In a perfect world maybe you could trade Fox for an all star big, Buddy is a positive asset that also brings a return, but that's not where we live.
Haliburton and Fox did not work. It's funny that "Haliburton makes everyone better" unless that person is Fox or Brogdon, or anyone else we decide is worth writing off. We would have extended him and then basically been frozen for two years until his extension kicked in so you could trade him, or watched Fox's value decline even more despite the fact that when Haliburton isn't here he's playing at an all star level himself.
There wasn't room for both, we moved the one we could move. There was no solution that wasn't going to be a bigger "L" here. I guess arguably we could have initiated a bidding war and gotten a splashier return on Haliburton. Like a younger player with more contract control, or a pick that is always a crapshoot. We got an all star big who seems to love it in Sacramento, plays excellently with Fox (and Huerter, who probably would not be here) and does a ton of stuff that doesn't exactly show up on the stat sheet but has helped turn us into one of the most exciting offensive teams in the league.
At worst this is an Atlanta chose Trae over Luka scenario. Except unlike either of those teams, we actually know that our team with Fox and Haliburton sucked.