The San Antonio Spurs lost the NBA Finals to the Knicks in five games. Now they have a decision to make about De’Aaron Fox, and according to a new report, they have already made it.
The Spurs are not trading De’Aaron Fox this offseason, multiple sources told ESPN. San Antonio plans to run it back with the Fox, Victor Wembanyama, and Stephon Castle core and add through the draft and a midlevel free-agent signing.
That is the right call. Fox is the only experienced playmaker on a young team that just made the Finals. Moving him would be panicking after a championship-level season, and the Spurs are smart enough not to do that.
The pressure to trade Fox has been real. He is on a max contract through 2030, and the playoff version of him was inconsistent. He shot 38 percent from the field across the five Finals games against New York. Knicks coach Mike Brown’s switching defense gave him fits, and the gravity of Wembanyama in the post often left Fox in late-clock isolation situations he could not solve.
But the regular season version of Fox is exactly what San Antonio needs. He averaged 24.6 points and 6.8 assists. He played 75 games. He provided the on-ball creation that made everything easier for Wembanyama’s offensive evolution into a 28-point scorer.
Trading him now means starting over with a 22-year-old superstar who already proved he can carry a contender. That is not how you build a dynasty. That is how you reset the clock on one.
The Spurs also know the trade market for Fox is not great right now. Most teams that want a star point guard already have one or are pursuing Trae Young instead. The return for Fox would be a young player, two firsts, and pick swaps, which does not move the needle for a team that just made the Finals.
San Antonio’s actual problem is depth at the wing and a backup center who can survive playoff minutes. Both of those issues are addressable with the midlevel exception and the 14th pick in this year’s draft.
The Wembanyama experience also matters here. The two-time Defensive Player of the Year is now an All-NBA First Team player on the verge of his MVP era. Surrounding him with continuity matters more than chasing the next star pairing.
Fans who want a flashy move will be disappointed. The Spurs front office has been operating with a long-term vision since Wembanyama arrived in 2023, and they are not going to abandon that plan to satisfy the rumor mill.
The lesson from the Finals should not be that the Fox-Wemby pairing does not work. The lesson is that the Knicks were the deeper, more experienced team. San Antonio’s response should be to add veteran experience, not subtract its second-best player.
Look around the league. The teams that have repeated as Finals contenders, like Boston in the early 2020s and Denver in 2023, did it through continuity. The Spurs already have a roster most franchises would kill for. The right move is to keep building, not blow it up.
De’Aaron Fox is not going anywhere. The Spurs are betting on internal growth, smart additions, and another full season for Victor Wembanyama to figure out the moments that decide championships. That bet is the right one.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
