De'Aaron Fox has historic two game stretch, Kings split back-to-back

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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.’”