De’Aaron Fox became a star for the Sacramento Kings, but how?

After a disappointing rookie season, De’Aaron Fox has been a revelation this season, helping propel the Sacramento Kings to their best record in over a decade, but what’s behind his success?

For the Sacramento Kings, it seemed like the rebuild would never end. This was especially true after a disappointing 2017-18 campaign that saw the team go 27-55, and the teams two prized building blocks — De’Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield — struggle to show they could be anything more than role players or specialists, despite high hopes for the two former lottery picks.

While Fox showed flashes in his rookie year, he struggled mightily adjusting to the NBA and many wondered whether he would ever develop a jump shot or even be able to succeed without one. For fans who have longed for a franchise-changing talent, taking Fox as the fifth overall pick in the 2017-18 NBA Draft seemed like a mistake for the Kings, something that was amplified as the league watched other first-round picks Kyle Kuzma, Donovan Mitchell, Lauri Markannen Bam Adebayo and OG Annunoby (among others) become foundational pieces for their respective franchises.

This was compounded by Fox not being selected to either of the 2017-18 NBA All-Rookie teams and even more so as Fox was a frequent faller in mock re-drafts, often dropping to the 7-9 range. After one month of the 2018-19 season, however, it was clear De’Aaron Fox wasn’t going to be a bust — or anything less than a star.

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In eight October games, Fox’s breakout was clear from the jump, as he averaged 17.5 points, 3.9 rebounds and 6.9 assists on 48.1 percent shooting. Those numbers blew past his 2017-18 averages of 11.6 points, 2.8 rebounds and 4.4 assists on 41.2 percent shooting, but Fox didn’t stop there.

In December Fox posted his best month of the season, playing 31.2 minutes per game and posting 19.4 points, 3.2 rebounds, 7.9 assists and 2.3 steals on 47.7 percent shooting from the floor, 40 percent from three and 76.3 percent from the charity stripe. A shoulder injury slowed him down through much of January, but Fox played through it and came back looking fully recovered after the All-Star Break.

But where did De’Aaron Fox’s breakout come from? The Sacramento Kings won just 27 games last season and were projected to be among the NBA’s worst this season, but instead Fox, Buddy Hield and, to a lesser extent, Marvin Bagley III have pushed this team to a 34-35 record with 13 games to play, their most wins since the 2007-08 season. How? Like everything with the Sacramento Kings this season; it starts with pace.

Last season, the Sacramento Kings were 30th in the NBA in pace, 19th in transition possessions per game and 16th in percentage of points off fast breaks. That all changed this season — and Sacramento Kings Head Coach Dave Joerger is behind it all.

Last week, Fox told Business Insider that during training camp the coaching staff ran them so much that players were throwing up after drills. Starting center Willie Cauley-Stein told BI that the coaching staff “ran the s—- out of us”, but it was all part of a plan to get the Kings running more this season — a plan, that was a rousing success.

Through 69 games this season, the Sacramento Kings are 1st in pace, 1st in transition points per game and 1st in fast break points percentage. It’s the first time any of Dave Joeger’s teams have played at a pace this high and run this much, but it’s also the highest pace of play for any team since at least 1994 — when the NBA first started tracking these stats.

This shift from a Grit ‘N’ Grind 2.0 wannabe to the most run-heavy team in NBA history has allowed Fox’s game to blossom, as he’s now able to use his speed and athleticism to his advantage much more often.

On the season, Fox has scored an astounding 25.7 percent of his points on fast breaks, is 10th in the NBA in transition points per game, scoring 1.03 points per possession in transition and shooting 51.2 percent when in transition. Fox is also 21st in the NBA in pace at 106.60.

Advanced stats also paint a clear picture of a player whose completely changed for the better, as his player impact plus-minus improved from minus-4.04 last season, to plus-1.6 this year, a jump of 5.64. Fox’s real plus-minus has also jumped significantly as he’s currently 47th in the NBA with an RPM of plus-2.28 and 28th in the NBA in RPM wins, with a staggering 7.40 wins to his credit thus far. Last season, Fox’s RPM was 503rd among 521 players, sitting at minus-4.27 and his RPM wins sat at 516th among the same sample-size.

All of this, comes back to the Kings’ pace. It’s important to remember that coming into this season it was Fox, not Buddy Hield, who this team’s future was predicated on. Certainly Buddy’s development was important, as is the development of rookies Harry Giles and Marvin Bagley, but it was Fox who this offense had to be built around to succeed. And that’s exactly what Sacramento did.

It was painfully clear to anyone watching last season that the Kings’ playstyle and pace of play were much more suited to a team playing in the 1990’s and 2000’s than one in 2017. When the team made the change last summer to run a faster pace and space offensive identity it unlocked Sacramento’s true potential. But most importantly, it unlocked De’Aaron Fox, and without him this team is just like a car without an engine; no way to move forward.