Kings become a winning team again I won't mind.
 

dude12

Hall of Famer
#81
I didn’t like it either he’s playing well but his 2nd in usage in the league. That signing should’ve silenced the we didn’t want to take the ball out of Fox hands but here we are
Why don’t you just switch teams? You probably would be happier
 

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
#83
Yea i honestly think Luka handling the ball so much would have taken away from Fox. Clearly Sac knows what they have in him
An alternative theory is that Fox would get roughly the same amount of touches and adding another ballhandler/playmaker would have instead taken the ball out of Buddy's hands more. I'm not trying to be rude, it's just not as cut and dried as to warrant no further discussion.

A fairer statement might be that it's not worth worrying about in light of our current situation. The team seems to be doing just fine the way it is. Bogie is coming back soon and he's pretty good with the ball in his hands too. And as funkykingston pointed out (always the voice of reason :)) Bjelica is currently giving us a lot of the same skills that Doncic would have. And if y'all really don't want his name mentioned in other parts of the forum, maybe don't bring it up?? Just sayin. :)

Don't know if this has been pointed out yet, but not only is this current version of the team mostly succeeding with "homegrown" talent, it's also succeeding when the only two guys in the rotation with more than 3 years of NBA experience (Koufos and Shumpert) are playing relatively minor roles. Some of them are older than others but they're all babies as far as the NBA is concerned. I think that's pretty incredible! Vlade has materialized this team out of thin air. Teams made up of inexperienced players rarely click this fast. Does that qualify as a pun? I'm going to pretend that it does.
 
#84
I absolutely love Fox. He's rapidly turning into a star player.

I've been reading other teams' message boards, and they lament not drafting him (or trying to move up to draft him).

Phoenix fans in particular are really sad about it. They need a PG badly, and apparently Josh Jackson looks really bad right now. He's a turnover machine and his defense is overrated - again, this is what they say. I don't know how accurate it is, but he's hardly playing right now and his body language is poor.
 
#85
Fox with 10 assists and 0 turnovers last night. Did a great job of using his speed to create open shots for his teammates. He also was better at the line. If Fox keeps playing like last night this team could be good and more importantly other players will want to play with him. That bodes well for an upcoming free agent period where we have lots of cap.
 
#86
Starting to become really clear he's right there in that tier with Mitchell/Tatum and I don't think there's any question he's outperformed both in the first part of this season. I think if the All-Star game were tomorrow, he'd have a decent shot at making it, especially considering how shocking it is we're 7-5. His impact can't be understated:

-He's quickly becoming one of the best in the league at getting to the free throw line with a .523 FTr (for reference, Giannis is .411, Harden is .415, Embiid is .550). To me, this will be one of the major factors that can boost him to becoming a superstar. Superstars (other than Steph who is the extreme outlier), have to be able to get to the free throw line. Fox showing in 12 games that he possess that elite quality.

-He's playing outstanding defense. Team DEF net rating is 9.7 points worse with him off the floor. Just watching his on-ball defense too shows a dramatic improvement in his awareness and ability to bother ball-handlers.

-He's drastically improved as a passer (+6.6% AST rate bump). Turnovers are still a bit of a problem, but it's still greatly encouraging to see a massive AST rate bump without turnovers increasing too.

-Efficiency has dramatically improved. Literally over a 10% bump in True shooting, he's hitting 39% of 3s on 2.8 attempts this year.

We got a good one folks.
 
#87
The best thing compliment I can give Fox is that he's become a true PG and a real floor general on both sides of the floor. He's understanding when he needs to score and when he needs to get others involved. Defensively he's very active and has a real knack for making huge defensive plays that are momentum changers when things are starting to go against the Kings.

Last season I wasn't sure that he was a true PG with good vision to get others involved. Let's face it, the league is stocked up with "score first PG's" that only pass when they have too (see Frank Mason). It is appearing that Fox not only wants to pass the ball but he has the vision needed to do it well. He sees plays developing early and anticipates players being open before they actually are. I don't think he's ever going to have Nash or Jason Kidd like court vision but he's definitely above average for a PG and seems to be getting better.

When it's all said and done Fox should become one of the Top-2 players from his draft class and has a chance to be the best player. Mitchell and Tatum are both great players but Fox has more upside and more room for growth than both of them. He has the ability to make other players better which is a more valuable trait than just pure scoring.
 
#88
most of people think that player is getting better while playing games.. truth is he gets better by having good practice and good oponents in practice.. Fox is an excelent example of this..

many thought Fox is a bust, because he did not had 15+ ppg and 10+ apg.. but stats in first 2-3 years do not mean much, that Tyreeke Evans would now be MVP..

also altough many think Hill was a bad signing, but I am sure that Hill had his role in Fox we see this year, by mentoring and playing against him in practice..

it is not games that are important with young players, but what we do not see..

that is why I like approach with MBIII or Gilles (although I would like to see him little bit more), no need to push them to play 35 mpg and get them good stats while losing, but point is that they get better every day..
 
#90
most of people think that player is getting better while playing games.. truth is he gets better by having good practice and good oponents in practice.. Fox is an excelent example of this..

many thought Fox is a bust, because he did not had 15+ ppg and 10+ apg.. but stats in first 2-3 years do not mean much, that Tyreeke Evans would now be MVP..

also altough many think Hill was a bad signing, but I am sure that Hill had his role in Fox we see this year, by mentoring and playing against him in practice..

it is not games that are important with young players, but what we do not see..

that is why I like approach with MBIII or Gilles (although I would like to see him little bit more), no need to push them to play 35 mpg and get them good stats while losing, but point is that they get better every day..
This is what I have been saying since last season but most of people ignored it. Last year was about player development. That is why we had a lot of vets who played bigger roles. People didn’t have long term picture in mind. All they saw was there and then, why aren’t kids getting more minutes, why are we playing veterans, Joerger is looking after his record etc.

It was nothing like that. Kids were developing, learning from the vets. There is no reason why the kids could not run like last year other than we were teaching them how to play before they could run. Look at the results so far this season.