点击查看原文：De'Aaron Fox navigates a tricky San Antonio Spurs transition
De’Aaron Fox navigates a tricky San Antonio Spurs transition
San Antonio Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox (4) goes to the basket against Oklahoma City Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 2, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)
De’Aaron Fox has found a home.
Just don’t ask him for directions.
San Antonio is the city where he and his family want to be. The Spurs are the franchise he wants to help lead, quite possibly into the next decade. Frost Bank Center is the arena under which he now has a parking spot.
But at the end of a long night, when he returns to his car and settles into his driver’s seat, he’s not yet ready to rely solely on his local knowledge.
“I need GPS everywhere,” Fox said.
This, of course, is understandable. A month into his tenure as the Spurs’ star point guard, Fox hadn’t played a single home game until Sunday against Oklahoma City.
Navigating an unfamiliar set of highways and surface streets isn’t easy.
And neither is navigating a new era.
Unlike many high-priced, speedy acquisitions these days, Fox didn’t come with an on-board computer. Acting Spurs coach Mitch Johnson doesn’t have the option of typing in “championship contention” as a destination and letting the system guide the way.
The Spurs, like Fox, are ecstatic he’s in San Antonio. The Spurs, like Fox, believe the fit will be perfect in the long run. The Spurs, like Fox, think he’s capable of taking them where they want to be.
On this trip, though, there’s going to be a little more trial and error. Especially in the short term.
“To think that there wouldn’t be a ton of evolution,” Johnson said, “would be silly on our part.”
This is especially true now that Fox and the Spurs are spending the final two months of the regular season without Victor Wembanyama, who’s sidelined with a blood clot in his right shoulder.
One reason why the Spurs long coveted the 27-year-old Houston-raised Fox was that they thought he’d be an ideal play-making complement to their 21-year-old center. One reason why Fox picked San Antonio as his preferred destination in a trade from Sacramento was that he felt the same way.
But even if Wembanyama were healthy, there would be growing pains. Midseason trade arrivals almost always need time to settle in with the team around them, and their new teams almost always need time to adjust to the newcomers.
In what turned out to be five games together, the pairing of Fox and Wembanyama showed oodles of potential, as well as the need for plenty of fine-tuning.
As Johnson noted this week, Fox’s role would have been evolving even if the Spurs were at full-strength. Now? He’s their best player, and he’s learning the system, while understanding that the way that system is deployed will look a lot different when Wembanyama returns.
He and the Spurs have tried to downplay this. Every team deals with injuries, they say. The objective still is to win, they say. Basketball is still basketball, they say, and Fox doesn’t think his assignment has changed.
“If you’re able to make open shots,” Fox said, “you can literally be plugged in on any team in the league.”
But the shots that Fox gets over the next six weeks figure to be a little different than the ones he’d get with Wembanyama on the floor. The same is true of the shots taken by Stephon Castle, and by Devin Vassell, and by everyone else in the lineup.
Last Saturday in Memphis, for instance, when Fox swished the game-winning jumper, wouldn’t the defense have reacted completely differently if Wembanyama was an option? Tuesday night, when Fox was set to play his second home game in San Antonio against the Nets, how many five-man lineups could the Spurs have expected to play that will carry over next season?
Probably not many. And even though the Spurs should benefit from Fox learning how to create alongside Castle and Vassell and Sochan, there will be a necessary reset — early next fall, the Spurs hope — when the big fellow returns.
In the meantime? Around the detours, they’re trying to familiarize themselves with as many team-building highways and surface streets as they can.
“Continuity is a big word that doesn’t get discussed enough,” Johnson said. “And that’s something that we are early in the stages of … but there’s some exciting potential to see on the way.”
On a route GPS never would have suggested.