De’Aaron Fox hasn’t played a minute in the preseason, and Dylan Harper has stepped in as the starting point guard while he’s out. Even so, the San Antonio Spurs aren’t treating Fox’s absence like a warning sign.
San Antonio is still winless through three preseason games, though keeping score hasn’t exactly been the point. The focus has been on giving the younger players reps, even after Mitch Johnson called out the team’s effort following a second loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
That theme carried into Monday’s 119-109 loss to the Utah Jazz, when nine players stayed on the bench. Carter Bryant was dealing with an ankle injury, Tobias Harris sat with a calf injury, Jayden Quaintance is still working his way through knee issues, and Fox was out with soreness.
Victor Wembanyama, Devin Vassell, Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, and Malik Williams also got the night off for rest.
Fox’s preseason hasn’t gotten off the ground at all, with the Spurs making him a last-minute scratch in both games he was supposed to play. Still, the team isn’t reading much into it.
There’s plenty of reason for outside concern. Fox missed the first stretch of last season with a hip injury, then played through an ankle injury in the NBA Finals.
That series also fueled a wave of fan frustration, with some hoping to see more of Harper and less of Fox going forward. San Antonio has clearly given Harper room to grow, but the organization is still locked in on Fox, who is under contract for four seasons.
Mitch Johnson made the team’s stance plain.
"De'Aaron Fox has proved over his career, before he got to us, and with us that he's a tough, durable player," said Mitch Johnson. "And I think when you look back at the playoffs in totality, when you start talking about the Minnesota series and then the Oklahoma City series and into the Finals, he proved exactly that.
So, yeah, I think nothing's changed there. There are a lot of things that obviously get more attention when you get further into the playoffs, rightfully so.
That's the business that we're in, and that's how this thing works. And that comes with probably more praise than you deserve and more criticism than is probably true."
Fox’s mistakes in the NBA Finals were glaring, but his impact was just as real. Without the rough stretches, the Spurs might have had a path to the title. Without his late-series production, they never would have reached that stage at all.
That’s why San Antonio still sees him as one of the NBA’s top guards. For now, the Spurs are staying the course.
In Other News...
Spurs Just Added A Camp Body And The Next Cut Matters
The Spurs filled the open spot on their preseason roster by bringing in free agent forward Terry Taylor on a non-guaranteed training camp contract, a move that gets San Antonio to the preseason maximum of 21 players. To make room, the team waived RJ Davis, and Taylor is widely expected to land with the Austin Spurs, where he can remain in the organization and keep working through camp.
For San Antonio, the transaction is less about the immediate rotation than about the next round of roster trimming, since camp bodies often become the first domino to fall. Taylor brings NBA experience from stints with multiple teams, and the Spurs will also be watching how other clubs manage their own depth, including Sacramentos recent decision to bring back center Viktor Lakhin on an Exhibit 10 deal as injury concerns continue to shape frontcourt plans. [Read more 🡒]
Spurs Rookie Battle Is Heating Up After A Brutal First-Round Setback
The Spurs entered camp with plenty of rookie intrigue, but the early picture changed quickly when Jayden Quaintance, the No. 20 overall pick, was expected to miss most or all of his first season after meniscus surgery. For a team already trying to sort out rotations and sharpen its depth, that kind of setback puts extra attention on the rest of the rookie class and how quickly it can help fill in the edges.
Tarris Reed Jr. and JaKobi Gillespie have both flashed in preseason, giving San Antonio something to evaluate as the lineup takes shape around a group that is expected to keep improving. Mitch Johnson has already singled out Gillespies energy and competitiveness, and with Carter Bryant expected to make a leap in his second year, the Spurs have more developmental pieces to monitor than answers locked in place just yet. [Read more 🡒]
De'Aaron Fox Just Changed How Spurs Fans Will View His Finals Struggles
De'Aaron Fox has been around long enough to know how quickly the conversation can turn in the postseason, and he made it clear he does not spend much time swimming in it. After Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Fox said he steers clear of basketball chatter on social media and does not entertain the negative opinions that tend to pile up when a stars production dips at the wrong time. For fans trying to make sense of his struggles, the bigger context now matters: the guard said he was battling through a high ankle sprain he suffered in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Foxs revelation changes the way his playoff run should be judged, especially for a player whose reputation has been built on speed, toughness and staying on the floor. He stressed that he kept competing anyway, even as the injury clearly affected him deep into the postseason. For San Antonio observers, it is the kind of detail that reframes a rough stretch without erasing it, and it leaves the broader discussion where it often ends up in the Finals: somewhere between what the box score showed and what the body was quietly enduring. [Read more 🡒]