They won’t have to worry about it until 2028 when Castle’s extension would begin. And they have so many future picks that they shouldn’t have trouble unloading the last two years of Fox’s contract if they need to.

They got him before the Luck of the lottery. Once they got Harper the time started on Fox, he will likely be moved before they have to pay everyone.

Spurs have options. Lets see how Fox does during the playoffs, gauge his impact and plan accordingly. If he’s not an impactful player, he gone. Dylan Harper is waiting on the bench.

Fox has been a phenomenal professional in his time in SA so far and has allowed the coaching staff to essentially sideline a lot of his production in favor of giving more reps to Castle and Harper for development. I’m not sure how many people really realize how rare that is for a player to accept. He’s earned a lot of my respect just for that.

Had the Spurs not gotten lucky w/ Harper, you’d probably see Fox get a significantly higher usage rate and a lot more plays run through him, but as far as the regular season has gone, he’s been happy to defer a lot more and is taking significantly lower shots per game than he probably thought he would be.

In the moments where he’s really had to turn it on (like when Wemby was out for a month early this year) he was absolutely cooking and looks like he was worth every penny. He still gets to his spots at will and is one of the craftiest guards in the league. Nobody seems to care when he plays well but people always have something to say when he doesn’t.

The reality is that small market teams have to overpay for star talent and part of getting Fox from Sacramento for cheap was agreeing to pay him a max so he’d request us as a destination. PG was a massive position problem for the Spurs for a while, and now they’ve got three very talented ones. Not a bad problem to have.

If his contract becomes an issue in the future they can reassess as necessary, and they’ve got a few years before that will be an issue.

you posted this like you think the Spurs are a stupid ass org

Is there a question in here somewhere? If so, the answer is they are gonna trade Fox in a couple, three years

Fox is gonna come up big in the playoffs. He’s taking a back seat right now but dude is still clutch. He might not be worth the contract but he’ll be big time still, I think.

Feel like its a given he’s going to be traded in the future depending on how Castle+Harper are.

The Spurs don’t really need to worry about this for at least the next couple seasons until they have to pay Castle in 28-29.

It’s almost as if the best run franchise in professional sports the last 30+ years actually knows what they’re doing.

it fine lol we have 4 years we will be gine

Castle already seems better than Fox

I bet they leave Fox unprotected in the expansion draft. Also why I’m at peace with the knowledge that Duren is going to get a 30% max. If he doesn’t live up to it we can just leave him unprotected.

They’ll trade fox if/when Harper comes up to speed. Likely for a wing considering fox’s value will be decent even with a 50 mil contract. They have a ton of picks as well so spurs are in a great place no matter how you look at it.

To be fair Fox could produce way more but he has to sacrifice his shots to alot of players.

It’s just a weird situation. They pretty much lucked into Harper and the majority of this year he took a back seat to both castle and Harper.

Spurs game plan was to basically force castle into becoming a better PG and it worked although it was pretty hard to watch sometimes since we would have Fox sitting in the corner while castle just threw the ball away. again that doesn’t really matter because we just won 60 games.

if the plan was to always have castle as the PG I’m not sure why they traded for Fox. I guess the trade they did for him was basically for nothing but I really wished the spurs used him to his full potential.

But yeah it’s kinda hard to complain because it’s working lol

Fox and Wemby pick and roll is going to be straight up unfair. How are you even suposed to guard the fastest guy in the league while a 7’4 alien is rolling to the rim? its worth every penny just to see that

My understanding is that Wemby would only be eligible for the 30% “supermax” for his next extension - not 35%.

Unless something has changed, the general max contract is 25% for rookie extensions (30% with supermax criteria), 30% at 7years (35% supermax) and then 35% from year 10 onwards. So Wemby’s “huge” jump in salary will be the extension he then signs for 7-9 years onwards.

But also - the Spurs knew all of this when signing Fox to his deal, and are set up to have all the flexibility to handle this. The trade was made before getting the Harper pick, and its almost certain the contract was agreed to at the time of the trade. For better or worse, the Spurs aren’t the kind of organisation to reneg on that (see extensions to Pau and LMA).

Without a really big move, the Spurs are almost certainly going to be well under the tax again next year, and probably will be under the Aprons in Wemby’s extension year. The issue will be the last 2 years of Fox’s deal when Castle and Harper start their extensions (probably at 25%, similar to Chet and JDub). Absolute worst case scenario, you just wait for Fox’s deal to expire in 2030 when Wemby, Castle, Harper are basically the same age as SGA, Chet and Jdub are now.

But we are also going to come off contracts of Barnes and Olynyk this summer. Kornet is on a team friendly deal that has an “out” every single year if we want to move on/find a younger replacement. Vassell has a drop in salary the year of Wemby’s extension (almost certainly planned for him to be more tradeable that year). The question will be what the next deals for Keldon and Champagnie look like, but I suspect/hope they will be team friendly (especially with the bargaining chip of declining Julian’s 3M TO to give him a lower annual salary, but more total money than any other team could offer in 12 months).

If the Spurs decide to move on from Fox it will likely be in that last year or 2, when you can do it if he has decent value (including as an expiring), have some valuable unprotected swaps you include if you really need to sweeten the deal (say in a trade for a better fitting player), or, as above, just wait for his deal to expire.

Wembanyama is not supermax. He is rookie supermax which is much lower than a supermax.

