The NBA is in the midst of announcing the winners of their annual end of the season awards a week after announcing the finalists. Aside from the usual awards, the NBA added a new category this season, the Clutch Player of the Year Award. The finalists for the award were the Miami Heat's Jimmy Butler, the Sacramento Kings' De'Aaron Fox and the Chicago Bulls DeMar DeRozan. On Tuesday it was announced that Fox had become the first ever recipient of the award amid a strong playoff series against the Golden State Warriors.

De'Aaron Fox was a stellar clutch player this season with 547 total fourth quarter points. That was good enough for second-best in the NBA behind only Kyrie Irving's 551. Fox was 50 points ahead of DeRozan's 497. Fox has been his clutch self through the first two games of the Kings series against the Warriors and it's helped propel them to a 2-0 series lead.

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This season Fox had been averaging 25.0 points per game, 4.2 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 1.1 steals with shooting splits of 51.2 percent shooting from the field, 32.4 percent shooting from the three-point line and 78 percent shooting from the free-throw line. In his playoff debut, Fox has been averaging 31.0 points per game, 3.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists and 3.5 steals with shooting splits of 46 percent shooting from the field, 33.3 percent shooting from the three-point line and 71.4 percent shooting from the free-throw line.

With the series now shifting to the Warriors homecourt, the Kings will need De'Aaron Fox to be a stellar clutch player and throughout the game in order to keep the Warriors from getting back in this series.