Spurs risk roster issues with De'Aaron Fox extension

The new contract, which will see Fox earn approximately $57.25M per year, will kick in next summer. Suddenly, San Antonio has a young guard rotation of Harper, Castle and Fox, all of whom struggle to score on the perimeter, and have shown issues when letting shots fly off the dribble.

"The Spurs already had two point guards who struggled from distance in Stephon Castle, whom they spent the No. 4 overall pick on in 2024, and De'Aaron Fox, whom they acquired in a deal with the Sacramento Kings ahead of the February trade deadline," Bryan Toporek wrote for Forbes on Saturday. "Castle shot 28.5% from deep on 4.1 attempts per game as a rookie, while Fox is a career 33.0% three-point shooter who has shot 32.5% or worse from downtown in five of his seven NBA seasons."

Fox's new salary will ensure teams will think twice about trading for him. He is, after all, a high-level talent, but not one capable of spearheading a roster. In truth, San Antonio may have repeated the Chicago Bulls' error from when they paid Zach LaVine $215M over five years back in 2022. 

We saw how difficult it was for Chicago to move on from LaVine. Fox is a tertiary star on a contending roster. And now, he's being paid like one of the top talents in the NBA. The Spurs would have been wiser to cut their losses with Fox and build around Castle and Harper as their guard rotation.

Still, the decision has been made, and Fox is now cemented as the lead guard for the next half a decade (once you include the upcoming season), giving Castle and Harper room to grow as two guards who can complement Fox's play style and add some grit or explosiveness to the rotation.

San Antonio is a franchise that rarely puts a foot wrong. However, the decision to pay Fox may come back to haunt it as a costly misstep. In the modern NBA, you can't have three non-shooting guards in the same rotation. Yet, somehow, head coach Mitch Johnson must figure out how to make it work. Not the greatest task for a young coach heading into his first full season with the franchise.