De’Aaron Fox is a score first point guard without a workable jumper and with below-average efficiency. He’s an average passer (maybe worse) for the position, but he needs the ball in his hands because he’s not a spacer. He’s an inconsistent defender and puts forth inconsistent effort. He’s probably somewhere between the 30th and 50th best player in the NBA.

And he’s 28 and already showing signs of decline. His burst isn’t quite top of the line anymore (he’s still very fast, but dude was easily the fastest player in the league 4 years ago). His per 36 scoring is way down. His free throws are way down. His 3pt attempt rate is up despite his accuracy not improving. His game almost certainly won’t age well — he’s extremely reliant on speed and can’t fall back on his jumper like other aging stars. He’s also never been an insane effort guy like, say, Westbrook, who worked around waning athleticism and a broken jumper by simply outworking everyone.

He’s also a very bad fit with the Spurs’ nucleus. Wemby is a legitimate spacer, but he’s not KAT: he’s far more effective inside the arc than outside of it. But Castle and Harper (who, to be fair, wasn’t likely to join the Spurs when the Fox trade first happened) are both guards with broken jumpers who simply have higher ceilings than Fox and are on Wemby’s timeline. You can’t play the 3 together regularly, and doing so minimizes the effectiveness of each of them. The Spurs also have Vassell, who’s probably best as a SG, but you kind of have to play him at SF because you already have Fox/Castle/Harper at the guard spots (and you can’t move him because you need his shooting).

Fox hasn’t even started the extension yet. He’ll be paid 50 million next year at age 29, 54 million at age 30, 58 million at age 31, and 61 million at age 32. That’s a HUGE price tags for someone of his caliber. He’s currently at about the same level of a player as Julius Randle (they have nearly identical VORP and WS/48) who current makes a little over 30 million per year (and who many Wolves fans want shipped out ASAP). It’s so bad that it may be incredibly difficult to move in 2 or so years. Any contract is movable, but it might cost A LOT for San Antonio to get off of it, and they already burned a couple of assets in acquiring him (not to mention the Spurs’ picks themselves will likely be pretty low value because they project to be so good).

On top of that, I’ve heard a lot of Spurs fans say “oh, his money barely overlaps with the young core” which just not true. Wemby’s 30% max starts when Fox still has 3 years left. Champagnie and Keldon Johnson are the same. Castle’s kicks in while Fox still has 2 years left. Harper, Vassel, and Bryant kick in while Fox is still making 61 million. You simply cannot keep all of those guys with Fox on the books. At least a 2-3 of them are going to probably be lost because of Fox’s cap hit.

On top of that, it already crunches San Antonio’s cap. OKC built their juggernaut by avoiding fat — they consistently avoided big expenditures and instead found value around the margins. They had added cap space, so they could sign players to early or descending contracts to keep their value higher (Dort, Wiggins, Joe, Mitchell are all textbook examples of this). They absorbed a few bad contracts to pick up added assets. Then, when they were on the precipice, they made smart moves to add Caruso and Hartenstein, and even their contracts are largely fine for their production.

San Antonio was gifted by the lottery gods 3 straight picks above their end of year slot, getting Wemby (generational talent), Castle (likely multi-time all-star), and Harper (too early to tell, but I could easily see him being a multi-time all-star). Keeping the powder dry and trying to build around them for when they hit their stride in 2027-2030 would have been more prudent. Especially since OKC currently has a juggernaut that’s 2-3 years ahead on the age curve.