Kings star Fox admits he’ll likely play with finger issue all season originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
De’Aaron Fox hasn’t been 100 percent thus far this Sacramento Kings season. And it likely will be that way the rest of the way, too.
The 26-year-old point guard recently revealed more details about a finger injury to Kings radio play-by-play announcer Gary Gerould, who noticed Fox playing with his left shooting hand fingers taped.
“Definitely about it being on the dominant hand,” Fox said Tuesday night on Sactown Sports 1140 after the Kings’ 113-96 road win over the Utah Jazz. “It happened the second or third day of training camp, so at this point, I’ve been taping my finger the whole season.
“Unless we get a month off at some point, it’s going to be here to stay.”
That’s concerning news for the Kings, given that Fox sustained an avulsion fracture of the index finger on his left shooting hand two seasons ago during their first-round playoff series against the Golden State Warriors. Fox still played through the seven-game series with the broken finger, but it was obvious how it affected him for the final three games.
In the first four games of the series, Fox averaged 31.5 points on 44.7 percent shooting from the field and 34.2 percent from 3-point range, with 6.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists, 2.5 steals and 3.0 turnovers in 38.5 minutes. Over the final three, after he sustained the injury, he averaged 22 points on 38.7 percent shooting from the field and 32 percent from beyond the arc, with 4.7 rebounds, 8.7 assists, 1.7 steals and 5.3 turnovers in 38.6 minutes.
He’s now dealing with a similar injury — but he doesn’t have an entire offseason to recover as he did back then.
Through four games this season, though, you wouldn’t be able to guess Fox has played with an injury. He’s averaging 21.5 points on 46.4 percent shooting with 4.5 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 1.5 steals in 36 minutes. His 3-point shooting is down, at just a 29.2 percent clip from beyond the arc, and he’s averaging 3.5 turnovers per game.
DeMar DeRozan’s addition was expected to help take the load off Fox and Domantas Sabonis, and while the Kings star hopes to avoid further aggravating his fingers, that likely will be exactly what he’ll do.
