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Kentucky Derby Special: Would any NBA player beat De’Aaron Fox in a race?

By Logan Struck

De'Aaron Fox #5 of the Sacramento Kings. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
De'Aaron Fox #5 of the Sacramento Kings. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /
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With the 2023 Kentucky Derby being this Saturday and Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox coming from the University of Kentucky, it got me thinking, what NBA players would be able to outrun De’Aaron Fox? Are there any? After all, it was his speed that helped him reach a new level this season.

Fox is known around the league as one of the fastest players, if not the fastest. He agrees, as he had this to say back in 2018 (via Yahoo):

"“If we’re talking about from baseline to baseline with the ball in my hands, I’m definitley the fastest person in the league.”"

Now the question is, who would even compete with him in this hypothetical race? The Kentucky Derby is 1 1/4 miles long, but this imaginary race will be more of a sprint. The players that come to mind immediately are Russell Westbrook, Ja Morant, Donovan Mitchell, and the rookie Jaden Ivey. Now, to answer the question, would any of these players beat Fox in a race?

De’Aaron Fox makes everyone else on the court look slow

No, no NBA player is beating De’Aaron Fox in a race. The nickname “Swipa” says everything you need to know. Also, the highlights speak for themselves if you want to take a look.

If you need more convincing, let’s take a look at the fastest players on NBA 2k23. For this, I will take the average rating of their “Speed” and “Speed With Ball” attributes. The top five are:

  1. De’Aaron Fox (97 rating)
  2. Russell Westbrook (95.5)
  3. Ja Morant (95)
  4. Jaden Ivey (92)
  5. Donovan Mitchell (91)

While you may not care about NBA 2K, numbers do not lie, as it is a simulation game based on real life. Now I wish we could line up the supposed fastest players in the league and have them do a race, but that is not how it works, and this is all based on speculation. Therefore, I will stand firm on my De’Aaron Fox fastest NBA player stance until proven otherwise.

Now we can start asking, would De’Aaron Fox be able to win the Kentucky Derby against all of the horses? I’m going to go ahead and say no. But I will say, I bet De’Aaron Fox can beat all of those horses in basketball.

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