What's next for the Spurs? Why the path to building a champion around Wemby could include trading De'Aaron Fox

NBA superstars tend to be somewhat impatient. Victor Wembanyama seems to be the exception. When his San Antonio Spurs sat out of the trade deadline in February, he gave his stamp of approval. "If there's any message to be taken from it, it's that we trust who we are, we trust the process," Wembanyama said. "And what I love is that the front office trusts these guys just like I do." 

He doubled down on that sentiment when the Spurs knocked the Portland Trail Blazers out of the first round of the playoffs. "I know (general manager) Brian (Wright) knows who we are and trusts the process," Wembanyama said. "He should get Executive of the Year also for not making a move."

Could San Antonio have won the championship with a splashy deadline addition? Probably, considering how close those games were, but we'll never know for certain. What we can surmise here is that San Antonio's NBA Finals defeat in five games at the hands of the New York Knicks will not lead to any internal pressure. Wembanyama is not going to demand changes. The Spurs aren't going to look for shortcuts. It's hard to imagine they're about to pursue Giannis Antetokounmpo, for instance.

With NBA Finals loss, Victor Wembanyama is experiencing painful lesson once learned by LeBron, Magic, Dirk Sam Quinn

That doesn't mean the Spurs will or should ignore what just happened. In the Western Conference Finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder poked some real holes into San Antonio's roster design. Then, in the NBA Finals, the Knicks tore through those holes and showed the Spurs exactly where the patching needs to begin. Ironically, the Thunder might be the example for San Antonio to follow here. Their rise came two years ago, in 2024. They didn't rock the boat at that trade deadline, much like the Spurs sat out this year's festivities. They used their 2024 postseason loss to Dallas as a means of self-evaluation, added Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein, and came back to win the championship a year later. Could the Spurs follow a similar path?

Some of this is internal. There are flaws here that can only be solved through Wembanyama's continued improvement. But there are other questions here that San Antonio can and will address through roster moves. They may not seek Antetokounmpo, but their versions of Carusos and Hartensteins are out there. So let's try to figure out how they can get them.

What tools do the Spurs have to work with?

The third offseason of a young star's career is typically a roster-building inflection point. It is the last season in which that young star's salary is artificially deflated by the rookie scale. Next offseason, Wembanyama's max rookie extension will kick in, making the Spurs far less financially flexible than they are right now.

If the Spurs merely renounce the rights to their own free agents, they could get to around $6 million in cap space. That's not much. They could potentially reach more than $20 million in space if they could find a taker for Keldon Johnson's contract. That would have been an unthinkable proposition only a few weeks ago. Johnson is the Sixth Man of the Year and vital to San Antonio's culture. But he was mostly a non-factor in the Finals; if moving him opens doors to the right additions, it shouldn't be ruled out entirely.

More likely, they'll keep him and have access to the nontaxpayer mid-level exception at around $15 million in the first year of a deal. They will probably be cautious about giving out an especially long contract with that exception, as Wembanyama's rookie extension kicks in next year and Stephon Castle's looms a year after that. However, the Spurs are about as desirable a free agent destination as exists in the NBA right now, so they'll probably do well with that exception if they use it.

NBA Finals winners and losers: Every Knicks move looks brilliant, Victor Wembanyama blows golden opportunity Sam Quinn

The next order of business is taking care of their own. Harrison Barnes is the only especially notable internal free agent, but he's valuable as both a regular-season minutes eater and locker room figure. He'll likely be back on a reasonable contract. And then there's Julian Champagnie, who replaced Barnes in the starting lineup. He has a $3 million team option for next season, but is eligible for a four-year, $87 million extension on top of it. One way or another, expect him back on a long-term deal. 

As of now, the Spurs have around $44 million in room beneath the luxury tax line. That's probably their unofficial ceiling for next season. Considering how young this team is and therefore how long it is likely to stay together, they'll want to delay their repeater tax clock as long as possible.

