San Antonio's first Finals run of the Victor Wembanyama era ended in five games, and the offseason debate began before the confetti was swept up at Madison Square Garden. At the center of it: De'Aaron Fox, the max-contract guard the Spurs traded for to accelerate the rebuild, and whether keeping him still fits the team they are becoming.
Fox's Finals ended with a thud. In the Game 5 loss he scored 7 points on 3-of-15 shooting, 1-of-8 from three, and went 0-for-4 in the fourth quarter with no assists. Across the series he shot 34.2% from the field while playing through a high-ankle sprain. He did not look for excuses afterward.
"I got shots that I've made in the past, and sometimes you just don't make them," Fox said. "Some felt good, back rim in and out — it is what it is. Obviously wish I made those shots, but [the Knicks are] physical, they force you into taking jump shots, trying to keep you out of the paint. Shots just didn't go down for me."
The complication is not only Fox's shooting. It is who emerged next to him. Rookie Dylan Harper averaged 18.0 points on 49.2% shooting in the Finals and scored 25 in Game 5, and Stephon Castle continued to look like a foundational piece. Fox, to his credit, was the first to say so. "Those guys, the sky's the limit," he said. "These are guys that are All-NBA guys, they're going to be All-Stars, they're going to be All-Defensive guys, I think, both of them. They're obviously a large reason why we were so good this year."
Outside the building, the verdicts were sharper. On TNT, Charles Barkley argued the rotation already belongs to the kids. "Mitch has got to go with Castle and Harper," Barkley said. "You gotta take Fox out the game." ESPN's Tim Bontemps put it even more plainly: "Dylan Harper is San Antonio's second best player."
That reframes a roughly $221.7 million, four-year commitment to Fox as a potential luxury the Spurs may not be able to justify. CBS Sports' Sam Quinn laid out the case for trading him, comparing San Antonio's path to Oklahoma City's title blueprint: use this offseason's cap flexibility — roughly $6 million in space, a $15 million mid-level exception and about $44 million of room beneath the tax — to add complementary pieces around Wembanyama rather than chase a splashy name. This is the Spurs' last summer of real flexibility before Wembanyama's extension kicks in.
"There's no precedent for a player like that willingly accepting a bench role," Quinn wrote, noting Minnesota, Dallas, Toronto and Miami as plausible suitors if San Antonio moves on.
There is a counterargument, and it starts with the coach. Mitch Johnson signaled during the series that he still planned to lean on Fox in clutch minutes, even after costly Game 4 mistakes — a reminder that a healthy, elite scorer and playmaker does not lose his value over one cold series played on a bad ankle.
The Spurs do not have to decide today. But with Harper rising, Wembanyama's clock starting and a rare window of cap room open, the question of what to do with De'Aaron Fox will define San Antonio's summer.
