For De’Aaron Fox, the ‘grass is greener’ with the San Antonio Spurs

LAS VEGAS – San Antonio Spurs guard D’Aaron Fox offered a telling observation while contemplating what a difference a year has made for him.

“I haven’t stopped smiling since I’ve been here,” Fox told Andscape after the Spurs advanced to the NBA Cup championship game with a 111-109 semifinals win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night.

A year ago, Fox was eyeing the end of his roller-coaster tenure with the Sacramento Kings. It was also 12 days before the Kings surprisingly fired Mike Brown as their head coach. The Kings ultimately traded an ecstatic Fox to the Spurs in a three-team, seven-player, seven-pick deal on Feb. 5.

Fox is a Texas native whose wife, Recee, is also from San Antonio. Brown, who Fox considers “family,” also rebounded as he is now head coach of the New York Knicks.

Ironically, Fox and the Spurs are playing in the NBA Cup championship game on Tuesday night against Brown and the Knicks. The players and head coach of the winning NBA Cup team will each be rewarded $500,000.

While the Spurs and Knicks both own 18-7 records and have been hot lately, the spiraling Kings entered the week in disarray with a 6-19 mark. With the Kings now far in his rear-view mirror and likely looking to rebuild, Fox likes his chances for success on Tuesday and beyond with star center Victor Wembanyama and the rising Spurs.

“There is just so much talent in this locker room, and guys like seeing other guys succeed,” Fox said. “That is where it starts and you trust the other guy behind you. We’re going out there and playing together. We have a lot of individuals that could go into a lot of different gyms and put the ball in the basket and play in a lot of different scenarios.

“But everybody is sacrificing for each other. And this [versus the Thunder] is our first game with everybody, and I think we made a statement.”

Fox averaged 21.5 points, 6.1 assists and 3.9 rebounds in 541 regular-season games in his career with the Kings. The 2023 NBA All-Star was a part of a team that ended a 16-year playoff drought in 2023 while he earned All-NBA third-team honors that season. Fox also ranks fourth all-time in Kings history in points (11,064) and assists (3,146) and second in steals (731), potentially making him a candidate to have his No. 5 jersey retired in Sacramento one day.

After the Kings failed to make the playoffs in 2024, however, Fox began thinking that perhaps a change for him was for the best. One sign of that mentality was a report by ESPN’s Shams Charania on Oct. 14, 2024, that Fox bypassed a three-year, $165 million maximum extension to remain with the Kings. On Aug. 4, Fox reached an agreement to a four-year, $229 million contract extension with San Antonio.

“We go to the playoffs and after that you want to build upon that,” Fox said about his Kings tenure. “And that doesn’t mean going from the third seed to the first seed. It just means continuing to be a playoff team. I didn’t feel like we were there. …

“Everything started going bad that summer [in 2024]. I’m in a place where I want to be [now].”

Fox says he doesn’t watch Kings games now, and there isn’t much of a connection because of all the changes made since he left. He still talks regularly with Kings forward Keegan Murray, but only six of Fox’s former teammates are still on the Kings’ roster. There is also a new general manager in Scott Perry and a new full-time head coach in Doug Christie.

The Kings are struggling with the likes of Murray and veterans Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Russell Westbrook on their roster. Sources told Andscape that there is a disconnect between some veteran Kings players and Christie and his coaching staff.

Sacramento is expected to explore making trades of its veteran players, a source told Andscape. At home games, Kings fans have recently booed their team’s poor performances and chanted for owner Vivek Ranadive to sell the team. One fan was recently ejected from a game for heckling LaVine, a player the Kings acquired in the Fox deal.

“I don’t really have anything to say,” Fox said about the Kings. “It is what it is. I wish [Murray] the best. Whether that is rebuilding, I want him to be in the best situation for him.

“The grass is greener on this side.”

One of the many storylines at the NBA Cup championship game Tuesday is Fox facing a close friend in Brown for the first time since both left Sacramento.

