Sacramento Kings star De’Aaron Fox took to social media Monday to address rumors that he played a role in the team’s decision to fire two-time NBA Coach of the Year Mike Brown.

Fox responded to former NBA guard Lou Williams’ remarks on FanDuel TV’s “Run it Back.” Williams said “there was just some pushback from how De’Aaron Fox was continuously being singled out” by Brown.

Williams described Brown’s criticism of Fox as one of several “severe missteps” that put the “front office in a position where they had to side with either the All-Star talent they had or to part ways with their former Coach of the Year.”

“Ultimately,” “Williams said, “they chose to go with the players and that made Mike Brown a casualty of that.”

Fox rejected that notion on X, tweeting: “There was never any pushback about anything. This narrative of us butting heads or me going to management saying anything is bulls---. So you can run with that if you want to.”

Fox’s response came as the Kings prepared to play the Dallas Mavericks on Monday at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.

The Kings fired Brown on Friday after going 13-17 to start the season. They lost their sixth game in a row a day later, losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in Doug Christie’s debut as interim coach.

Brown posted a 107-88 record in two-plus seasons with the Kings. The only other coach in the Sacramento era with a winning record is Rick Adelman, who guided the Kings to eight consecutive playoff appearances from 1999-2006.

Publicly and privately, Brown often pushed Fox to be better, saying he believed the 27-year-old point guard could be one of the best two-way players in the league. Fox always said he welcomed the criticism, repeatedly saying he went to Kentucky because former coach John Calipari was known to challenge his players in the same way.

Brown became the first unanimous winner of the NBA Coach of the Year award in 2023 after taking the Kings to the playoffs in his first season. The Kings won 48 games to secure the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference, ending the longest playoff drought in NBA history after 16 consecutive losing seasons. Fox was also rewarded for Sacramento’s success, earning All-Star and All-NBA Third Team honors for the first time in his career.

The Kings failed to make the playoffs last season despite winning 46 games, but they had high hopes this season after adding DeMar DeRozan to a team that already featured Fox, Malik Monk, Keegan Murray and Domantas Sabonis. The Kings went 8-6 to start the season, but then they lost 13 of 18 to fall to 12th in the Western Conference.

Brown called out Fox for making a critical mistake in last week’s 114-113 loss to the Detroit Pistons. Fox fouled Jaden Ivey on a 3-point basket with 3.1 seconds remaining, allowing the Pistons to win the game on a four-point play after trailing by 19 in the second half.

Fox’s dour mood in the postgame press conference fueled speculation regarding a rift between player and coach. Fox addressed those rumors in an ESPN story published Monday.

“I feel like there’s this perception that people thought that we were at odds,” Fox said. “You can ask anybody in this organization: Me and Mike have never even had an argument. We could disagree with something. We talked about it and it was gone.”

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