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De'Aaron Fox Deletes Post About 'Dysfunction' During Kings Tenure

What's going on in Sacramento?

Tom Dierberger

Malik Monk and De'Aaron Fox share the court during a game in March 2024.
Malik Monk and De'Aaron Fox share the court during a game in March 2024. / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
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De'Aaron Fox is on to his next chapter after spending the first seven-plus seasons of his career with the Sacramento Kings. But it appears his stint in Sactown might not have ended on the best of terms.

Fox, now with the San Antonio Spurs after a three-team trade on Sunday, sent out a post on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday night defending himself from critics.

"Everybody has the same story about the dysfunction but yeah it’s my fault," Fox wrote on social media Thursday night. A few hours later, he deleted the post.

It's not clear what exactly Fox was responding to in the now-deleted post, but he was receiving some grief from Kings fans on social media following his comments in an interview after the trade. Fox admitted that during all the San Antonio trade rumors, he texted rookie guard Stephon Castle telling him that he wants to play with him.

Sacramento fans weren't happy with Fox—the Kings' face of the franchise—reaching out to Spurs players before the trade was complete.

To be fair, there was plenty of "dysfunction" in Sacramento during Fox's stint. After being selected with the No. 5 pick by the Kings in 2017, Fox played for five different head coaches—and none were there for more than three seasons, including Mike Brown, who was fired back in December. Sacramento never won more than 39 games over his first five seasons, and it consistently swung and missed in the draft—like in 2018 when the Kings drafted Marvin Bagley III over Luka Doncic, Jaren Jackson Jr., Trae Young and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Fox and the Kings appeared to turn a corner in the 2022-23 season when they snapped the franchise's 17-year playoff drought and took the Golden State Warriors to Game 7 of an entertaining first-round series. But Sacramento lost in the play-in tournament last season and currently sits at .500 (25–25) through 50 games this year, which prompted Fox and the Kings to part ways.

Malik Monk, who played alongside Fox in college at Kentucky and joined the Kings in 2022, was surprised to see his longtime friend get traded away. His comments following Sacramento's 130–111 loss to the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night, however, hinted that perhaps not all was rosy in the later days of Fox's time in Sacramento.

"It was crazy, 'cause he was one of the reasons I came here, for sure," Monk said Wednesday night. "But yeah, we've got to move on. It's a business. By the looks of it, he wanted to be out of here. So he got what he wanted. ... I'll probably talk to him later on down the line."

Fox made his San Antonio debut Wednesday night, scoring 24 points and tallying a team-high 13 assists in the Spurs' 126–125 win over the Atlanta Hawks. He will take on his old teammates on March 7 when San Antonio visits Golden 1 Center in Sacramento for the second and final time this season.

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Tom Dierberger
TOM DIERBERGER

Tom Dierberger is a staff writer and editor on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He joined SI in November 2023 after stints at FOX Sports, Bally Sports and NBC Sports. Dierberger has a bachelor's in communication from St. John's University. In his spare time, he can be seen throwing out his arm while playing fetch with his dog, Walter B. Boy.

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