Kings Star Unexpectedly Struggling Since De'Aaron Fox Trade

Sabonis was an absolute monster to begin the season and seemed to be starting to figure out how to play with the King’s new personnel, like DeMar DeRozan. The biggest development was Sabonis’ ability to step out and knock down triples at 47% while taking more than he ever has during his career. 

Domantas Sabonis stats before De’Aaron Fox trade:
20.8 PTS
14.4 REB
6.5 AST
60/47/77 shooting splits

After Fox was traded, Sabonis dealt with some injuries and had to modify his game to accommodate incoming All-Star Zach Lavine. While those pieces make up part of the explanation for his form, the argument can be made that his game was at its best with De’Aaron Fox. 

Sabonis’ numbers since the Fox trade look like they’re coming from an entirely different player, and the eye test would tell you that he isn’t the same guy he was before the trade. 

Domantas Sabonis stats after De’Aaron Fox trade:
14.8 PTS
13.2 REB
4.8 AST
53/19/66

While Domas is still rebounding at a high level, pretty much every other facet of his game has suffered when the Kings moved Fox at the trade deadline. The numbers that stand out the most are the scoring, 14.8 points per game down from 20.8, and three-point percentage, 19% down from 47%. 

I don’t think anyone expected Sabonis to continue his torrid shooting throughout the season, however, this was a massive drop-off. It’s hard to speculate on why his shooting has fallen off a cliff, but there is a good chance that Fox’s speed on dribble handoffs and pick and rolls gave Sabonis more room to line up the seams and shoot. In fact, Sabonis had a long streak without hitting a single triple.

Diving into some more granular passing stats via NBA.com shows that Sabonis shot his best percentage from long distance on passes from Fox. Sabonis was shooting 52.6% when the ball came from Fox. 

De’Aaron only averaged 0.6 passes to Domas on three-point attempts per game because Sabonis’ volume from deep was never very high, but looking at his shots dashboard may prove that there is some significance to missing Fox. 

As most would probably assume, Sabonis shoots the best from three on wide open attempts (nearest defender 6+ feet), but the drop off to open shots (nearest defender 4-6 feet) is larger than a lot of other players see. Sabonis shoots 41% on wide-open triples, but only 33% on open threes. 

Domas is also scoring less and this lines up with his attempts being down significantly. Watching Sacramento play shows that he isn’t being put in positions where he’s able to attack the basket as much with Zach Lavine, DeMar DeRozan, and Malik Monk handling the ball a lot more often. Some of this is personnel, but Coach Doug Christie can definitely make it a point of emphasis to get Sabonis going with his offensive sets. 

Sacramento will need to figure out how to get Sabonis going if they’re going to do any damage in the postseason, and they only have seven more games to do it.