It’s still early days, but they’ve been good so far for the San Antonio Spurs. After dispatching the Toronto Raptors at home on Monday night, they’re 4-0 and one of just four teams that remain unbeaten in this new NBA season.
Maybe the competition hasn’t been overly challenging (in addition to the Raptors, they have victories over the Nets, Pelicans and Mavericks), but they still count the same in the win column. This marks the first time the Spurs have won their first four since the 2017-18 season.
The Spurs are sixth in offensive rating, third in defensive rating, and first in average point differential. And all this without the man they traded for last season to be the 1A option alongside Victor Wembanyama.
De’Aaron Fox has missed the first four games with a right hamstring injury. Last week, he said he felt “close” to returning before Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson reminded everyone that it’s still only October and hinted the team was likely to take the cautious approach with Fox, who got a four-year $229 million max extension this offseason.
“It’s always great knowing this system has a belief in you to be able to help this franchise get to the next level,” Fox said about his new deal during Media Day. That was a month ago, and at the time he said he felt like he was ready to play. But he also said he was trying to remain patient. “For me, I go out there and I continue to be me. I continue to be the player and the person I am because they saw something in me.”
In his absence, the Spurs and everyone else are seeing something in San Antonio’s two young guards: last season’s Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle and this year’s No. 2 overall pick Dylan Harper. The spotlight has been rightly and firmly fixed on Wembanyama so far (and for good reason), but Castle and Harper have quietly put together an encouraging start to the season.
Castle has started all four games and is averaging 18.3 points, 6 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.3 steals. He generally draws the toughest defensive perimeter assignment, and his playmaking has been on full display — as it was on opening night against the Mavs when he was throwing lobs all over the gym, including one to Webanyama in an eye-popping reverse alley-oop.
Harper has meanwhile come off the bench and is averaging 14.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.8 assists and a steal. In his home debut against the Nets over the weekend, Harper became the youngest guard in NBA history to have a game with 20+ points, 5+ rebounds, 5+ assists and no turnovers. He also went an efficient 8 for 11 from the field.
No need to rush Fox back if the young guards are playing well and the Spurs keep stacking wins. But it does present something of what we’ll call the De’Aaron Dilemma when Fox finally returns. As “problems” go, folding a former All-Star who’s also made All-NBA in his career into your team is a pleasant one for Johnson and the Spurs to have. But it also raises some questions about how his return impacts the starting lineup, rotation, and usage rates of several of his teammates.
The Spurs have started the same five-man group in each of the first four games: Wembanyama, Castle, Devin Vassell, Julian Champagnie and Harrison Barnes. When Fox is cleared, someone has to shift to the bench. The Spurs don’t have a ton of shooting as it is; San Antonio is seventh in 3-point percentage but just 27th in 3-point attempts per game. Vassell and Champagnie are their best distance marksmen, so the guess here is that Barnes gets demoted.
Inserting Fox into the starting lineup puts extra pressure on opposing defenses that would have to account for someone who is one of the fastest players in the league with the ball in his hands. It would also take some of the playmaking pressure off Castle, who despite playing well has also been sloppy with the ball at times and is averaging a whopping 6.3 turnovers. By contrast, Fox has averaged 2.7 turnovers in his career against 6.1 assists.
But the flip side to that on-court coin is the spacing. Castle is shooting 29.4% on 4.3 attempts from 3-point range this season. Fox is a career 33% shooter from beyond the arc. Are Vassell and Champagnie enough shooting next to those guys, or might we see Wemby start hoisting more from deep out of necessity? Last season, Wembanyama took 8.8 3-point attempts per game. That led to a lot of debate about his shot selection. This season, Wemby is averaging just 2.8 attempts from distance while dominating closer to the basket. Pretty much every team could use more shooting, but it’s worth monitoring Wembanyama’s shot diet when Fox is healthy and they have their main starting lineup together.
With Castle seemingly entrenched as a starter, and Harper leading the second unit, their minutes shouldn’t be too affected by Fox rejoining the backcourt, but it’s fair to wonder how much of their roles on offense might get syphoned off. Wembanyama is obviously the focal point of everything the Spurs do, but Castle’s 30.4 usage rate is second and not far behind. Harper is third among the regulars at 25. Only Devin Vassell at 21.2 is anywhere close to those guys. For his career, Fox has a 28.4 usage rate. There’s one ball and they all need it. It should be interesting to see how that shakes out as the season unfolds.
The other layer here is the timeline. Harper is just 19 years old. Castle will be 21 in November. Wembanyama will be 22 in January. The Spurs could be good this season, but that young core almost certainly guarantees a bright future. At media day, Fox — who will turn 28 in December — called it a “blessing” to be on a team with “guys who are that talented and that young.” But he also acknowledged that the age gap between him and them necessarily speeds up the plans for San Antonio.
“That was a big reason why I wanted to come here,” Fox said. “I see the youth and the talent they have. Obviously you want to continue to develop that. Me being 27, I think you kind of expedite that process a little bit. But at the end of the day, this organization doesn’t skip steps. We know that there will be growing pains. But at the end of the day you’d rather win while you have growing pains rather than losing and trying to have moral victories. You want to win while still getting better.”
Considering the Spurs gave him a max deal they don’t seem to have any reservations about Fox’s fit with their young talent. But it’s worth wondering about an alternate universe where San Antonio doesn’t save him from Sacramento and instead opts for a more organic home grown approach where Castle and Harper get on-the-job training over time with minimal veteran impediments, even if that might come with a little more losing in the interim.
Maybe when Fox returns he’s seamlessly integrated into the team and the Spurs keep winning at a pace that makes all of this moot. Or maybe down the line, as he approaches and enters his 30s and his signature speed slows a little while the other three are entering their prime, San Antonio tinkers again and flips Fox for more age-appropriate shooting. It’s the kind of problem that isn’t really one, the sort that most teams wouldn’t mind at all.
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