De’Aaron Fox breaks 16-day silence — but won’t explain media boycott — as Kings top Hawks
Sacramento Kings star De’Aaron Fox broke his 16-day media boycott prior to Monday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks, but the 26-year-old All-NBA point guard declined to explain the reason for his recent silence.
Fox spoke to The Sacramento Bee and Fox 40 about an hour before tipoff during the last two minutes of pregame media availability in the locker room. Fox shook his head and looked away when asked why he refused to speak to reporters in recent weeks. He offered a series of short replies when asked about the team’s recent struggles amid a four-game losing streak.
“We’ve just got to try to put these games away.”
“I think we could be in a better spot, but here we are.”
“You have to be able to finish games and we haven’t done that well.”
Collectively, the Kings seemed to be in better spirits after ending their skid with a 122-107 victory over the Hawks before a sellout crowd of 17,832 at Golden 1 Center. The Kings built up a big lead and then made enough plays down the stretch to fend off a comeback by the Hawks.
Harrison Barnes scored 32 points to lead the Kings (24-18), who had lost four in a row for the first time since the start of the 2022-23 season. Barnes, who came in averaging 10.6 points per game, produced his first 30-point game since scoring 33 in the Oct. 25 season opener against the Utah Jazz.
Dejounte Murray had 35 points, 10 rebounds and six assists for the Hawks (18-25), who were missing two-time All-Star Trae Young (concussion protocol) and De’Andre Hunter (knee). Bogdan Bogdanovic had 18 points.
Kings center Domantas Sabonis recorded his 25th consecutive double-double with 14 points, 21 rebounds and six assists. Keegan Murray and Malik Monk scored 13 points apiece. Fox had 12 points on 5-of-16 shooting, going 0 of 5 from 3-point range.
Fox had not spoken publicly since Sacramento’s 135-130 win over the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 5. Two days later, the Kings trailed by as many as 50 in a 133-100 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. Fox was not made available to the media that night. Instead, the Kings sent undrafted two-way player Keon Ellis out to answer for the team’s performance during the postgame news conference.
As a result, Kings coach Mike Brown was asked about the level of accountability and leadership in his locker room.
“I hope this doesn’t feel like a cop-out, but I have never known who comes to the podium and who doesn’t,” Brown said. “That would be more a (question for the communications department). ... But everybody should face the music because we’re all a part of this and we all have to speak on it, and we have to address it.”
Brown went on to say Fox and Sabonis “have to be accountable” and “they have to hold everybody else accountable,” including their head coach.
“Like, me too,” Brown said. “I’m part of this ass kicking.”
Fox’s silence has led to lengthy conversations within the organization, the media and the NBA, but at this point Fox hasn’t explained why he has been unhappy. He could be upset with questions of accountability or the fact that he wasn’t specifically asked to appear at the podium following the loss to New Orleans. He could be bothered by his recent dip in production while playing through aches and pains during a daunting stretch in the schedule. Or he could be troubled by other unknown forces in life, whether personal or professional.
Fox is now in the third year of a five-year, $163 million contract. He reportedly turned down a two-year, $105 million extension over the offseason, presumably in hopes of qualifying for a four-year, $245 million supermax extension this summer.
Fox earned All-Star and All-NBA selections for the first time last season. He was mentioned in MVP conversations for his play in October, November and December. At one point, he was averaging over 30 points per game and shooting better than 40% from 3-point range, but in January he is averaging 22.7 points while shooting just 42.6% from the field.
Sabonis stood by his point guard when asked about Fox’s funk.
“I don’t think he’s in a funk,” Sabonis said. “He’s playing the right way. He’s making the right reads, getting guys involved. He’s leading. Teams are throwing everything at him. He’s averaging 30 points, so teams are throwing different defenses at him. He’s doing a great job of running the plays. Coach calls a lot of plays, like tonight was for (Barnes). We’re a great team, so there’s many different players that can show up every other night, and he’s the one leading. He’s the head of the snake with the ball, so this doesn’t happen without him. So, whatever he ended up with tonight — I don’t even know — but we won because of him.”
Fox had 12 points, three rebounds, one assist, one steal and one turnover in 34:46. Brown said he is confident in Fox’s ability to bounce back, physically and mentally, from a difficult stretch.
