Spurs’ Fox to Have Season-Ending Finger Surgery

The Spurs are going down like flies.

The San Antonio Spurs announced Thursday that guard De’Aaron Fox, who just came over in a trade, will undergo season-ending surgery on his left pinkie. Fox has extensor tendon damage in the finger that he suffered during training camp in October when he was a member of the Sacramento Kings, but he was a soldier and played through it the entire season. The surgery is set for Tuesday, March 18 in Los Angeles, the team said.

The timing of the surgery was intentional to allow Fox enough time to heal and recover over the summer and have time to build continuity with his new teammates before next season starts in October, according to ESPN’s senior NBA insider Shams Charania. Fox is expected to be ready for the start of next season.

With 18 games left on the schedule this season and San Antonio ten games below .500 (27-37) far outside the play-in picture, it makes the decision a no brainer to shut down Fox, especially after Spurs star Victor Wembanyama was ruled out for the rest of the season back in late last month due to a blood clot.

Fox was traded from the Kings to San Antonio ahead of the trade deadline in February with the intention of teaming up alongside Wembanyama for the future. However, Fox and Wembanyama only managed to play five games together, and now with both of them on the shelf for the rest of the season, everyone will have to wait until 2025-26 to see how they fit together over a longer span of time. On paper, it should be a match made in heaven and an exciting partnership, as the duo averaged 57 points together during the abbreviated period, which ranks as the second-highest scoring duo on the Spurs roster this season.

That is not a difficult bar to climb as the Spurs have been searching for another scoring star to place next to Wembanyama. Fox accomplishes that goal. He is the ideal floor general to pair with Wemby, capable of getting him the ball in the places the 7-foot-3 Frenchman wants and being a shot creator to take the pressure off Wembanyama as well. He has also been among the most clutch players in the league over the past two years, winning Clutch Player of the Year during the 2022-23 season. In 62 games for the Spurs and Kings, Fox put in the work and had averages of 23.5 points, 6.3 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game.

While this season will not pan out as well as the Spurs originally imagined, the future is bright with a fully healthy Fox and Wembanyama next season. Couple that with emerging guard Stephon Castle out of Connecticut, who is in the running for Rookie of the Year as the season winds down, as well as a few other promising role players, and San Antonio should be a competitive team next season.