De’Aaron Fox is down to seven schools, but he sure sounded optimistic about Kentucky during this interview with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com at the USA Junior National Team minicamp in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Fox was asked if he and Malik Monk could potentially coexist at the same school — Kentucky is recruiting both lead guards and both will visit campus Oct. 16-18 for Big Blue Madness — and he seemed enthusiastic about the possibility.
“Oh yeah I do [think we could play together], we’ve talked about it,” Fox said. “We were in the Bahamas together. We were there for a couple days together. We talked about the recruiting process. It’s not set in stone that we’ll go to the same school but it’s a possibility.”
He added: “Some point guards want to play together. Some twos are coming into point guards, guys talk about playing together at the next level. At Kentucky with John Wall and Eric Bledsoe, they’re both point guards in the NBA and they both came together at Kentucky. Guys want to play together, guys want to play with elite players at their position. It’s competitive every day. You don’t want to go to a practice and it’s not competitive, you just run through people.
“With all of our elite guards, people are going to try to play together and try to get to the NBA together.”
Kentucky freshmen Jamal Murray and Isaiah Briscoe are both projected first-round picks in 2016 by DraftExpress.com, but Fox thinks sophomore Tyler Ulis will also leave.
“People think he can actually go out this year so I don’t feel it will hurt their chances with any of the guards in our class,” Fox said.
Fox and Monk are projected as the Nos. 6 and 7 picks in the 2017 Draft by DraftExpress.com.
“We do have an abundance of elite point guards but I feel like I’m the best,” Fox said. “I feel like I’ve proven it on every level. We do have elite point guards here and I feel like I want to show people that I’m the best guard regardless of class.”
Fox also told Scout.com that “it’s probably not going to happen” with N.C. State, taking them out of the mix for him.
He’s already taken officials to LSU and Louisville and will visit Kansas (Oct. 9-11), Kentucky (Oct. 16-18) and Arizona (Nov. 6-8).
“Most likely I’ll get it done between my Arizona visit and my first high school game, which is the [November] 16th and my Arizona visit is the first weekend in November,” he told Scout. “It’ll be around early to mid-November.”
