De'Aaron Fox averaged 12.8 points on 34.3 percent shooting in the NBA Finals, went 3-for-15 in the series-deciding Game 5, and committed a late turnover in Game 4 that became the defining image of San Antonio's five-game loss to the Knicks. He was also playing through a high ankle sprain. Whether you grade him on the injury or the output, the result is the same: the Spurs lost the Finals with their $51 million point guard as their weakest link, and now the offseason conversation starts with whether that can happen again.

Dylan Harper is the reason it does not have to. The No. 2 overall pick from the 2025 draft earned All-Rookie First Team honors and, more importantly, showed in the postseason that he can run a playoff offense at 20 years old. There is growing pressure from Harper's camp to secure a starting role heading into next season, per Bleacher Report's Adam Wells, and the on-court evidence supports the push.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Fox is locked into a four-year, $229 million extension that begins in 2026-27, rising from $51 million to $63.3 million by the final year. That contract makes him almost impossible to trade this summer without attaching significant assets or finding a third team willing to absorb the number. The Spurs have publicly committed to Fox as their franchise point guard, but the gap between public messaging and private math tends to close quickly in the NBA.

The question for San Antonio is whether Fox at $51 million produces more wins than Harper at $4 million plus the flexibility to spend that $47 million difference elsewhere. The Spurs just reached the Finals with Victor Wembanyama as their engine. They do not need Fox to be the best player on the floor. They need him to be a reliable second option who does not shrink in the moments that matter most.

He was not that in June. The ankle sprain is a legitimate mitigating factor, and Fox's regular-season production, the reason the Spurs traded for him in the first place, should not be erased by one bad series. But Harper's emergence changes the calculus. San Antonio now has two players who can run pick-and-roll with Wembanyama, and one of them costs a fraction of the other.

Then there is Stephon Castle, the quieter but equally important piece of the Spurs' long-term puzzle. The fourth overall pick from 2024 averaged 16.7 points, 7.4 assists, and 5.3 rebounds in 68 games this season, building on a Rookie of the Year campaign that already established him as one of the league's best young guards. Castle is not eligible for a rookie-scale extension until the 2027 offseason, but the Spurs need to start planning for it now.

Castle's next contract will be expensive. He has played like a max-extension candidate, and by the time he is eligible, the Spurs will also be navigating Wembanyama's rookie extension, which will command every dollar the franchise can offer. If Fox is still on the books at $55 million that year, the payroll math stops working without luxury tax penalties that ownership may not want to absorb.

The Spurs do not need to make a dramatic move this summer. They just played in the Finals, and blowing up a roster that won four playoff series would be reckless. But the Fox contract represents a ticking clock. Every year it appreciates, the trade market for him narrows, and the window to pivot toward a Harper-Castle backcourt, one that is younger, cheaper, and potentially better, gets smaller.

Wembanyama is the constant. Everything else, Fox's role, Harper's minutes, Castle's trajectory, orbits around what maximizes the generational talent in the middle. The Spurs' front office, led by a franchise that has historically prioritized long-term thinking over short-term sentiment, will not make a panic move. But they also will not ignore what the Finals exposed.

Fox was supposed to be the missing piece that pushed San Antonio from contender to champion. Instead, Harper might be the player who makes Fox the expendable one. That is not a comfortable conversation for a team that just traded significant draft capital to acquire him, but it is the one the Spurs' offseason will be built around.