Right before the trade deadline, the New York Knicks surprised almost everyone when they traded Kristaps Porzingis to the Dallas Mavericks. But according to Zach Lowe from ESPN, the Knicks were interested in trading Porzingis to Sacramento in exchange for De’Aaron Fox this past summer. The Knicks interest surged when the Kings got the second pick in the 2018 NBA Draft because the Kings had to decide if they wanted to keep pick, which became Marvin Bagley, with Fox or draft the european prospect Luka Doncic. Following comes from Lowe.
“Rivals sensed the dilemma and made offers for Fox — including a template from the New York Knicks centered around Kristaps Porzingis that would have required Sacramento to either send something beyond Fox or take unwanted Knicks salary (or both)”
The day of the draft, the Kings ended up going with the talented Marvin Bagley, showing the confidence they had on Fox to be their point guard for the future of the franchise. Fox has improved a lot in his sophomore year with averages of 17.4 points, 7.2 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game while shooting 37 percent from three. He’s among the top candidates for the ‘Most Improved Player’ award. The Kings wanted Fox to develop and felt that drafting Doncic could have limited that development.
“I like Luka,” Kings General Manager Vlade Divac says, “but we didn’t want to overload with players who — maybe they don’t have the exact same characteristics, but if you want to develop the guys you have, you have to make sure they have room to develop.”
