The San Antonio Spurs are rolling to start the season, to the delight of fans and the awe of everyone watching Victor Wembanyama ascend to Mt. Olympus. When De'Aaron Fox returns from injury, will he keep the good times rolling -- or will he ruin everything?
Everyone is loving the Spurs experience to start the 2025-26 season. Through four games the Spurs are 4-0 with the league's best defensive rating and the No. 7 ranked offense. They are dominating the glass, shooting the leather off the basketball and smothering opponents on the perimeter and in the paint.
It would be reductive to say that Victor Wembanyama is the sole reason for their overall success, but his rise has been massive. He is the MVP frontrunner in the eyes of many, leveling up on offense while being the best defensive player in the league by far. He is doing things the league has never seen before; he is essentially the Shohei Ohtani of the NBA.
Yet it's not just Wembanyama, of course. Last year's Rookie of the Yeah, Stephon Castle, is averaging 18.3 points, six rebounds and five assists per game and scoring at will inside the arc. Behind him, rookie point guard Dylan Harper has been shot out of a cannon to start his career, putting up 15-5-5 and showing the burst that propelled him to the second pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
With Jordan McLaughlin playing a minor role and De'Aaron Fox sidelined, the rest of the backcourt minutes have gone to shooters, usually Devin Vassell with Julian Champagnie beside him on the wing. Add in Harrison Barnes at power forward and suddenly there is real shooting in the starting lineup. With Keldon Johnson's shot going down off the bench, the rotation is flush with shooting to offset the lack of an outside shot from Castle or Harper.
That balance could be shattered when De'Aaron Fox comes back.
De'Aaron Fox could ruin the Spurs' success
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While there has been no official announcement, given that the team said that he could miss the first week of the season, Fox may be ramping up to play any time now. He himself said he could have played in the season opener. With the team 4-0 there is less pressure to hurry him back, but he will likely come back soon.
It may be that the organization has other reasons to slow-play Fox's return: they don't want to mess up a good thing. It's all well and good to say that Fox is the team's second most talented player -- which is probably still true -- but his fit with the other guards on the roster is extremely poor.
That was known heading into the season, but you sacrifice fit issues to get the most talent on the floor - usually. Yet what the Spurs have right now is _working_, and while Fox is the more experienced guard, Castle and Harper both look special. Can any two of those players operate together? Probably, yes. Certainly all three cannot.
Yet the reality is that the Spurs are spending relatively few minutes with both Harper and Castle on the court. [Per databallr.com](https://databallr.com/wowy), in the Spurs' 192 minutes thus far this season, either Harper or Castle have been on the court for all but one of those minutes. Castle has played 84 minutes without Harper on the court, while Harper has played 63 minutes without Castle on the court. The two have shared the court for just 31 minutes.
That has allowed more shooting onto the court in terms of Vassell, Champagnie and Keldon Johnson filling out the wing minutes. When Fox comes back, suddenly 32 minutes per game needs to be taken away from those other players. Who loses out?
De'Aaron Fox coming back should be a positive, and it may well work out in the long run. Don't expect things to be sunshine and daisies when he first re-enters the lineup, however. His inconsistency as a shooter will make him a poor fit next to Castle, and likewise it will ensure Castle rarely gets to initiate the offense. And if Harper is going to play more than 16 minutes or so per night, he will need to play next to Fox -- and he has been simply electric with the ball in his hands to start.
One might say these are good problems to have, and perhaps they are when the plethora of talented players can scale up next to one another. Right now, that seems unlikely given the specific strengths and weaknesses of the players involved.
The Spurs have found something special. De'Aaron Fox might mess it up. And it's unlikely the Spurs have another option to chart a different course.