My colleague, Colin Ward-Henninger, and I are always talking about our "confidence meter" with regard to particular shooters. For instance, when Stephen Curry, as an obvious example, lets go of a jump shot, my confidence meter that that shot is going to go in runs about as high as humanly possible.
There was a time when De'Aaron Fox was on the opposite end of that spectrum, which is to say when he put up a 3-pointer, I was surprised if it went in. Now, in his seventh NBA season, I'm surprised if it doesn't.
With the obligatory qualifier that it's still very early, Fox is taking and making more 3-pointers this season than at any point in his career ... by a mile. Last season he took five per game, converting at a 32% rate; this season he's taking nine per game (37% of his shot diet, per Cleaning the Glass) and making 38% of them, per CTG.
Fox's 1.32 points per possession as a pick-and-roll scorer is the best mark in the league among point guards, per Synergy. The formula is simple: As one of the fastest players in the league, defenders, bigs especially, are forced to give ground and/or go under screens to have any chance of staying in front of Fox, which allows for pull-up 3s.
In the past, that was a mathematical tradeoff the defense was willing to accept. But Fox is reworking the equation by making 44% of his off-the-dribble 3-pointers, including 48% in either isolation or out of pick-and-roll.
Nowadays, this is just too much space:
Here LeBron James has drawn the Fox assignment, and look how far he's hanging back from the very start of the possession not wanting any part of trying to stay in front of Fox in high space.
Twice Fox has isolated at the end of quarters for pull-up/step-back 3s:
Fox became an elite mid-range shooter last season, and that has continued this year. Again, this is always a shot he can get with the threat of his downhill speed.
His numbers don't reflect it the same way as off the dribble, but Fox also looks very comfortable shooting off the catch, which plays well off the hub passing of Domantas Sabonis. Comfortable is the right word for Fox as a shooter now. This is not Ja Morant figuring out how to push just enough shots in from the top of the key when defenses sag bag to the free throw line. These are pure shots.
Fox is tied with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as the league's sixth-leading scoring at 29.6 PPG, by far a career-high, entering play on Tuesday. The Kings are 6-2 when he plays, and just outside a top-five offense when he's on the court as they zoom up and down getting up early-clock shots, and that's with a below-average defense. If they created more chaos defensively, their transition numbers would better reflect the pressure of their pace.
Still, this is one of the most exciting teams in the league. More, the Kings are just a flat-out good team; as big a threat to make the conference finals as any team in the West not named the Nuggets. And Fox is the biggest reason why. Last year he was an all-star and third-team All-NBA in leading the Kings to the West's No. 3 seed and a seventh game against the Warriors, who only survived on the back of a historic Stephen Curry performance.
No shame in that. Fox and the Kings have come back even better, and it starts with the vastly improved 3-point production of a lightning fast point guard whose only weakness was supposed to be his shooting. So much for that.
