De’Aaron Fox Is In Control

For the third time this December, the San Antonio Spurs have beaten the otherwise barely beatable Oklahoma City Thunder. Each win showed off a different Spurs strength, with the first two being headlined by Victor Wembanyama's vertical pressure and the team's scoring depth, respectively. San Antonio's Christmas Day win was all about De'Aaron Fox, who has had a cool season for the league's coolest team.

Fox came into the season under the most pressure of any San Antonian this side of Mitch Johnson. The former All-NBA point guard is one of the Spurs who matters who's in his prime, which made him, in some ways, a curious fit on a team populated by youngsters. Clearly Wembanyama was going to make the Spurs too good to spend any more time losing after last season, though the Fox trade represented a sudden acceleration of the timeline. After playing five games together last year, Wemby was ruled out with a blood clot and Fox was shut down shortly after. Then, over the summer, Fox was given a max extension and the Spurs drafted another highly regarded lefty point guard in Dylan Harper, two moves that simultaneously secured Fox as the immediate future of the team and in theory made his skills somewhat redundant. The Fox skeptic might wonder whether a one-time all-star with exactly one good season of three-point shooting was really worth all that money and the opportunity to expend the team's considerable arsenal of picks on a better player. That person might point out that the Harper pick would allow the Spurs to more comfortably prepare to compete during Wembanyama's prime.