As far as trades go, the Spurs have quite a bit to work with. They'll pick No. 20 in this year's draft. They have Atlanta's unprotected pick in 2027. And then, between 2028 and 2031, they have four total first-round pick swaps: one with Boston in 2028, the option to swap with either Dallas or Minnesota in 2030, and then another with Sacramento in 2031. These are going to be tricky to trade since nobody knows what the draft or lottery rules will be beyond 2029, when the league's new reforms expire. Nonetheless, they are valuable draft assets at least on paper, so when coupled with their own picks, the Spurs have the chips to pursue almost anyone they want.

What do the Spurs need?

The playoffs showcased four notable problem areas for San Antonio:

• The Spurs were merely an average shooting team in the regular season, ranking 14th in both 3-point attempt rate and 3-point percentage. One of the stories of San Antonio's eventual defeat was the extent to which the Thunder and Knicks kept Wembanyama away from the basket. He had 23 paint touches in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, but averaged only around seven the rest of the postseason. Optimizing spacing will be a necessary antidote, especially since Castle is a shaky enough shooter that teams routinely guard him with their centers.
• San Antonio really didn't have a traditional power forward-sized player on its roster. One of the perks of having Wembanyama as your center is that it minimizes the need for secondary rim protection, and that allowed the Spurs to generally trade size for skill in other areas. There were tradeoffs to that. The Spurs didn't really have a great screener on their roster, for instance, and that made defending their guards that much easier. It gave them slightly less defensive versatility, and it made it easier for other teams to align their defense against the Spurs because their forwards weren't going to punish size mismatches. In the long run, Carter Bryant will probably be the big wing defender the Spurs are searching for, but his offense has a long way to go and he's only 6-foot-6. They should try to find someone a bit bigger to play a real role in next year's rotation.
• Backup center was an area of strength all season. It was a problem against the Thunder and the Knicks. Despite Luke Kornet's heroic block in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, the Spurs lost his minutes by 38 points. The Knicks benefitted similarly from his presence, attacking him relentlessly in pick-and-roll. Kornet is a good player, and the Spurs need front-court depth, so they're not going to dump him. But they might need a better backup center option for the postseason. Remember, most champions have multiple starting-level big men. The Knicks had Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson. The Thunder had Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren. The Celtics had Al Horford and Kristaps Porziņģis. Denver's best postseason came when they decided to make Aaron Gordon their backup center. Shaky bigs are extremely vulnerable late in the playoffs.
• Speaking of front-court depth, the Spurs rostered Mason Plumlee, Kelly Olynyk and Bismack Biyombo. Obviously, none of them played much in the playoffs. Neither did Lindy Waters III, and Jordan McLaughlin only showed up for a brief cameo when the other guards were hurt (it went badly). Having one or two players on the team for veteran leadership is fine. The Spurs devoted too many slots to players who had no place on a playoff floor, and that really minimized their optionality in the playoffs. They couldn't ride the hot hand with reserves like Knicks coach Mike Brown did throughout the playoffs. By the end of the Finals, the Spurs only really seemed to trust six players.

Another problem that developed over the course of the playoffs was a lack of ball handling. That was partially an injury issue, but it ties into perhaps the biggest single question of San Antonio's offseason.

What should the Spurs do with De'Aaron Fox?

Look, we can acknowledge the obvious: The Spurs didn't know Dylan Harper was coming when they traded for De'Aaron Fox. Had they known, they likely wouldn't have made the trade. But the Spurs made lemonade. The plan probably wasn't to reach the Finals as early as 2026. They did so in large part because they had Fox. He was an absolute necessity for the run we just saw.

We learned that for certain in the Thunder series, when Castle turned the ball over 20 times in the two games Fox missed. Harper projects as a high-level pick-and-roll creator, but for now, the Spurs don't yet trust Harper to run an offense. Harper's points generally come in transition or while attacking closeouts and mismatches. Their half-court playoff offense was pretty reliant on Fox as a pick-and-roll operator, and their best stretches against the Knicks often started with him going at Jalen Brunson.

