kingjawn100 wrote:SacKingZZZ wrote:kingjawn100 wrote:i'm not saying he won't turn into a good/very good player. My issue is it's a little unrealistic to project him as a perennial all-star down the road, which is what most projected him to be when he was drafted. And it's fine if he's not an all-star but that also means if we're going to be a deep playoff run sort of team, the centerpiece of that team probably isn't even on the roster yet, which is kinda scary considering we prob won't have a top 5 pick this year and have no 1st rounder next year.
In some ways Fox has changed as a player since college. He was getting to the line 6 times per game at Kentucky. This year he's at two and a half in virtually the same amount of minutes. That memorable game where he scored 39 vs Lonzo/UCLA in the tournament he got to the line 15 times!! He hasn't hit double figures once this year. Also the playmaking is more of a concern for me than the shooting. That will come.
As i've said before...Long term to me Fox is a dynamic 6th man off the bench where there's not such a burden on him to create for others. I feel the less handcuffed he is to run a traditional offense the better he'll be.
But is that just his problem or partly a system problem? The Kings are dead last in FTA's per game and for a good reason. They run more of a college oriented offensive system that relies on side to side ball movement, off ball cuts, and mostly transition drives when getting to the rim. They don't clear the paint very often and there is almost always one if not two big men at the rim looking to post, screen, or offensive rebound. The Kings are looking for the mid-range shots and those shots are almost always going to be non-contact. The Kings are 28th FGA's from 5 feet and in, 3rd in shots from 15-19 feet, and 8th in shots from 10-14 feet.
Regarding the free throw thing its not as simple as...'as he gets more experience he'll get more calls'. It might be the size/strength of NBA players but fox has seemed very reluctant on the pro level to drive to the rim. There have been games this year when he literally drove to the basket 0, 1 or 2 times the entire game. It's hard to be effective when your outside shot is inconsistent and you never drive to the rack.
Also Bogi and Buddy seem to lack the wiggle/elusiveness to shed their man and get to the rim to draw fouls. For all 3 that's a big step in their development. Buddy can be a legit 20ppg scorer if he figures how to get to the foul line.
Like I said, who is to say that's not a part of the game plan to some extent? Where they are getting their shots from is a function of the offense and the Kings clearly don't take many shots from the basket area and I'm sure most of the ones they do are from bigs. From what I gather Joerger has them doing things that are outside of their typical or known skill set. Now, I do think the system is a bad fit for most of the players but it's hard to argue that they won't get better at some of those things in the end. As time goes on I do think there comes a point where that focus needs to shift towards polishing the things they can be great at and for Fox that would be his driving ability.