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Sports Illustrated
At 8-6, the Sacramento Kings are finally a team to be excited about and are led by 2nd year guard, De’Aaron Fox. They already have a 5-game win streak in this early season and are fresh off beating the San Antonio Spurs. These are good times as a long-suffering Kings fan. The Sacramento Kings haven’t finished a basketball season with a winning record in 13 years. And after those 13 years of lottery selections producing exactly one All-Star in DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins, the Kings finally have a blue chip prospect to build around. De’Aaron Fox has been a revelation in this young season. Fox’s rookie campaign was up and down as he showed flashes of the spectacular while looking every bit like a 20-year old one year removed from being a freshman at Kentucky.
This season, the lefty lead guard is playing like an All-Star. His statistical averages have increased across the board while only playing 5 more minutes per game. Regarded as a minus shooter for the past two years, Fox has even been lights out from deep as a 44% shooter on 3 attempts per game!
Nightly stats of 18 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds look really good. A PER of 19.4 positions Fox in the top 10 amongst point guards according to John Hollinger’s algorithm.
Great shooting by Buddy Hield, the return of an injured Bogdan Bogdanovich and contract year Willie Cauley-Stein have also helped the Kings return to being competitive. The Kings are using those young legs to be 3rd in the NBA in pace at 108 possessions per game. Last year’s plodding has been replaced by flat-out freneticism. If the Kings are trying to win the race for pace this season, Fox is definitely the driver of this hot rod.
Kings fans haven’t been excited about a guard on the roster since Tyreke Evans went for 20, 5 & 5 as a Rookie of the Year; and that didn’t exactly turn out well for anyone involved. Swipa the Fox’s company on the PER leaderboard is a Who’s Who of All-Stars and MVPs. Does De’Aaron belong on this list as a second year player? It remains to be seen if he can sustain this blistering start but optimism is very high in the Capitol of California.