Of course, their worst stretches could very often be laid at Fox's feet as well. Game 4 in particular was a train wreck. Bad turnovers. Bad decisions. Minimally impactful defense. You can never blame a 29-point collapse on a single player, but Fox was the single Spur most culpable for what happened that night at Madison Square Garden. He was supposed to be the steady veteran here. He made mistakes that wouldn't have been excusable even for his younger teammates. There was no good reason for him to try that layup over OG Anunoby. And Game 5 wasn't much better; he scored just seven points on a miserable 3-of-15 from the field. 

How the Spurs authored the biggest single-game choke in NBA Finals history Brad Botkin

Fox was not quite himself after he suffered the high-ankle sprain that bothered him throughout the last two rounds of the playoffs. He was up and down even before that. He's not generating rim pressure the way he did at his peak. And while he's generally steady in the mid-range, he's never been a reliable 3-point shooter. Harper and Castle aren't either. That's probably why the three so rarely played together as a trio. When they tried in Game 3 of the Knicks series, the Spurs lost those minutes by 17 points. 

There are diminishing returns on rim pressure without spacing. So much of Fox's postseason without that rim pressure boiled down to whether or not he was making jumpers. The Spurs don't win Game 7 over the Thunder if he hadn't, but they lost a lot of games in part because those shots just aren't great.

The Castle-Fox fit got trickier as the playoff progressed. Castle just didn't really have a function off the ball. He's a shaky enough shooter that defenders, most notably Anunoby, could cheat off of him and muck plays up for the other Spurs as a defender. That forced Castle onto the ball quite a bit, which minimizes Fox's value, yet Castle is still a pretty raw creator and unrefined finisher, so putting the ball in his hands wasn't generating efficient offense outside of the moments when he could bully weaker defenders with his sheer physicality.

By the end of the Finals, it was hard to ignore the feeling that Harper was probably the best player of the three already. He's not a Castle-level defender, but he was probably San Antonio's second-best stopper on the perimeter. He gave Brunson and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander fits whenever he matched up with them. Fox is better than him as an overall offensive player now, but that's not going to last much longer. Harper is already getting to the rim more often and finishing there more efficiently than Fox is by a comfortable margin. He genuinely might be the best finisher as a guard in the NBA before long. This may be the team that brought Manu Ginobili off the bench, but it would be doing a disservice to itself not to put the ball in Harper's hands. He's too good not to start.

Where does that leave the Spurs? They could bring Castle off the bench, but he's so important defensively, and realistically, given his age and contract situation, he's too important to the future to risk alienating by benching him. Besides, they're going to have to figure out his fit with Harper eventually. They'll inevitably stagger at their peaks, but Wembanyama, Harper and Castle are the future here, and they therefore need to play together more than the 400 or so possessions they had in the regular season.

That forces Fox into an awkward position. The Spurs will still need more ball-handling than just Harper and Castle. We saw that in McLaughlin's ugly minutes in Game 2 of the Thunder series. Fox is overqualified for a bench role, but if all three are on the team next year, he should probably be the Ginobili here. He's also a reigning All-Star in his 20s who's about to start a four-year max contract extension. There's no precedent for a player like that willingly accepting a bench role. The dynamic here is potentially awkward, and frankly, teams don't want to pay max salaries to sixth men even when their core is artificially cheap thanks to the rookie scale. 

Is a trade plausible here? The Spurs have said all of the right things behind the scenes. "To hear them tell it, this is the beginning of a long relationship between Fox and the Spurs that they hope leads to multiple championships," The Athletic's Sam Amick wrote in May amid the Western Conference Finals. "And, more specifically, they hope Fox enjoys the sort of sustainable, stable experience that he never had with the Kings." Pretending this settles the matter is naive. This is the NBA. Luka Dončić got traded in the dead of night eight months after making the Finals.