Brown was fired in Sacramento on Dec. 27, 2024, after a 13-17 start and a five-game losing streak. Just days later, however, Brown and Fox were seen together in the Sacramento area having a meal.

Fox had lobbied to the Kings that Brown be rewarded with a contract extension that he eventually received. Fox told ESPN previously that Brown being fired was the final straw: He didn’t want to play for a fifth head coach in Sacramento, and he preferred to be traded afterward.

The Knicks hired Brown on July 7, and Fox was happy for his new opportunity.

“We still talk. I still talk to [former Kings player development coach] Elijah [Brown], his son,” Fox said. “Mike is family. It’s dope to see him in New York. For one, the Knicks are already a good team. He just elevates them. Their aspirations are to win a championship. And I feel like that is what they brought him in there to do.

“They have the talent. They didn’t change the talent. You see that early on in their season [with their success]. He’s a championship coach.”

Fox entered this season as one of just two players including Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic to average 20 points, five assists and a steal in each of the past six seasons. After missing the first seven games this season with an offseason hamstring injury, Fox is averaging 23.9 points, 6.2 assists, 3.6 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game in 17 games. He had 22 points, four assists and two steals in the Spurs’ win over Oklahoma City and feels he has gotten his legs underneath him.

So, does Fox believe NBA fans forgot how good he was through his injury woes and transition from Sacramento to San Antonio?

“I would say yes,” Fox said. “I’m still doing what I was, and now I’m doing it more efficiently. And that’s because playing with these guys, obviously, I’m doing it on less shots than I had in the past. It’s been good. It’s been an adjustment for me not playing on the ball all the time.

“When I was playing with Domas [Sabonis], I was playing without the ball a little bit and I wanted to do that. Playing with [the Spurs], it’s great.”

San Antonio head coach Mitch Johnson said Fox has already had an impact on the team’s younger players. Second-year Spurs guard Stephon Castle and general manager Brian Wright seconded that notion.

“His aggressiveness and the way he sees the court,” Castle said on how Fox has impacted him. “He is just always telling me to attack and never shy away from the moment. High IQ guard. Just having him on the court with what he does on both sides takes a lot of pressure off of us.”

Said Wright to Andscape: “You see him grow as a leader and obviously you see what he does on the court. But his growth all around and what he means to this group is incredible.”

Fox has only made the playoffs once since arriving in the NBA in 2017. The five-time NBA champion Spurs haven’t been to the postseason since 2019. Those fortunes are expected to change this season for San Antonio with Fox, the 7-foot-4 Wembanyama, the 2024-25 NBA Rookie of the Year in Castle and other talented players.

Fox is also excited about playing in a meaningful game in the NBA Cup final.

“As much as people are saying it’s not, these games feel big,” Fox said about the NBA Cup. “You go there and you can tell they’re taking it just as serious as we are. So, just being able to play in meaningful games this early in the season is great for a group who hasn’t played in much [meaningful games] besides HB [Harrison Barnes] and really Luke [Kornet]. Everybody else hasn’t played in that. So, being able to get this in and you feel the physicality of it, I think it prepares guys for the playoffs.”

Adding to Fox’s happiness off the court is being back in Texas.

Fox grew up in Katy, a suburb in the Greater Houston area, and he has an offseason home there. Houston is about a three-hour drive from San Antonio. His wife was a basketball star in her own right, as she was a McDonald’s All-American after playing for Lady Bird Johnson High School. in San Antonio. She played in college at UCLA, Texas Tech and California-Berkeley, and she tried out for the WNBA’s Seattle Storm. The couple has two children together.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” Fox said. “For one, just being able to be back in Texas is great for me, for my family. We spend our offseasons in Houston. It is a really easy drive going back and forth to San Antonio. I just feel like we have so much talent in this room. We feel like the sky is the limit for us. …

“Being around family, I’m close to friends, a lot is going well in my life. My family, my kids, basketball, everything is in line right now. Next for us is to win [the NBA Cup] and trying to win a championship.”

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