[Haynes, Yahoo Sports] De’Aaron Fox addresses Kings trade rumors, his ideal role in the NBA

[kb02]

I don't know if you've been watching the Pacers games but they are not actively trying to tank.


They might not be trying to win all that hard (they're really milking Brogdan's injury for all that it's worth) but they're also not OKC resting half their roster every night and trying to get Shai to foul out by the 4th quarter.

In your argument, wouldn't playing next to an All-Star actually hurt Fox's numbers more than help it? Would Tyrese's numbers count as blatant stat padding or empty stats since "the Pacers are tanking"?

I'm not trying to single you out or anything but the whole "Sure, Fox is putting up numbers but on a bad team so they don't really get to count as much as a 'good' players' stats" somehow only counts when it's for De'Aaron Fox rather than when it's SGA or Tyrese or Devin Booker prior to CP3 coming to Phoenix?

The Pacers are not tanking like OKC, but they're certainly not trying to win every game like the Kings. That impacts the W-L.

Fox's numbers should increase, because he gets to handle the ball the majority of the time now that he's not playing next to Hali. And playing next to a player like Domas should further enhance that, because of the number of easy lay ups off Domas passes and cheap assists that Fox should get from feeding Domas.

While the offense is playing better, they're still having the same pace issues that are impacted by having a player like Fox on the floor. Too much pace, not enough focus on controlling the game. And the spacing is not anywhere where it should be, because both Fox and Domas are best operating in the same area.

 

[kb02]

As usual, you ignore everything in my counter-argument, but we'll continue:

Playing Tyrese 37.9 MPG and Buddy Hield 38.7 MPG doesn't sound like very good tanking to me. I wouldn't want to run my future PG into the ground in a lost season right?

Your argument hinged on the team's W-L. I pointed to the most important determinant in both team's W-L. I destroyed your argument.

 

[twslam07]

The Pacers are tanking. The Kings are not.

Fox is playing next to an all star. Hali is not.

Context matters. No?

Are the players actively out there throwing games? They made a Sabonis for Haliburton deal which signifies them moving towards a rebuild, but I don't see them sitting/resting Brogdon & Turner to rack up the Lins. Big difference between rebuilding and tanking.

Also, a Haliburton-Brogdon-Turner trio doesn't seem that different talent wise than Fox-Barnes-Sabonis (especially since you have Haliburton as the better player than Fox). I'm not fully convinced that we're a more talented team than them to be honest.

 

[The_Jamal]

Your argument hinged on the team's W-L. I pointed to the most important determinant in both team's W-L. I destroyed your argument.

LOL.

No it isn't. You just chose to ignore what my actual argument is. It's all their for you to read, go ahead.

 

[kb02]

LOL.

No it isn't. You just chose to ignore what my actual argument is. It's all their for you to read, go ahead.

"Pacers are 2-5 with Hali running the show. They just got blown out by the Magic. If you're keeping consistent with your arguments, what you said about Fox applies to Hali has well."

Sigh.

 

[The_Jamal]

"Pacers are 2-5 with Hali running the show. They just got blown out by the Magic. If you're keeping consistent with your arguments, what you said about Fox applies to Hali has well."

Sigh.

"The timeline has always been the next 2 seasons; not the final 20 games of a season after a coach gets fired mid-year and the team acquires 6 new players at the deadline. Not to mention, a feature offensive player that's a totally new archetype that no one on the team has played with. If you think about it, only 3 guys (Fox, Davion, Barnes) are still playing from game 1 that the Kings planned to play in their rotation with TD and Holmes hurt and Harkless in and out of the rotation. With that context in mind, it's amazing they've looked as good as they have on offense up to this point."


???? Hello?

 

[kb02]

"The timeline has always been the next 2 seasons; not the final 20 games of a season after a coach gets fired mid-year and the team acquires 6 new players at the deadline. Not to mention, a feature offensive player that's a totally new archetype that no one on the team has played with. If you think about it, only 3 guys (Fox, Davion, Barnes) are still playing from game 1 that the Kings planned to play in their rotation with TD and Holmes hurt and Harkless in and out of the rotation. With that context in mind, it's amazing they've looked as good as they have on offense up to this point."


???? Hello?

You pointed to the Pacer's W-L. Well, they're sitting two of their three best players. They're tanking. That impacts the W-L. I answered your argument. Hello.

 

[NewArena]

All i know is i love this guy!

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Respectfully @kb02 we all know you have a hate-on for Fox. It's probably best to take it to twitter where everyone will apparently agree with you.

 

[kb02]

Respectfully @kb02 we all know you have a hate-on for Fox. It's probably best to take it to twitter where everyone will apparently agree with you.