Navigating a possible trade would be tricky for reasons unrelated to basketball. Fox did the Spurs a favor by directing his trade request to them. Move him against his will, or to a team he doesn't want to play for, and you risk fracturing your relationship with his powerful agency, Klutch Sports. He'd have to wind up somewhere reasonably desirable, and the Spurs would not trade him just to get off his contract. Even in the worst-case scenario in which his deal ages poorly, it only overlaps with Harper's eventual rookie extension for one year. They have time to sort this out, so if they move him, it will be for positive value. So let's look at some trade targets here, primarily involving Fox.

Who would be interested in trading for Fox?

Let's whittle down the Fox field a bit. Who needs a point guard? Teams like the Bucks and Bulls might qualify but aren't yet competitive and therefore mostly undesirable as suitors. The Kings are off the table for other reasons, but we'll toss them in that pile. The Suns could use a point guard and are a reasonably desirable destination, but don't really have much that the Spurs would want. The Hawks could use a guard, but they just cap-dumped Trae Young, so they probably aren't interested in the contract here. The Magic and Rockets, for the time being, are probably locked into what they have. 

That leaves four pretty interesting possible destinations:

Minnesota Timberwolves

Minnesota is the standout here by far. The Timberwolves have sniffed around almost every big name to hit the trade market in recent years and could use a real point guard to pair with Anthony Edwards. They'd probably like to make a deal involving Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and their 2033 first-round pick. Randle just poses too many of the same problems that Fox does to be a fix, even if he's much bigger. 

If they could redirect those assets, it might make some sense. But San Antonio's preference would probably be Naz Reid. He solves a lot of problems for them as an elite shooter who could play power forward next to Wembanyama or backup center behind him. He's the sort of player San Antonio should even consider putting extra assets on the table for if there's any chance he's gettable. For instance, the Spurs currently own the right to swap 2030 first-round picks with Minnesota. Maybe they could drop those rights to grease the wheels here. A Reid trade is unlikely, but it's the dream scenario. If a trade happens, something involving Randle, that pick and a third team should be expected.

Dallas Mavericks

Dallas already has Kyrie Irving. He's 34 and coming off a torn ACL. If they'd rather put a younger, expensive guard next to the 19-year-old Cooper Flagg, Fox is an option here. If Irving is willing to come off the bench? Great. He'd be a spectacular fit on a shorter contract that expires before Castle and Harper get paid. In the more likely event that he wants to start, this could be a three-way deal in which the team acquiring Irving sends assets to San Antonio.

Toronto Raptors

Toronto has been linked to several big names over the past year. Fox isn't an ideal fit as a shaky shooter, but he's a major talent upgrade over their current guards, and the Spurs are one of the few teams that would likely be interested in one of their shakier contracts. Immanuel Quickley is overpaid at $32.5 million per year for the next three years, but he's uniquely valuable to the Spurs since he's been a very effective bench player in the past, his contract expires a year earlier than Fox's and therefore doesn't overlap with Harper's eventual rookie extension, and even if he's overpaid, he makes so much less than Fox that those savings could be beneficial in other ways. Maybe there's something here, likely involving a pick or two on Toronto's end.

Miami Heat

Miami is built around Fox's college teammate, Bam Adebayo. The Heat are focused on bigger names for now, but if those fall through and they view Fox as a legitimate upgrade, a Fox-for-Tyler Herro trade makes plenty of sense for both sides. The Heat take a star swing and add someone who fits better next to Norman Powell than Herro did. The Spurs turn Fox's huge contract into a smaller one and get a high-level shooter out of their third guard. If any team is equipped to protect Herro on defense, it's one with Wembanyama.

Potential Spurs trade targets

So those are the four most sensible Fox teams, but there are still other needs to consider. We won't bother sifting through the backup center market (there's a free agent, I think, that makes sense that we'll get to shortly anyway), but what about a swing on a forward? 

