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“I knew I was nice already.” -De’Aaron Fox

Gary Gerould, the voice of the Sacramento Kings for the last 40 years, has seen almost everything imaginable during his time with the franchise. On Friday night, he witnessed De’Aaron Fox set a new franchise record with 60 points in an overtime loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. On Saturday night, Gerould got to see another first when Fox dropped 49 points on the second night of a back-to-back.

60 points in a game is crazy. 109 points in two days is wild. The 60 point outburst surpassed Jack Twyman’s franchise record of 59 set on January 15, 1960. That record stood for an incredible 64 years.

The 109 combined points over a two game stretch also set a franchise record. DeMarcus Cousins scored 48 points in a win over the Indiana Pacers on January 23, 2016. He backed up that performance with 56 points in a loss to the Charlotte Hornets on January 25, 2016 to total 104.

Coming into Friday night, Fox’s career-high was 44 points, which he had reached four times in his career, including once last season. For some perspective, the 109 combined points bumped Fox’s scoring average on the season from 24.6 per game to 28.9, a stunning 4.3 points per game. 

Fox came into Friday night below two of his current teammates on the Kings’ all-time scoring list in Keegan Murray and Malik Monk. Murray scored a career-high 47 last season against the Utah Jazz and Monk set his career-high of 45 in the Kings’ 176-175 win over the Los Angeles Clippers during the 2022-23 season. 

“When he’s aggressive all the time, he’s extremely tough to stop,” Murray said. “I think that was just a representation of him being aggressive the entire game and that’s what he’s capable of.”

There has been a friendly rivalry between Fox and Murray regarding the scoring mark. With 60 as the new record, Fox has likely ended the discussion and he made sure that Murray got the message.

“I’ve got to walk past his locker to come up here, but he was like, ‘But we lost,’” Fox said of the banter with Murray following Friday’s game. “I said, ‘if you would have shot the f**cking ball you would have been fine right there.’”

Murray took the ribbing well. He and Fox are extremely close off the court and he understood that this was all in fun.

“I think it’s really cool, especially because he was kinda my first, I guess, friend in the league,” Murray added. “To have that kind of, I would say, kinda like a brother rivalry thing going on is cool and obviously, he’s going to let me know about it. ”

Of the current Kings players, DeMar DeRozan is the only other player outside of Fox to break the 50 point mark in his career. The six-time All-Star posted 52 in a win over the Milwaukee Bucks in January of 2018 and he has two total 50+ point games in his 16-year career.

One of the reasons that Fox had the back-to-back breakout games is because the Kings needed him to take over. Malik Monk is still out with a moderate ankle sprain. He’s missed the last four games and will be reevaluated in roughly a week. 

DeMar DeRozan struggled with lower back tightness in the team’s win over the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday and played just 17 minutes. He missed both Friday and Saturday’s games and the team has yet to update his status for Monday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks.

In addition to Monk and DeRozan, All-NBA center Domantas Sabonis tweaked something in his lower back in the team’s loss on Friday. He was able to complete the game, but he wasn’t able to play against the Jazz. Like DeRozan, the team has no update on his availability moving forward.

These three combine to average 55.7 points per game. That number would likely be even higher if both Monk and DeRozan hadn’t left games in the first half. Fox is carrying the club, but he’s played major minutes this week with the Kings caught in the middle of five games in seven nights. He could use one or two of these players back in the lineup to lighten some of the load.  

With three of his top rotational players missing, Mike Brown has had to get creative over the last few games. It hasn’t all worked to perfection, but there is a method to his madness. 

Alex Len, Trey Lyles and Doug McDermott have all drawn starts over the last two games. Brown chose Len to play alongside Sabonis in the loss to Minnesota, hoping to match up with the T-Wolves’ size. Against Utah, Brown chose both Lyles and McDermott to space the floor for Fox. 

In addition to these three veterans, Brown has turned to Jordan McLaughlin, Mason Jones, Isaac Jones and Orlando Robinson for minutes over the last two games. McLaughlin has hit some big shots and played well defensively. 

Mason Jones brought energy against the Jazz, although he failed to score. Isaac Jones scored six points and grabbed two rebounds in 12 minutes of action. Brown even let him play during crunch time as the Kings held on for the win.

Robinson, who missed all of training camp and the first 13 games of the regular season due to an MCL sprain, made his Kings debut on Saturday night and looked solid. He scored six points and grabbed three rebounds in the win and may have earned himself a longer look in the coming games.

There are no perfect solutions when you are missing a future hall of famer, a star center and one of the best sixth men in the league, but Brown is doing his best to fill the voids and has the team at 8-6 through the first 14 games.

Sacramento’s 3-point shooting hit rock bottom last week in the team’s 107-98 loss to the Los Angeles Clipper. They hit just 3-for-26 from behind the arc, dropping their 3-point percentage on the season to a league worst 30.7 percent. Through the first nine games of the season, the Kings were outscored by just under 15 points per game from behind the arc.

Over their last five games, the Kings appear to have turned a corner. They are attempting 36.2 threes per game and hitting on 37 percent of those shots. They’ve moved up to 24th in the league at 33.1 percent from long range and the team is averaging 119.4 points per game over that stretch.

With the improvement in 3-point shooting, the Kings now rank sixth in the league in offensive rating at 116.3 and fourth in true shooting percentage at 59.7 percent.

Fox is shooting 44.4 percent from deep over the five game stretch and that includes an 0-for-6 game. Lyles is also shooting 44.4 percent over the same set of five games on 5.4 attempts per game. That’s up from the 22.2 percent Lyles was averaging over the first nine games of the season as he worked his way back into game shape after missing training camp with a groin injury.

In the win over the Jazz on Saturday night, the Kings hit 19-for-41 from deep. The 19 makes were a season high and that was on the second night of a back-to-back and playing without three of the team’s stars. 

The Kings have too many shooters to struggle long term from three. They are still waiting for players like Keegan Murray, McDermott and Monk to find their range. Kevin Huerter and Keon Ellis are also slightly below their career averages, but a strong two or three game stretch would fix the issue. 

There is no rest for the weary…at least not yet. The Kings took Sunday off to rest and recover from the back-to-back. They’ll return to Golden 1 Center on Monday to face the Atlanta Hawks, who lost to the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday.

After facing Atlanta, Sacramento gets a mini break in the schedule to heal up. They’ll fly to Los Angeles later in the week to face the Clippers on Friday before returning home to play former assistant coach Jordi Fernandez and his Brooklyn Nets squad next Sunday.