Mike Brown, De’Aaron Fox happy on Kings fruitful run amid painful G7 loss

Despite coming up short disappointingly in Game 7 of their first-round series against the Golden State Warriors, the Sacramento Kings will still proudly exit the 2022-23 campaign with their heads held high.

“I’m excited about this team,” Kings coach Mike Brown said after the Kings’ 120-100 downfall, per Tristi Rodriguez of NBC Sports. “I got a lot of gratitude for everybody in that locker room. I think we obviously have a chance to really, really be good in the future. 

“This obviously stings, it’s going to sting for a while, and it should. It’s supposed to sting and hopefully, we’ll be able to use this and remember what this feels like so that when we get going to summer, we can crank it up a notch so we don’t feel a sting again next year.”

The Kings delivered one of the most memorable turnarounds in league history, which all started from the hiring of Brown as their newest head coach last 2022 offseason.

From being the focal laughingstock of the NBA due to their 16-straight years of basketball mediocrity, Sacramento willed their way back towards basketball relevance. Led by Domantas Sabonis and reigning Clutch Player of the Year in De’Aaron Fox, the Kings catapulted themselves as one of the most intriguing teams in the league thanks to their high-octane offense that led the league this year (119.4 offensive rating).

Posting a 48-34 card as the West’s third-seed, the Kings deleted their postseason dry spell in a dramatic fashion while carrying their purple beam that drew support from most of the league circles, sealing a postseason spot for the first time since 2006. 

Though they were placed in the first-round bracket and eventually took a bow against the Warriors, Fox considers their elimination as a blessing in disguise as he is fully delighted of the fact that they were able to perform competitively and bring the defending champs to the brink of elimination.

“This is definitely a building block,” Fox said postgame. “Obviously, being able to play a team like this, we all have tremendous respect for who have been there and done that. This is definitely just something that you build on. I mean, we had a good season, the third seed, we stayed relatively healthy. I think playing against this team and in the first round was a blessing and a curse, you can learn a lot. You’re not the favorite to win. We fought every game, but they did what champions do. 

“And for us, I feel like a lot of the guys, whoever’s back next year, obviously we still relatively have a younger team. I feel like we learned a lot this series. … This is a lot of our first times in the postseason. You got a taste of it, you got to feel what it was like to play against a team who’s a championship contender just about year in and year out. And you take that and you build off of it.”