De'Aaron Fox cleared up a rumor circulating the NBA universe as his uncertain Kings future recently came to light league-wide.
Sacramento informed its star point guard last week that it was open to discussing trading him before Thursday's deadline, per multiple reports. A few days later, News 4 San Antonio's Dusty Garza reported, citing unnamed sources, that Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé was flying to Oklahoma City, where the Kings play the Thunder on Saturday, for a sit-down dinner with Fox.
"I'm told he's on a mission to convince Fox to stay in Sacramento," Garza wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
But Fox told The Sacramento Bee's Jason Anderson that meeting never took place.
"That wasn’t true," Fox told Anderson after team shootaround Saturday morning. "I haven’t talked to Vivek."
It has been four days since the news first broke, and the Kings have played one game since.
Sacramento fell to a short-handed Philadelphia 76ers team that was missing Joel Embiid and Paul George. Fox finished with 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the field and 1 of 5 from 3-point ranges with eight rebounds and five assists in 35 minutes.
NBA
Fox, who has spent his entire eight-year NBA career with the Kings, admitted the uncertain times have weighed on him to an extent.
"Yeah, but change happens," Fox told Anderson. "Things happen in this league, but when I step on the court, all I’m thinking about is performing well and helping my team win."
Sabonis has seen a similar mindset from Fox this week.
"He’s a professional," Sabonis told Anderson. "He’s coming in, he’s working hard, doesn’t talk about it. I know tonight when we go out there, he’s going to compete 100 percent, so we’re just focused on our team. It’s noise. I don’t think a lot of us are paying attention to the media as much. We don’t talk about it in the locker room.
"We’re just focused on winning, and Doug [Christie]’s making sure we ignore that. This is my ninth year in the league. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. It’s going to pop up on our phones. There’s no point in looking at it every second."
As professional as they can try to be, there's no denying the emotional side of it. Especially for someone as close to Fox as Kings guard Malik Monk.
Monk and Fox are close friends and shone together at Kentucky. While reflecting on the past three seasons, Monk forever will be grateful to play with Fox in the NBA.
"To share the court with him finally five, six years after college has been great," Monk told Anderson. "He’s been my friend before that and he’ll be my friend after that. We don’t talk about basketball. That’s why we’ve been so close. We never talk about this basketball stuff because we know there’s a bigger world out there."
The Kings face the Thunder on Saturday night then cap off their six-game road trip against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday. They briefly return home to face the Orlando Magic on Wednesday. The trade deadline is Thursday.