De’Aaron Fox has spent his entire career flying under the radar, but he’s seemingly had enough. The Kings’ guard became the talk of the town after a pair of astonishing performances on back-to-back nights over the weekend. He scored 109 points over two games and surpassed his previous career-high of 44 in both outings. While his otherworldly displays were incredible to witness, what left Eddie Johnson dazzled was how easy he made it look.
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Following Fox’s 60-point game against the Timberwolves, and 49-point outing against the Jazz, the Kings icon lauded the guard’s smooth play style during an interview with Sirius XM NBA Radio. He said,
“De’Aaron Fox, man. You watch him play. Does it look like he’s even exerting energy? That’s the beautiful part about him. You see Donovan Mitchell get a bunch of points, you see he’s working hard. Fox? He’s just crawling through the park, man. Like, he’s one of easiest looking scorers, and I know it’s not easy, I know he’s working hard. But he makes it look so easy, how he scores the basketball, man.”
“Does it look like he’s even exerting energy?”@Jumpshot8 sounds off on De’Aaron Fox’s recent high-scoring performances.
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Johnson knows more than most about scoring. He finished his NBA career with 19,202 points, which ranks fifth-most among players not in the Hall of Fame. For a scorer as prolific as him to be dazzled by Fox’s deft displays speaks volumes.
However, the sudden upturn in scoring didn’t come easy. He had to curb old habits and tweak his natural instinct, which only came about after an assistant coach demanded he work harder to score points.
De’Aaron Fox explains incredible scoring form
When the Kings landed DeMar DeRozan in the offseason, the common consensus was that it’d result in a dip in Fox’s scoring number. But the reality has been quite the opposite. The guard is averaging a career-high 28.8 points and is banking over 50% of his shot attempts for only the second time in his eight-year career.
The reason for the uptick has been his increased aggressiveness, which Kings’ assistant coach Luke Loucks helped develop. Explaining how during an appearance on NBA on ESPN, Fox said,
“Luke Loucks, one of our assistant coaches, came up to me and he’s like, ‘You drive these many times per game. I need you up to here.’ That’s basically a point of emphasis we put on. It’s pretty much changed my game, I feel like.”
The guard heeded Loucks’ advice and is averaging a career-high 14.6 two-point attempts. 58.3% of his shot attempts have come from within 14 feet of the rim, a 5% increase from the 2023-24 season. It hasn’t only made scoring easier but has also made a trip to the charity line more frequent, as he has been able to draw more fouls.
He’s averaging 6.6 free throw attempts per game, a shade under his career high of 6.7. However, he has seemingly worked on his free throw shooting as well, as he’s banking 83.8% of his attempts. His previous career-high was a meager 78%.
Eddie Johnson watches Fox play and feels scoring is effortless for the guard. But, as he’s likely well aware, it took a lot of effort on the Kings star’s end to make it that way.