“He’s still getting his extra work in,” Brown said. “He’s been great in practice. He’s been fine. He started the season at such an elite level, and I think he can get to a point where he can be pretty close to that throughout most of the year, but he’s still a really young player and he’s going to go through his quote-unquote ups and downs, and right now it’s the dog days of the season.
“Not everybody’s going to play at the level that they think they should or everyone else thinks they should. As long as he’s staying with it, which he is, and continuing to put his work in, he’s our guy. He’s done it over and over and over again, and he’ll find his way back to where he was close to the beginning of the year.”
Fox was not available to the media following the game. He left the locker room before reporters were allowed to enter and did not return.
Where everyone goes from here remains to be seen, but winning could help to ease the tension. The Kings were not at their best offensively against Atlanta, but they converted 88.9% of their free throws and shot 46.2% from the field while holding the Hawks to 38.7% in one of their better defensive efforts of the season.
The Kings led 27-24 after holding the Hawks to 28% shooting in the opening period. Sacramento outscored Atlanta 20-7 at the start of the second quarter to take a 47-31 lead on a basket by Fox.
Sacramento went up by 19 in the second quarter and led 57-40 at the halftime break. The Kings held the Hawks to 24% shooting from the field and 15.8% shooting from 3-point range. Fox and Sabonis combined for only six points on 3-of-11 shooting, but Barnes stepped up to fill the void, pouring in 19 points on 7-of-12 shooting while going 3 of 3 from beyond the arc.
“Seeing (Barnes) being as aggressive as he was tonight was good because we needed it with the way our Big 3 shot the ball,” Brown said. “... Down the stretch, we called his number three or four straight times, and good things happened almost every time.”
The Kings led by as many as 24 points in the third quarter. The Hawks came back to cut the deficit to 10 on a 3-pointer by Dejounte Murray early in the fourth. They got within seven on another 3 by Murray with 1:14 remaining, but Fox converted a three-point play to help the Kings stave off Atlanta’s comeback.
“Basketball is a game of runs, and they made their run,” Monk said. “You usually fold when another team makes a run and you let them all the way back in it. We didn’t fold. We put our foot on their necks tonight and finally finished the game how we’re supposed to.”
Free-throw shooting
The Kings were 30th in the NBA in free-throw shooting at 72.5% going into Monday’s game. They were even worse over the past 10 games, shooting 68.8% from the stripe while going 4-6 with five losses by five points or less.
The Kings seemingly put those struggles behind them against the Hawks, going 24 of 27 from the line.
Before the game, Brown was asked if he expected better results after emphasizing free-throw shooting in practice over the past few days.
“You never know until you go through a game and you consistently do what you’re supposed to do from the free-throw line,” Brown said. “We’ve obviously worked on the process of what we’re supposed to do at the free-throw line and we’ve worked on that process more than we have in the past, so we have to continue to try to do it in the game.”
Rest & recovery
The Kings got a rare three-day break before Monday’s game against the Hawks, giving the team a bit of a respite from the mental and physical rigors of the 82-game season.
“These are the dog days of the season, and there’s a lot of times with teams when everybody’s banged up, but the boredom can set in just from the routine of it,” Brown said. “So, you try to find ways to switch it up, and the best way to do that is when you have some time.
“You do different things during practices just to engage them, so that’s what we did the last couple of days. We obviously got a chance to rest up, but we tried to do some different things in practice to get them engaged and excited while learning. For us, especially because we’ve had a couple of really tough losses … we couldn’t have asked for a better time for those three days.”
Up next
The Kings will begin a seven-game, 14-day road trip when they visit the Golden State Warriors on Thursday at Chase Center in San Francisco.
The Warriors (18-22) will be on the second night of a back-to-back after playing host to the Hawks on Wednesday. They lost four of five before their last two games were postponed following the death of assistant coach Dejan Milojevic.
Draymond Green has returned after serving a 12-game suspension, but Chris Paul is out after having surgery to repair a broken left hand. The Kings are 1-2 against the Warriors this season. They suffered a 122-114 loss Oct. 27 in Sacramento and a 102-101 loss Nov. 1 in San Francisco before beating the Warriors 124-123 on Nov. 28 at Golden 1 Center.