I ain’t worried bout that just yet, we got a few years before its even a thing. Right now we need him and the other guards to beat the other best teams this season and the next.

Our guard play and their variation in attack style is a hell for defences, its the reason why we killed OKC so much this season along with Wemby. They get the ball moving, get into the paint, spread it to the perimeter and get open 3’s going. We couldn’t do that last season.

To the people saying “he’ll get traded”, he’ll have to be traded for other players that make money

There’s a reason the Spurs drafted a project point guard despite already having a good, highly paid PG on the roster. They need Fox right now to try and take advantage of this championship window, but he’s not part of their long term future most likely. The young core is set, they can afford to trade a pick or 2 to get someone to take on Fox’s contract when they’re ready to move on.

They’ll probably get off his contract in about 2 years

The only tricky part is keeping Castle in 2028. By the time Harper and Bryant are up for extensions, Fox’s contract becomes an expiring trade piece.

Yes it will.

Somebody has to agree to take less, or it all falls apart.

Trades will be made. Maybe for the better, but probly not.

This is how teams get into trouble. This is why if you’re a fan remember it’s a business.

Wemby is staying and getting everything. So someone needs to agree to less. And their agents won’t let them. This is why the Bulls won 6 in the 90s. Jordan and Pippen way underpaid for most of those runs.

I don’t get the handwringing. Fox is a useful player and it’s not like the Spurs are inept in the front office.

Just like the Thunder, they have draft assets if they need to get off a contract, be it Fox or otherwise.

The Spurs will be fine, and should overspend to try and win chips while Wemby, Castle and Harper are cheap.

If both Harper and Castle become max level players then we are both extremely lucky and perfectly fine. Harper’s first max extension cap hit would be that 2029-30 year when Fox would be an expiring. There’s also the potential expansion draft coming up.

He’s tradeable, they’ll be fine. I’ve seen worst contracts/players get shipped.

We’ll take him. I’m tired of IQ

Let’s see him earn it while Wemby is out.

Good for him

The only saving grace to the Spurs not having a Warriors type run with Wemby’s trajectory.

Fox won’t be playing for the Spurs long. Probably the Sonics/Vegas DraftKings, or who knows Wolves have gone after him a few times and could still use a point guard. It was a great move for San Antonio to bring him in while they could afford it, and it’ll be a great move to let him go when they can’t. He’s been good, but it seems like they will function fine without him.

Fox has been poor lately. He’s also been pretty good all year. His PPG doesn’t need to be high we have like 6 main scorers. For most of the year he’s been a great driver which extends into step back mid range. Feel like he is tops on our team in go ahead shots in the clutch. Random comparison but reminds me of Aldridge the way he just hits difficult middies and seems automatic a lot of the time. Thing is I feel like especially before the last few games he’s earned every dollar. I feel like a lot of people didn’t think that then and I’m not totally sure as to why. Like is earning his contract 25ppg and 10 assists? Or was it never gonna be enough because we drafted well after the fat and harp panned out well

They have the assets to move him, and for this and next year(and maybe next) he will be very valuable

There are enough teams desperate for a starting point guard that they can trade Fox pretty easily if Harper is ready to be a full time starter.

RemindMe! 2 years

Wemby is only in his 3rd year. His extension would be on top of his rookie contract, so a max is worth 25% of the cap and a Supermax would be 30%.

Additionally, if he wins MVP this year or next, he would qualify for the Supermax. AllNBA and DPOY this year does nothing. He would have to win them next year to qualify.

The rookie extension max is 25% and the rookie “supermax” is 30%. You can’t get the real supermax until the contract after that.

If Harper and Castle progress the way it seems they will they will just trade Fox. He’s a good player it shouldn’t be difficult to unload him.

it’s not THAT bad of a contract. Fox is an All-Star in a good year, they should be able to move him if they have to

With the way Fox is playing right now I don’t think the Spurs are too worried about his contract.

And as others have stated he won’t be too difficult to unload if he continues being a really good player, and the Spurs have the picks to attach to him if they really needed to.

They don’t have to extend anyone… if they want to pay the luxury tax and be in the second apron, sure, they will extend everyone to the max. Though, the whole point of the CBA is to make that expensive to increase competitiveness

So the number 2 seed in the NBA have their 2nd best player being paid the 18th highest salary in the league? Sounds like they are doing really well

It’s more than worth it. Fox is a baller.

By the time Harper is due for his rookie extension it’ll be an expiring.

Here we go again with hating on Fox for no reason lmao. What’s wrong with being the 18th highest paid player? Can’t a team also go into the cap to extend their rookies? So Castle contract should fine. Spend time complaining about an all star level point guard when you got 6’8” no rebounding Harrison Barnes for 20 mill but he can’t guard any 4 in the league

Who were they competing with for signing him? I don’t recall him having a significant market

That’s already a negative contract. Unforced error. He’s not even worth 40.

Can’t teams always re-sign their own players and picks? I understand it puts them over the cap and limits flexibility, but they have a ton of draft picks to use to develop depth around the core.

Dynasty ender

Lmao, Fox committed daylight robbery here, It’ll be interesting to see how he performs in the playoffs

IMHO, their best move would be to swap Fox (plus salary filler and picks) for Giannis.

It would make their team even better, and their defense would be the filthiest in the NBA. Also, good luck grabbing a rebound in that forest of trees.