The Fox era is over as Kings deal De’Aaron. Here’s a look back at his Sacramento career
The Kings made a franchise-changing move Sunday, trading De’Aaron Fox to the San Antonio Spurs in a three-team deal that will bring Zach LaVine and six total draft picks to Sacramento.
Fox leaves as one of the best players in franchise history after spending almost eight seasons in Sacramento, the city where he began his NBA career as a spiky-haired 19-year-old from the University of Kentucky.
Fox experienced joy, pain and personal growth during his time in Sacramento. He endured several difficult years as the organization struggled to overcome more than a decade of dysfunction. In the end, he got married, started a family and became one of the most dynamic players in the league while helping the Kings bring winning basketball back to Sacramento.
Here’s a look back at the highs and lows of Fox’s years in Sacramento as he heads to San Antonio to start a new chapter in his career.
Welcome to Sacramento
The Kings chose Fox with the No. 5 pick in the 2017 NBA draft following his freshman season at Kentucky, where he was a first-team All-Southeastern Conference selection and the SEC tournament MVP while teaming with Malik Monk and Bam Adebayo.
Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, Jayson Tatum and Josh Jackson were chosen with the first four picks. The Kings picked Fox over the likes of Jonathan Isaac (6), Lauri Markkanen (7), Frank Ntilikina (8), Dennis Smith Jr. (9), Zach Collins (10), Monk (11), Donovan Mitchell (13), Adebayo (14), John Collins (19) and OG Anunoby (23).
Fox had a lackluster rookie campaign, averaging 11.6 points and 4.4 assists while shooting 41.2% from the field and 30.7% from 3-point range. The Kings only won 27 games, positioning themselves for another top draft pick in 2018.
That’s when former Kings general manager Vlade Divac made the ill-fated decision to draft Marvin Bagley III over Luka Doncic with the No. 2 pick. The Kings thought Bagley would be a perfect partner for Fox, but things didn’t go as planned. Bagley’s career has been plagued by injuries and inconsistency while Doncic and others drafted behind him have had success, including Jaren Jackson Jr., Trae Young, Collin Sexton, Mikal Bridges, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Michael Porter Jr.
Growing pains
Fox grew his game while toiling in relative obscurity over his first five seasons. Fox’s scoring average jumped to 17.3 points in 2018-19, 21.1 points in 2019-20, 25.2 points in 2020-21 and 23.2 points in 2021-22, but the Kings averaged 31.6 wins with a revolving door of coaches, teammates and front office executives.
Divac was fired in August 2020. The Kings hired Monte McNair as general manager and Wes Wilcox as assistant general manager.
One of McNair’s first moves was drafting Tyrese Haliburton with the 12th pick in the 2020 draft. The next was signing Fox to a five-year, $163 million contract extension.
The Kings fired former coach Luke Walton in November 2021. They hired Mike Brown the following spring, selected Keegan Murray with the No. 4 pick in the 2022 draft, signed Monk as a free agent and then traded Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers in the deal that brought Domantas Sabonis to Sacramento.
Light the beam
Smart hires, good draft decisions and a rare period of stability in Sacramento led to the birth of the Beam Team in 2022-23.
The Kings won 48 games to secure the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference in their first season under Brown, ending the longest playoff drought in NBA history after 16 consecutive losing seasons. Their breakout season coincided with the introduction of the beam, a purple laser that lights up the sky above Golden 1 Center every time the Kings win a game.
The third-seeded Kings faced the sixth-seeded Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs. The Kings won the first two games of the series, but the Warriors prevailed when Stephen Curry scored a playoff career-high 50 points in Game 7.
Honors and accolades
Fox earned All-Star and All-NBA Third Team honors for the first time in his career. He averaged 25.0 points, 4.2 rebounds and 6.1 assists while emerging as one of the league’s most lethal fourth-quarter scorers.
Fox was named the inaugural winner of the Jerry West Clutch Player of the Year award. He received 91 of 100 first-place votes, winning in a landslide over Jimmy Butler, DeMar DeRozan, Jalen Brunson and Joel Embiid.
Sabonis was also named an All-Star and an All-NBA Third Team selection. In addition, McNair was named NBA Executive of the Year and Brown became the first unanimous winner of the Coach of the Year award.
In October 2023, Fox got a signature shoe deal when he became the first NBA player to with Under Armour’s Curry Brand. Fox’s first signature shoe, the Fox 1, was released in December.
Franchise leaderboard
Fox scored a franchise-record 60 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Nov. 15. He scored 49 points the next night against the Utah Jazz, joining Kobe Bryant and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players in NBA history to score 109 points in a two-day span.
On Jan. 12, Fox scored 26 points in a 124-119 road win over the Chicago Bulls to pass Nate “Tiny” Archibald for fourth on the franchise’s all-time scoring list. Fox scored 11,064 points in 514 games for the Kings, finishing No. 4 in franchise history behind Oscar Robertson (22,009), Jack Twyman (15,840) and Mitch Richmond (12,070).
Fox ranks second in franchise history in steals (731); fourth in assists (3,146), 3-point goals (789) and 3-point attempts (2,372); fifth in points per game (21.5), field goals (4,085) and field-goal attempts (8,679); eighth in free-throws (2,105); and ninth in free-throw attempts (2,828).
This story was originally published February 3, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
