Is De’Aaron Fox the right mate for Victor Wembanyama?

What, you thought NBA would take a breath after Luka Doncic – for – Anthony Davis Blockbuster? Not a chance; This is the week of the trading deadline! And if Luka can be traded, anyone – especially two stars that have agitated for a step.

Sunday night is not quite Most amazing trade in the NBA storyBut it is a scorcher in itself that sends de’aaron Fox to San Antonio Spurs, Zach Lavine to Sacramento Kings and a selection of choices across the country. Here are the full terms:

To Spurs: De’Aaron Fox, Jordan McLaughlin

To the kings: Zach Lavine, SIDY CISSOKO, three first round choices (all via San Antonio), three second round choices

To bulls: Kevin Harter, Three Jones, Zach Collins, their own 2025 Pick (via Spurs)

The most important component is Fox’s trade for San Antonio, which means Spurs’ first big win-now movement in the Wemby era. They do not rush unclear their young star’s timeline; Instead, Victor Wembanyama hurries theirs as he is already fighting for a place on the All-NBA first team only halfway through his second season.

At. 21-25, in 12th place in the west, Spurs just hang on the periphery of the Play-in Race, but this step is more about the future: they had to supply Wembanyama Strid as a budding competitor. Wemby ranks the sixth in The ringtone‘s top 100 rankingsBut the next best Spur-Devin Vassell is all the way down to No. 72 and 39-year-old Chris Paul is the only other teammate in the top 100.

Go into Fox, which has an average of at least 25 points per Fighting in four of the past five seasons and plays at excellent speed, a potent pick-and-roll game and commendable clutch cojones. But Fox is only a disposable all-star, and he was a little over-appointed as a # 1 opportunity on a winning team. His kings always had a losing record before Domanta’s Sabonis arrived to give Fox some help, and it is unclear which member of this duo deserved more credit to lift the team to the playoffs. Even we on The ringtone Has regularly flip-flop fox and sabonis around No. 20 place on our top 100 rankings.

But Fox makes much more sense as the second goal scorer in support of a superior superstar. And give the 27-year-old guard so much credit after he is, suggested easily His amenability to a Spurs trade: Like the visionaries who bought Apple stock in the 1980s, Fox recognized a massive growth opportunity and grabbed it early, entering the ground floor of Wemby’s ascendant career. Think about how much better says Tony Parker’s career looks because he-except a slidy, lightning-fast Point Guard with an IFFY Jumper-Blev game next to Tim Duncan for 15 seasons instead of dragging away on any Second NBA team. Fox hopes to follow the same way to fame and trophies with Wembanyama.

That is not to say that he is especially a perfect fit in San Antonio, the stagnation of Fox’s 3-point shot now becomes one of the most important history lines in the NBA. He has shot better than 32 percent from a distance only once in the last six seasons, and his accuracy has fallen back to his career norms after a seemingly flucky increase in 2023-24.

Elsewhere in the Spurs rotation, building blocks Stephon Castle and Jeremy Sochan are both under 30 percent from 3 in their careers. Around Wemby with three subpar shooting games is not ideal program list.

But it is still too early in the Wemby era to choose such nits. And it’s hard to exaggerate how much of an upgrade Wemby has experienced on the Point Guard, from an overmatched, outside the position of Sochan to Paul to Fox in 10 months.

The most important thing is that Spurs didn’t have to trade any of their top eight players to add a running mate to Wembanyama, which means their whole young core remains intact. Nor did they have to dig deep into their Pick Stash for this deal. The only 2025 who chose San Antonio were both protected and therefore could not have landed a top talent in a loaded draft; One of these choices, originally from Hornets, is Lottery protected and will almost certainly turn into two second rounds instead.

Meanwhile, Spurs still have control over almost all of their own choices, two unprotected Hawks elections (in 2025 and 2027), an unprotected Hawks-swap (in 2026) and several other future swaps including a particularly juicy with Luka- smaller Mavericks. Thus, they will have ample opportunity in the coming years to add more high-upside young people in Wemby’s age group or find further increase in the trading market.

In other words, if Fox stays around for a long time by signing Four-year expansion As he is eligible for this summer, he may not even need to be No. 2 behind Wemby. The sprouts have enough list of roster structure that Fox may be able to enter as No. 3 at that time is San Antonio ready to compete for a title.

If the spurs have a seemingly unlimited ceiling, Bulls and Kings seem satisfied with time to stay in the middle. Bulls finally throws Lavines Max contract, after at least one year of shopping, and their most important returns are … their own protected first round, which they had originally sent to Spurs in Demar Derozan-Sign-and-Trade back in 2021. Bulls traded also another round of choices back to Sacramento after he originally acquired it in 2024 Derozan Sign-and-Trade; Their commitment to this three-team agreement basically ends two circles. At least, Bulls traded after three consecutive deadlines for inactivity; Also expect a Nikola VUUCEVIC trade before Thursday’s deadline.

For Sacramento, this step fills another set of circles. Kings initially signed avalanche for an offer sheet in 2018 before Bulls matched it to keep avalanche on their list. And now, King’s avalanche is reuniting with Derozan, his former Bulls partner, though the duo never won a playoff series -and now they are in a tougher conference, albeit with Sabonis in VUCEVIC’s place.

Sacramento was not a title competition with Fox, nor is it a title competition without him – nor should the team fall apart without its leading goal scorer. Lavine is a downgrade from Fox, but he is one of NBA’s most effective scores with high volume; Over the last half of the decade, he ranks 11. In true shooting percentage out of 58 players with a 25 percent usage rate or higher, squeezed between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Damian Lillard.

Between avalanche, Derozan, Malik Monk and Sabonis as the Point Center, the kings still have to have enough shooting to compete at night. If Fox was destined to go, the kings did well to find a strong return for their Point Guard – avalanche plus more choices than Mavericks landed for Luke! – Without making a fuss or drawing the inevitable.

Because when Fox decided he would become Wembanyama’s first elite’s sidekick, their team-up was inevitable. He had a good, fun race in Sacramento, but he could be part of something really special with spurs.

Zach Kram

Zach writes about basketball, baseball and various pop cultural topics.