Hate? My criticisms are and always have been fair. Dude’s value tanked this year, because he hasn’t improved in the areas that he needs to improve in. Controlling the game, shooting from three, shooting in general, defense, at the free throw line, and playing winning ball.

Hate would be piling on his off the court ventures or questioning his mindset. I haven’t piled on in those areas when the opp arrived beyond short statements.

 

[sactowndog]

"The timeline has always been the next 2 seasons; not the final 20 games of a season after a coach gets fired mid-year and the team acquires 6 new players at the deadline. Not to mention, a feature offensive player that's a totally new archetype that no one on the team has played with. If you think about it, only 3 guys (Fox, Davion, Barnes) are still playing from game 1 that the Kings planned to play in their rotation with TD and Holmes hurt and Harkless in and out of the rotation. With that context in mind, it's amazing they've looked as good as they have on offense up to this point."


???? Hello?

The timeline for the Kings is always this immediate year.

 

[hrdboild]

My response was to the the previous poster saying Fox will never be enough. He's not doing enough. The Kings don't have a winning record post trade. And I don't know if that will change long term. I hate cherry picked, raw stat citations without usage, volume, and pace adjustments. Fox's raw numbers with Hali were good as well. Where he suffered was in the efficiency stats, the eye ball test, and the win loss record. Prior to Sabonis, the argument was Fox had never played next to a star. Morant has never played next to a star either--yet he's winning. Fox is now playing next to a star and he's still not winning. I'm not convinced, yet, Sabonis and Fox will work. Tick tock.

No I think the argument was that we sucked because we had too many guards and our big men were mostly middling to terrible. Also we're probably the worst defensive team in the league. So we traded the guard who had the most value and got an All Star big man in return. I think we all knew that as good as Sabonis is, he's not going to help our defense much so there's still more work to be done. The rotation actually makes sense now but we're lacking a second wing who can compete on both ends every night with the league's best and a reliable defensive presence in the post and we're not going to solve those problems right away unless we get very lucky in the draft. If our roleplayers get hot we can make enough threes off of Fox and Sabonis kick-outs to stay in the game but when our shooters are merely average we're outclassed because our defense remains awful. And that's before we talk about everything else a quality starter provides besides just shooting.

This whole Fox vs. Haliburton tip you've been on all season was somewhat relevant when both were on the team though I think even then it was reductive and oversold. We were not terrible because Fox and Haliburton didn't compliment each other, we were terrible because the rest of the roster not named Harrison Barnes has underperformed. Now that Haliburton is gone it's pointless to continue driving the same polemic into the ground. You still want to paint every loss as a Fox problem when it should be obvious the losing is a team problem. Fox averaged 27 points per game with shooting splits of .506/.351/.771 in February. That's the same level of production superduperstar Ja Morant is providing Memphis this year. The Kings went 3-5 in those games. We're inching toward relevancy but we've still got significant holes to fill. I'm watching Arizona demolish SC right now and adding a versatile two-way wing like Benedict Mathurin, for example, would do wonders for this team.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

No I think the argument was that we sucked because we had too many guards and our big men were mostly middling to terrible. Also we're probably the worst defensive team in the league. So we traded the guard who had the most value and got an All Star big man in return. I think we all knew that as good as Sabonis is, he's not going to help our defense much so there's still more work to be done. The rotation actually makes sense now but we're lacking a second wing who can compete on both ends every night with the league's best and a reliable defensive presence in the post and we're not going to solve those problems right away unless we get very lucky in the draft. If our roleplayers get hot we can make enough threes off of Fox and Sabonis kick-outs to stay in the game but when our shooters are merely average we're outclassed because our defense remains awful. And that's before we talk about everything else a quality starter provides besides just shooting.

This whole Fox vs. Haliburton tip you've been on all season was somewhat relevant when both were on the team though I think even then it was reductive and oversold. We were not terrible because Fox and Haliburton didn't compliment each other, we were terrible because the rest of the roster not named Harrison Barnes has underperformed. Now that Haliburton is gone it's pointless to continue driving the same polemic into the ground. You still want to paint every loss as a Fox problem when it should be obvious the losing is a team problem. Fox averaged 27 points per game with shooting splits of .506/.351/.771 in February. That's the same level of production superduperstar Ja Morant is providing Memphis this year. The Kings went 3-5 in those games. We're inching toward relevancy but we've still got significant holes to fill. I'm watching Arizona demolish SC right now and getting a versatile two-way wing like Benedict Mathurin on the team next year, for example, would do wonders for this team.

we're not gonna get Benn because he's gonna wind up going top 4 if this keeps up.