I'll throw out three names at three probably differing price points:

Trey Murphy

The Spurs are an asset-rich contender looking for a forward in 2026, which means they're in the Trey Murphy sweepstakes by default. I suspect they're likely to be outbid if the Pelicans even elect to move him. Murphy would certainly help San Antonio's shooting, but he's a bit duplicative with Champagnie and Devin Vassell. He's good enough that potentially including Champagnie in an offer might make sense as an upgrade, but I suspect they'd prefer not to splurge here.

Aaron Gordon

Among starter-level players who are plausibly on the trade block this postseason, the best forward fit for San Antonio is Gordon. He's power forward-sized. He's become a pretty lethal wide-open shooter over the past two seasons. He's proven on the playoff stage. He can play backup center. He's dealt with a number of muscle injuries over the past two years, but the Spurs are deep enough to minimize his minutes and potentially even bring him off the bench. The money is the big question here. He's in his 30s and about to start a three-year extension. It would be a luxury splurge to put him in the Keldon Johnson slot, but the time for luxury splurges is now, while the rest of the core is mostly cheap. The Nuggets have a huge tax bill coming, so perhaps they'd be interested in splitting Gordon's contract into multiple players and picks and handing his job to Peyton Watson.

Bobby Portis

The cheap, bench-specific option is Portis. He's not much of a defender anymore and his rebounding has slipped as well, but those aren't huge concerns next to Wembanyama. He can still shoot and he can still screen, nice traits for a backup power forward on this roster. His contract should fit into the mid-level exception, and the Bucks probably wouldn't need much for him.

Any free agent targets? What about LeBron?

Is it a bit click-baity? Sure, but are we sure LeBron James isn't a fit for the Spurs?

It would certainly be out of character for their organization. Media circuses follow James. He also tends to be picky about markets -- at least those he wasn't born in. He wasn't exactly kind to the city on a recent episode of Mind the Game. "I mean, San Antonio, we focus on basketball," James said. "You ain't doing s--t in San Antonio. Nothing at all. Nothing. And I mean nothing." There would be a lot of ring-chasing noise. He might be sensitive to that. Three jerseys is already a lot for an all-timer. Adding a fourth, even in his 40s, pours fuel on the team-hopper fire.

But he and longtime Spurs coach Gregg Popovich have long shared a mutual admiration. If he's as serious about wanting to win as he says, there's no better suitor out there. The Spurs can make the money work. The mid-level probably tops every suitor but the Lakers, and if the Spurs need to move Johnson to create cap space, they could get James into the low-20-million-dollar range. The basketball fit works because it always works with LeBron. He can do anything. He's power forward-sized, a need we've covered. He's no sharpshooter, but come on, nobody is ignoring LeBron James off the ball. He might be ball-handling overkill, but if they move Fox, James could step in as the veteran stabilizing creator. Maybe officially passing the "face of the league" baton to Wembanyama would appeal to him. It's not likely, but it's worth an internal discussion on San Antonio's part. 

Here's the luxury option I'm more excited about: Kristaps Porziņģis. Golden State has the advantage with Bird Rights, but if the Warriors are saving their money for James or another similarly splashy addition, Porziņģis might be gettable at the mid-level. San Antonio is one of the few teams capable of managing his load to the degree he probably needs at this point. He'd never have to play another back-to-back. His minutes could be minimized with Kornet also in place as a backup center. But in higher-leverage games like the seven they know to expect against the Thunder next spring, he could both clean up the Wembanyama bench minutes and potentially play some stretches alongside him.

For similar reasons, Robert Williams III would be a nice mid-level target. He doesn't have to play much in the regular season, but as his performance against the Spurs proved, he's still playoff-viable. He and Kornet would be among the best backup center duos in basketball. But once that mid-level bullet is fired, they can be picky. They should try to add at least one shooter for the minimum, and if they want to cherry-pick a free agent or two they like from another team, they should go for it. But we shouldn't expect much more than that after the mid-level is spent. The Spurs just made the Finals, after all. 

They're close, and while they should at least explore some of the bigger concerns we addressed, they're just not all that likely to seriously rock the boat.