The Sacramento Kings are looking to trade high-scoring guard De’Aaron Fox, and his preference is to join the Spurs in his wife’s hometown of San Antonio.
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Two and a half years ago, on a hot midsummer afternoon, the Spurs orchestrated one of the most brazen basketball thefts of the decade. Sunday night, with the obscenely lucrative proceeds of that heist still pouring in, they added to their haul.
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Now they have the crazy-quick, certifiably clutch, Texas-raised point guard they coveted all along. And to acquire De’Aaron Fox, their dream pick-and-roll partner for the most talented 21-year-old in the world, what were the Spurs forced to give up?
Not any of their top eight scorers.
Not any of the four age 24-and-under lottery selections who get to stick together after all.
And somehow, not any of their six most prized future draft picks, including the trio of Atlanta first-rounders they swiped in broad daylight and still control.
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In some jurisdictions, a bargain like that might be considered a crime.
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How did CEO R.C. Buford and general manager Brian Wright pull this off? How did they get the rest of the league to let them?
Patience and foresight helped. And in grand San Antonio tradition, so did a little good fortune.
The Spurs’ trade for Fox wasn’t the most stunning NBA robbery of the weekend. Less than 24 hours earlier, the Los Angeles Lakers were gifted with one of the top five players in basketball without even having to outbid anyone. And to be sure, Fox is no Luka Doncic.
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But at 27, he’s a perfect fit for what the Spurs are building, and they’ve thought so for a while. It’s no coincidence they had no interest in pursuing Atlanta’s Trae Young when he was rumored to be available last year.
Young’s Hawks, of course, are the trading partner that got all of this rolling. In June 2022, they sent three first-round picks – plus the swap rights for a fourth – to the Spurs for Dejounte Murray, who had been an All-Star in San Antonio but didn’t mesh with the franchise’s long-term plan.
Dumping Murray allowed the Spurs to bottom out and maximize their lottery odds the year Victor Wembanyama was the top prize. That worked out pretty well.
As for those draft picks? As it turned out, they only needed to use one of them – the least desirable one, a lottery-protected 2025 Charlotte pick all but certain to become a second-rounder – to land Fox.
The rest of the cost was shockingly modest. Zach Collins and Tre Jones were great in the community and in the locker room, and both had their moments on the floor, but they mainly were around to bridge the gap until the Spurs were ready to contend again.
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Sidy Cissoko is a raw former second-rounder who might become an NBA regular, but also might never crack a 10-man rotation.
Then there was a first-round pick that belonged to Chicago in the first place and was protected for the next three years, and the Spurs’ first-rounder in 2027, when they expect to be selecting near the end of the night.
They still have their own first-rounder in six of the next seven years.
They still have the rights to Dallas’ first-rounder in 2030 (when the newly acquired Anthony Davis will be 37).
They still have the rights to Sacramento’s first-rounder in 2031 (when Domantas Sabonis will be 35).
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And they still have Atlanta’s unprotected first-rounders in 2025 and 2027, plus the right to swap with the Hawks in 2026.
So looking back on it, what do the Spurs have to show for trading Murray on that midsummer afternoon in 2022?
Control of Atlanta’s next three drafts.
Plus, now, their point guard of the future.
Larceny shouldn’t pay this well. Yes, the Spurs got lucky. The lottery balls bounced their way, and then Sacramento mismanaged its roster to the point where Fox saw no future there.
But the Spurs had prepared for the latter to happen. They knew Fox grew up in Houston, and they knew his wife grew up in San Antonio, and they’d long fostered a respectful relationship with Klutch Sports, the agency that represents Murray, Keldon Johnson and Fox.
They knew that if things ever soured in Sacramento, Fox would see South Texas as an ideal escape. And they were right.
It’s unclear, though, if they ever thought they’d need to pay more than they did. Stephon Castle was off-limits in a Fox trade, for good reason. But would the Spurs have been willing to part with Devin Vassell, or with Jeremy Sochan, or with Johnson?
We’ll never know, because they didn’t have to. For all intents and purposes, this trade was risk-free.
The gamble, if there is one, will come this August, when Fox is eligible to renegotiate his salary and to sign a four-year, $229-million extension that would begin in 2026-’27. By making Sunday’s deal, the Spurs hinted pretty heavily they’re open to making that offer. And by signaling after the Kings made him available last week that San Antonio was his destination of choice, Fox hinted pretty heavily he’s open to signing it.
If he does, he’ll become the highest-paid Spurs player in history. To live up to that, he’ll need to keep proving he can close games as coolly as he did during his Kings breakout, and he’ll probably need to improve his 3-point stroke.
This trade doesn’t make the Spurs instant championship contenders. But considering what they’ve paid to put Fox, Wembanyama, Castle, and all those future assets together?
Their status as master thieves is indisputable.
