Kings star Fox admits he’ll likely play with finger injury all season originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Through four games thus far, Kings star point guard De’Aaron Fox hasn’t been 100 percent.
And it likely will be that way for the final 78 games of the 2024-25 NBA season.
The 26-year-old recently revealed more details about a new finger injury to Kings radio play-by-play announcer Gary Gerould, who noticed Fox playing with his left shooting hand fingers taped.
“Definitely about it being on the dominant hand,” Fox said after Sacramento’s 113-96 win against the Utah Jazz on Tuesday night at Delta Center (h/t Sactown Sports 1140). “It happened the second or third day of training camp, so at this point, I’ll be taping my finger the whole season.
“Unless we get a month off at some point, it’s going to be here to stay.”
That’s concerning news for the Kings, given Fox sustained an avulsion fracture of the index finger in his left shooting hand two seasons ago during their first-round playoff series against the Golden State Warriors.
Fox still played through the seven-game series with the broken finger, but it was obvious how the injury affected him for the final three games.
In the first four games of the playoff series, Fox averaged 31.5 points on 44.7-percent shooting from the field and 34.2 percent from 3-point range, with 6.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists, 2.5 steals and 3.0 turnovers in 38.5 minutes. Over the final three, after sustaining the injury, he averaged 22 points on 38.7-percent shooting from the field and 32 percent from beyond the arc, with 4.7 rebounds, 8.7 assists, 1.7 steals and 5.3 turnovers in 38.6 minutes.
He’s now dealing with a similar injury — but doesn’t have an entire offseason to recover.
Through four games this season, you wouldn’t be able to guess he has been playing with the injury.
Fox is averaging 21.5 points on 46.4 percent shooting with 4.5 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 1.5 steals in 36 minutes. His 3-point shooting is down, shooting at just a 29.2 percent clip from beyond the arc, and he’s averaging 3.5 turnovers.
The addition of DeMar DeRozan was expected to help take the load off of Fox and Domantas Sabonis, and while the Kings point guard hopes to avoid further aggravating his fingers, that likely will be exactly what he’ll do.
