Following his ankle injury sustained in Sunday’s 132-127 win over the Los Angeles Lakers, Kings star De’Aaron Fox will miss some upcoming contests but avoided significant injury, per multiple reports. Shams Charania of the Athletic broke the news first.
Kings All-Star De’Aaron Fox has avoided significant injury, but has sustained a moderate sprain of his right ankle and he is likely to miss some time, sources tell me and @sam_amick. Fox played through the sprain down stretch of 37 points and victory over Lakers on Sunday.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) October 30, 2023
Marc J. Spears of ESPN added that Fox could be back “within a weeks time.”
Sources say Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox had “good news” on an X-ray late last night that showed there wasn’t a significant ankle injury suffered during the Lakers win. Fox could be back within a week’s time, a source said.
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) October 30, 2023
This is excellent news for both Fox and the Kings; given how De’Aaron was helped to the lockerroom after the contest, it seemed likely that he would miss significant time. Sacramento will need big contributions from their backup guards, especially Davion Mitchell and Malik Monk, to keep the momentum going in Fox’s absence. The Kings play 5 games over the next two weeks, starting Wednesday (Nov. 1) at Golden State, and then travel to Houston for a duo of games against the Rockets on Saturday (Nov. 4) and Monday (Nov. 6). Our buddy Tim had a full upcoming schedule breakdown.
Kings schedule (days away)
@ Golden State (2 days)
@ Houston (5 days)
@ Houston (7 days)
vs Portland (9 days)
vs Oklahoma City (11 days)
vs Cleveland (14 days)
@ LA Lakers (16 days)
@ San Antonio (18 days)
@ Dallas (20 days)
@ New Orleans (21 days) https://t.co/WH9irthOXh— SactownBabyGiraffe (@TimMaxwell22) October 30, 2023
Fox scored 37 points and dished out 8 assists in the victory against the Lakers, but sprained his ankle on a drive with 7:27 left in the 4th quarter. He briefly went to the lockerroom before returning to the court a few minutes later, and played through much of the rest of the quarter. He was forced to the bench in overtime, but a full-team effort led by 11 points by Monk in the extra period helped the Kings secure the win.
I’m calling this a win.
Not that bad.
Time to test our fabled depth.
Rest him until OKC, should be able to go 3-1 w/out him during that stretch.
Fox has been quick to return from previous injuries (except when the team kept him out for draft position reasons), and he has ties to the Houston area. It wouldn’t surprise me if he returns by the second of the two games in Houston.
Would be a mistake by the team to allow that, we can beat houston w/out him
Never underestimate your opponent.
So he was faking it?
Testing the DNP-Rest policy!
Heal quickly! Got a feeling we’re gonna see a lot more of Colby Jones.
Let’s see if having Davion full time on Curry on Wed. makes much of a difference. (Curious to test out my theory that if Davion got TD’s minutes in Game 7 we may have won).
I agree
Spoiler alert: It won’t.
I hate him. But Steph is an All-World, game changing point guard, one of the best to ever play the game in the history of the game. Davion’s a good defender. Steph Curry is on another planet. He only needs 3 other teammates to win against bad teams. It’s a fun idea. But no.
There also seems to be some agreement in the referee community that Davion Mitchell is not going to be permitted to play defense this season in his usual highly-effective way. The zebras are lighting him up, and if there’s one thing beyond doubt, it’s that Mitchell plays hard, clean defense.
42 pts in 30 min tonite. Davion. I like the kid. Can’t stop Curry’s MVP campaign. The nightmare no one expected. CP3. He is one of the smartest PGs ever. Lifting that team to greatness when Curry is on the bench. We should win the next 3 after that though.
Great news to hear. Even without Fox in the lineup, we should definitely be able to go 3-1 the next four games (Houston and Portland being the teams we should beat). Wishing Fox a speedy recovery.
In the 3 (that’s three) games of this 2023-24 regular season, the Kings are averaging 125.3 ppg and 27.7 apg.
Fox accounts for 31.3 ppg, 6.0 apg.
It’ll be interesting to see how the team adapts to his absence. Of course, we expect the biggest difference to come in 4th Q play. From what we’ve seen from last season, De’Aaron is the 4th Q Clutch Closer, but I’d put Malik Monk as the next most “clutch performer” on this squad. Expect to see a lot more minutes for him, especially in the 4th (including last night, he’s at 22.0 min per game).
OT: Is Nate (Kingsguru21) OK? I always learned from him.
Throwing this here because I don’t know where it would actually go:
Has any of the staff looked into a dark mode option for the site? Because I would love that to be a thing here.
Beam Mode*
Hey, dark purple is still dark, I say run with HHB’s recommendation.
Getting Davion some extended minutes to get his rhythm going on the offensive end is a good thing. That’s about the end of the silver lining for me.
Hope Fox heals up quickly, Davion holds down the fort adequately and the Kings keep notching Ws. This season is going to be a long race but a race non the less. Getting behind early won’t sit well with the schedule looking pretty brutal from January on.
Glad it’s not too bad.
The silver lining is our other guards get a chance to carry some extra responsibility.
Monk, Huerter, Mitchell, Duarte and maybe even Jones, get some extra playing time.
This may be tough for a few games, but may be very good for the team in the long run (this full season and maybe beyond).
I really hope Davion comes out and does what he does and shows off the work he did on his shot this summer.
Get well Fox.
Wow. With this particular topic, your brain is on the same page as my brain
In that 10 game stretch Kings should go at least 7-3.
Not sure. Depends when Fox comes back. OKC is no joke. Kings beat the Cavs twice last year. But no Fox is going to be tough. Lakers again in LA. I would not say any of those are automatic without Fox. I also would not be surprised if they drop one of the Rockets game or Blazers.
Rest him until the 16!
I feel I this could actually be a good thing for the team over an 82 game season. It gives a real opportunity for many guys to step up now, early in the season and take on more responsibilities.
Maybe Mitchell finds his offense. He worked so hard on in the off season at he hasn’t translated that work into his performance yet. This presents an opportunity for him to take a step forward in his evolution as a player.
Spock will need to be much more assertive during the absence of Fox. Maybe this helps him transform into a more go to scorer. Propels him into the role the coaching staff wants from him. “We make a big leap of Keegan takes a step forward as a more go to scorer”. Here’s an early opportunity that forces him into that role. 3-4, maybe 6 games later when Fox comes back Keegan could have a whole new aura around him.
Huerter will need to be more assertive. This Probably helps him out if his funk and find his form from last year.
Vezenkov will have more minutes, each game he seems to be getting more and more comfortable. Maybe more minutes might help him find find a groove with this team and really cement a role for himself.
While any game missed by Fox sucks, a short stint of missed games this early in a season might have an overall positive effect in the ultimate ceiling of this team.
I’ve heard a lot of mention about Davion getting more minutes, which he should, but I am hoping we get more of a look at Keon Ellis. I think we need to see what we have with this particular young man to see if his development time with Stockton was beneficial in any way or if he’s Queta adjace.
Big test coming for Mitchell, Malik, Duarte and maybe even Keon Ellis. Hopefully Huerter can not only pick up his outside shooting but become more of a facilitator and near-basket cutter, glimpses of which we saw last season.
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