The Sixers need a guard, and assuming the first two players off the board on June 22’s NBA Draft are Markelle Fultz and Lonzo Ball, there’s a good chance the team targets one of Kentucky’s star scorers with the No. 3 pick in the draft.
Last week we detailed the sharp-shooting Malik Monk and his fit with the offensively challenged Sixers. Monk’s teammate with the Wildcats last season, De’Aaron Fox, is a slashing scorer who would also be a great piece to pair with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid on future 76ers’ squads.
Fox, who averaged north of 16 points per game during one year in Lexington (and netted an impressive 39 points in a breakout Sweet 16 win over UCLA) likes to attack the rim, with 55 percent of his shots last year coming inside the paint.
“In college, I got to the basket whenever I wanted,” Fox told Complex Sports. “I felt like I created better. Defensively, I feel like that really separated me.”
Fox has decent size for a point guard, around 6-foot-4, and has a 6-foot-6 wingspan. He’s a creative scorer and a well-rounded basketball player on both sides of the ball as well as — according to many sources — a very high character player, the kind most front offices prefer to build teams upon.
He’s also a pretty confident incoming rookie.
“I feel like I’m the best player in this draft no matter what,” Fox said, going on to explain that he believes he is a better player than Fultz or Ball.
Knocks against Fox include his somewhat subpar jump-shooting — especially when compared with former teammate Monk — a spot where the Sixers are already lacking with doubts about Simmons’ skills as a shooter. He also isn’t as skilled a passer as Simmons, who is expected to play point-forward for the Sixers and averaged a meager 4.6 assists per game in 29.6 minutes per contest with the Wildcats.
Most NBA mock drafts or scouting reports list Fox somewhere in the third-to-sixth overall range with most placing him fifth among the best available players.
