In the wake of the Los Angeles Lakers’ stunning trade for Luka Dončić, a deal involving Sacramento Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox may seem tame in comparison. But by Sunday’s end it might also have set the San Antonio Spurs up for greater long-term success in the Western Conference than the Dallas Mavericks.
The Spurs successfully paired Fox, a recent All-NBA selection on the precipice of his prime, with Victor Wembanyama, their 21-year-old generational talent. Until the Dončić deal took the basketball world by surprise, Fox was the market’s best available floor general in the days before Thursday’s trade deadline.
Had San Antonio known Dončić was available, it might have moved earth, moon and stars — the Alamo even — to get him. As it was, though, the Spurs scored Fox, who averaged 25 points (47/32/83 shooting splits), 6.1 assists, 5 rebounds and 1.5 steals in 37 minutes over 45 games for Sacramento this season.
And it cost San Antonio a small haul: Tre Jones, Zach Collins, Sidy Cissoko, four first-round draft picks and a pair of second-round picks. It might sound like a lot in juxtaposition to the Dončić deal, but it did little to impact the Spurs’ core. They retained their top eight in minutes played, including Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell and Jeremy Sochan — all players Sacramento might have targeted in return for their former All-Star.
Instead the Kings landed Zach LaVine from the Chicago Bulls in the three-way trade, finally securing someone they first signed to a failed qualifying offer in 2018. They will be an interesting team, though they did nothing to address their defensive woes, which currently rate them at a below-average level.
In San Antonio, the Spurs do not need to worry about defense. They have Wembanyama, a 7-foot-5 windmill on wheels, the greatest defensive center since … Hakeem Olajuwon? The Spurs somehow have a slightly worse defensive rating on the whole this season than the Kings, but we trust them to figure this out.
And isn’t that what this deal is all about? We trust the Spurs to figure this out, to surround Wembanyama with championship-caliber talent, especially while he is still on his rookie contract, expediting their ascension into his prime, when Fox will still be squarely in his. Together Fox and Wembanyama are every bit the formidable force that a 33-year-old Kyrie Irving and a 32-year-old Anthony Davis will be in Dallas.
And you should trust the front office that just acquired Fox over the one that just dealt Dončić.
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Wembanyama has never played with someone as talented as Fox. The 27-year-old is electric in the open court. He is among the game’s best closers, capturing Clutch Player of the Year honors in 2023. Nobody has scored more fourth-quarter points than Fox over the last three seasons. That should only benefit a Spurs team that is 9-11 in clutch situations (games within five points in the final five minutes) this season.
San Antonio is currently 20-24, trailing the Kings by a loss for the West’s final play-in tournament berth. It is miles from where the team was last season, when the Spurs finished 22-60 and scored Castle with the No. 4 pick.
And why were the Spurs so bad? They started last season with an experiment, trying Sochan as a first-time point guard, and it did not go well. In fact, when San Antonio paired Wembanyama with Jones, the only true point guard on its roster, the Spurs outscored opponents by 4.3 points per 100 possessions.
The front office recognized this and signed Chris Paul, who at 39 years old can still feed Wembanyama easy shots, but he cannot sustain a playoff-caliber effort over a full season. So now he will presumably back up Fox, and the Spurs will field a steady point guard for a full 48 minutes. Imagine the possibilities.
Fox has never played with someone as talented as Wembanyama. He has been by Domantas Sabonis’ side for the past three-plus seasons, making a single playoff appearance. Do not get us wrong: Sabonis is a talented player, a three-time All-Star. But everything he does not do well — space the floor (though he has been far better in this regard this season) and protect the rim — Wembanyama does spectacularly.
Among players who handle the ball for five or more pick-and-roll possessions a game, only Darius Garland, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton average more points per possession than Fox’s 1.07. Fox now has the greatest roll weapon in the game, a guy who can score 30 feet away from the rim to 3 feet above it. A gamble between Fox’s quickness and Wembanyama’s length is a defense’s loss.
Consider what those attributes might look like in the space provided by 3-and-D wings. The Spurs now have to consider whether Sochan, Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson and Julian Champagnie are those guys. They hold value, too, and together with a handful more first-round picks, the Spurs still have flexibility.
Will they be among the league’s title contenders this season? No. But they will climb in the West. Besides, contention was never the goal in Year 2 of the Wembanyama era. This is the next step in San Antonio’s plan to surround Wemby with the kind of talent that amplifies him, and on Sunday it was mission accomplished.
The Spurs have done what so many general managers dream of, pairing a generational center with a whirling dervish of an All-NBA point guard. It was what longtime NBA executive Danny Ainge tried to do eight years ago, when with the Boston Celtics he tried to pair Irving with Davis at the start of their primes.
In 2025, Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison has finally teamed Irving and Davis in Dallas, a duo he considers a serious threat in the West. What, then, must he think of San Antonio for the next decade?
