Kings fans let out a collective sigh of relief when coach Mike Brown agreed to a contract extension with Sacramento, but perhaps no one was as relieved as star point guard De'Aaron Fox.
Fox, who has experienced four different coaches during his seven-year NBA career with the Kings, discussed what it means to him personally to have a sense of stability within the organization.
"I talked to him. I've been with [Kings assistant coach] Luke Loucks a lot and kind of talked about the situation a little bit right before and then right after," Fox said Wednesday at his basketball camp in Rocklin, Calif (h/t ABC10's Matt George). "We always talk about having that type of stability. It's not saying you want to become stagnant or anything like that, but just knowing that you're going to have kind of a core and then a coach -- obviously in this league, [ex-Detroit Pistons coach] Monty Williams just got fired today, so it could always change in the blink of an eye.
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"You never know. But just to feel like you have that stability going forward is definitely great and you look to build off of that."
Fox entered the league in 2017 after Sacramento drafted him No. 5 overall. He played his first two seasons under Dave Joerger before the coach was fired. The Kings hired Luke Walton as their next head coach in 2019, finishing both the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons in 12th place in the Western Conference.
After a 6-11 start to the 2021-22 season, Walton was fired and interim head coach Alvin Gentry took over for the remainder of the season -- a campaign the Kings once again finished 12th in the West.
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And then everything changed for the Kings and the basketball-loving city of Sacramento.
Brown was hired as the team's coach for the 2022-23 season and brought winning basketball back to the 916, helping lead the Kings to a historic season in which they snapped a 17-year playoff drought and earned the West's No. 3 playoff seed.
The Kings again had a winning record (46-36) last season but, as the No. 9 seed, fell short of a playoff berth following a season-ending NBA Play-In Tournament loss to the New Orleans Pelicans.
And under Brown, Fox has taken his game to new heights -- especially on the defensive end of the floor, an area Brown believes the All-Star guard can continue to grow toward his way to two-way greatness.
While change is always good, Fox -- and the Kings -- appreciate having a little coaching security in a league where no one's job seems safe anymore.
"If you count Alvin, this is my fourth coach," Fox said. "I kind of came into a situation that was anything but stable. But for us, I feel like we got better and then obviously we took a step back. We won two less games but we dropped six spots, especially with the way the West is going.
"But just having that stability helps in the long run."