Kentucky freshman De'Aaron Fox may be ranked a couple spots below UCLA passing wizard Lonzo Ball, but in his eyes, he isn't taking a back seat to the soon-to-be sure-fire No. 2 overall selection by the Los Angeles Lakers.
Ball infamously rejected one-on-one workouts when the two worked out for the purple-and-gold earlier in the month, most guessing it had to do from a couple of painful outings against a Fox-led Wildcats team.
The two teams first matched up on Dec. 3 of last year, when the Bruins edged the Wildcats 97-92, grabbing their ninth straight win of the soon-to-be 13 wins in a row to start the season. Yet Ball's 14 points, seven assists, and six turnovers paled in comparison to Fox, who put up 20 points and nine assists in the loss.
Both squads met again in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, with Kentucky avenging its regular season loss with an 86-75 win to punch a ticket to the Elite 8. Fox had his best outing of the season, pouring in a game-high 39 points on 65 percent shooting from the floor — while Ball only mustered a 10-point, eight-assist, four-turnover performance, as his Bruins struggled with the Wildcats' defensive pressure.
For Fox, it hasn't been about running his mouth or parading his achievements since he declared for the draft, rather letting the numbers and his workouts speak for themselves.
“My son already ate his ass up twice,” De'Aaron's father Aaron Fox said of Lonzo Ball, according to Bleacher Report's Jonathan Abrams. “[LaVar] can say what he wants to say. I just tell him to go back and watch the film. That’s it. All that yap, yap, yapping, I don’t even got to respond to that. We played them twice. Twice his son got outplayed. I always tell [De’Aaron], let your game speak for it. You ain’t got to talk. You ain’t got to fuss.”
Fox is currently slated to be picked 5th overall by the Sacramento Kings, according to DraftExpress — but his stock may drop if teams decide to address roster needs instead of going off of a pure talent scale.
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