 

[midtowner]

I think our starting lineup is:

2 - borderline all star players (very good)
1 - good player
2 - below average starters that also aren’t great fits with the other 3 players

And our bench has 3 quality players: Davion, Dante and Holmes. But Davion’s offense isn’t there yet (normal rookie stuff), Dante’s outside shot isn’t back and Holmes has had a down year.

Plus the team is still soft and trying to reorganize its offense, defense and rotations on the fly.

1 Legit Shooting Guard or Big wing could make this a good team. Filling both those holes could make this a really good team.

But we aren’t close to that yet

 

[hrdboild]

we're not gonna get Benn because he's gonna wind up going top 4 if this keeps up.

Shhhh! The game's on ESPN but it's after midnight on the East Coast so it's not like anyone is actually watching right?

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Shhhh! The game's on ESPN but it's after midnight on the East Coast so it's not like anyone is actually watching right?

People really like TL and this team. I know everyone lost this weekend but I was sure they'd fall down and didn't. I'm pretty sure word is out, this team wasn't supposed to be a fixture on ESPN and Fox this year. If they hit the EE or FF and Duke exits early I can see a jump. CBS has him 9, Tankathon has him at 11 right now though so what do I know, though I find it hard to see him going after a lot of people mocked ahead of him in their draft.

 

[hrdboild]

People really like TL and this team. I know everyone lost this weekend but I was sure they'd fall down and didn't. I'm pretty sure word is out, this team wasn't supposed to be a fixture on ESPN and Fox this year. If they hit the EE or FF and Duke exits early I can see a jump. CBS has him 9, Tankathon has him at 11 right now though so what do I know, though I find it hard to see him going after a lot of people mocked ahead of him in their draft.

Whereas SC losing to #2 Arizona tonight is probably going to drop them out of the top 25 completely cause, uh, that's generally how the rankings treat every Pac 12 team that isn't UCLA or Arizona.

In all seriousness, I think you're right that Mathurin is rising. He certainly could go top 4 when all is said and done -- former Pac 10/12 prospects Westbrook and DWill both had similar meteoric rises into the top of the lotto despite being ranked late lotto or below for most of the year.

 

[kb02]

No I think the argument was that we sucked because we had too many guards and our big men were mostly middling to terrible. Also we're probably the worst defensive team in the league. So we traded the guard who had the most value and got an All Star big man in return. I think we all knew that as good as Sabonis is, he's not going to help our defense much so there's still more work to be done. The rotation actually makes sense now but we're lacking a second wing who can compete on both ends every night with the league's best and a reliable defensive presence in the post and we're not going to solve those problems right away unless we get very lucky in the draft. If our roleplayers get hot we can make enough threes off of Fox and Sabonis kick-outs to stay in the game but when our shooters are merely average we're outclassed because our defense remains awful. And that's before we talk about everything else a quality starter provides besides just shooting.

This whole Fox vs. Haliburton tip you've been on all season was somewhat relevant when both were on the team though I think even then it was reductive and oversold. We were not terrible because Fox and Haliburton didn't compliment each other, we were terrible because the rest of the roster not named Harrison Barnes has underperformed. Now that Haliburton is gone it's pointless to continue driving the same polemic into the ground. You still want to paint every loss as a Fox problem when it should be obvious the losing is a team problem. Fox averaged 27 points per game with shooting splits of .506/.351/.771 in February. That's the same level of production superduperstar Ja Morant is providing Memphis this year. The Kings went 3-5 in those games. We're inching toward relevancy but we've still got significant holes to fill. I'm watching Arizona demolish SC right now and adding a versatile two-way wing like Benedict Mathurin, for example, would do wonders for this team.

I'm not convinced the Fox Sabonis pairing will work long term. I give it till next year's trade deadline. If it doesn't work, both Fox and McNair will be gone. I'm seeing weak signals--as I did last year with Fox. That spacing issue takes away the ability for wings/stretch 4s to cut. Remember those cuts followed by flying dunks from Metu and other wings? It disappeared after the first two games. It's not going to change with better wing shooting. Opposing teams are still going to drop and clog the paint on both Fox and Sabonis. Both are killer at the rim. Not so much from set mid range or set three point shots. Yhall happy for just an improved team that makes the playoffs. I'm not. I think Domas (and Hali as well--never had an issue with the returning value) can be a championship anchor. And I'm not anywhere sold that Fox is a good Robin next to his Sabonis' Batman.

As for Mathurin, he's nice, but Jaylen Clark can be had much later in the draft and will end up being just as good if not better than him.