De’Aaron Fox and the Sacramento Kings are seemingly headed for a breakup. The Athletic’s Sam Amick reported Tuesday that Fox’s agent, Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, has advised the Kings it would be wise for them to move him now, and according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, Sacramento is expected to listen to offers. One thing that has been consistent across all of the reporting is that Fox has a preferred destination in mind, and for now, it appears as though the San Antonio Spurs are that team.
No two trade requests are identical. Sometimes it makes sense to defy a player’s wishes and trade for him regardless of his preferences. This probably isn’t one of those times. Fox is set to become a free agent in 2026, and the Spurs, by virtue of Victor Wembanyama’s rookie contract, can easily retain max cap space until then. There is a very real chance that trading for Fox now means giving up assets for someone who is determined to walk in 18 months.
Of course, we’ve said that before. The Los Angeles Lakers infamously low-balled the Indiana Pacers in Paul George negotiations back in 2017 thinking that he’d join them as a 2018 free agent. He wound up getting traded to Oklahoma City and then re-signing. Leave things to chance and you never quite know how they’ll play out. Maybe an unexpected team trades for Fox and he falls in love with his new home. Maybe someone else gets Fox and the Spurs trade for a different point guard. The NBA is a fickle league. Things change quickly.
The Kings know that well. Two years ago at this time they were sitting pretty on their way to breaking the league’s longest playoff drought. Only a month ago they fired head coach Mike Brown. They are 10-4 since. It’s worth wondering how much that success will factor into these negotiations. Are the Kings so committed to making the playoffs this season that they’d wait until the summer to trade Fox, possibly for a lesser return? Will they demand win-now assets that the Spurs aren’t necessarily equipped to offer? For now, that’s unclear.
So let’s go through some possible Fox destinations, starting with the Spurs, but more pertinently discussing the teams that could sneak into the mix if San Antonio can’t put a convincing package in front of the Kings.
San Antonio Spurs
The appeal to Fox is obvious. Wembanyama is already the best defensive player in the NBA. It won’t be long before he’s the best overall player in basketball. Someone is going to win championships by having the foresight to team up with him. It seems as though Fox is trying to be that player. The interest appears to be mutual.
The question here is what sort of package Sacramento would want in a Spurs deal. Outside of Wembanyama, San Antonio’s two most valuable youngsters are Devin Vassell and Stephon Castle. In the long run, Castle is probably the better asset of the two. The Rookie of the Year candidate is already a strong defender and ball-handler, and if his jumper comes along, he has star potential. He’s also currently playing on a rookie deal. Vassell is older and earning market-rate, but if the Kings want to win now, he’s better-equipped to do so. Rarely does a win-now team want to live with the growing pains of a young point guard.
Would the Spurs even give one of them up? They do have leverage here. They can simply dare someone else to trade for Fox and keep him away from them in free agency. Maybe they can use that leverage to extract more favorable terms out of the Kings. San Antonio is loaded with future draft capital. Future picks from the Hawks and Timberwolves headline those assets, but notably, the Spurs also control swap rights on Sacramento’s 2031 first-rounder thanks to the DeMar DeRozan deal this offseason. The Kings will almost certainly want control of that pick back.
This is a game of chicken for the Spurs. If they want Fox, they can probably have him. There’s a very real chance that they don’t trade for him now but get him in 2026 anyway, so they can afford to be cautious in how they approach these negotiations. Even if they miss out on him completely, they still have Wembanyama. Someone is going to want to play with him, and they have the chips to go trade for basically anyone. There’s no reason for them to force the issue here, so don’t expect them to put everything on the table right away. That leaves the door open for someone else to swoop in and take a chance on him.
Houston Rockets
The Rockets are approaching star trades cautiously at this point. According to Marc Stein, the plan in Houston is still to let this current group play out the season and see what happens. That doesn’t mean a trade is off the table entirely. Just that the Rockets won’t force one.
Amen Thompson is off of the table. Explicitly. For anyone. This cannot be stressed enough. The Phoenix picks are probably untouchable as well, not because Fox doesn’t warrant them, but because the Rockets need an escape hatch if Fox were to arrive and then leave in free agency. Those Suns picks are Houston’s path to Devin Booker down the line. Right away, we’ve ruled out a lot of Houston’s best stuff.
But what if we go down a tier? What if, for instance, the Kings are strong believers in Jalen Green’s future? His present makes that an interesting bet. Green is averaging nearly 26 points per game on almost 45% shooting from deep this month, and while he lacks Fox’s craft, he’s one of the few guards in basketball with similar athletic gifts. His experience with Alperen Sengun sets him up to figure out a partnership with the similar Domantas Sabonis relatively quickly, theoretically helping the Kings if they want to win now. Houston has plenty of talent it can’t find minutes for — Cam Whitmore, Jae’Sean Tate and Reed Sheppard come to mind. Some or all of these players could factor into trade talks. The Rockets won’t dangle Phoenix’s picks. Their own could be in play.
Houston won’t win a straight up bidding war given its preference to see this season through, but its ability to put together a deep group of high-upside youngsters already on its roster can get the Rockets into the conversation if Spurs talks go sideways. Fox grew up in the Houston area, and the team is talented enough to potentially win a long-term commitment from him. If there’s a Spurs spoiler in the mix here, there’s a good chance it’s Houston.
Miami Heat
In 2022, Malik Monk signed with the Kings in part because of his friendship with Fox. That friendship bloomed at the University of Kentucky, where the two of them were teammates with Bam Adebayo. On paper, a reunion between the two of them makes plenty of sense. Fox has never played with an elite defensive big man. Adebayo is looking for a new offensive engine to replace Jimmy Butler, who is on his way out the door (probably). The Heat have a well-known history of recruiting stars. If they can get Fox into the building, they’ll have a real shot at convincing him to stick around.
That’s going to be their greatest challenge. Miami owes first-round picks to the Thunder and Hornets from previous trades. That severely restricts the sort of draft capital the Heat can send out in a blockbuster deal. This would therefore have to be a player-based trade. Would Miami consider dealing Tyler Herro in the middle of his breakout season, and would the Kings be open to swapping former Kentucky Wildcats? Ascending rookie Kel’El Ware would surely intrigue the Kings, but he’s played so well for Miami that it’s hard to imagine Miami giving him up eagerly.
Before Herro’s breakout season, a Fox deal made plenty of sense. Now, the Heat would probably look at him as only a minor upgrade over their current point guard, and they lack the assets to pair the two of them together alongside Adebayo. Maybe a Butler deal gives them assets that can be flipped into a Fox trade, but right now, the Heat are facing an uphill battle if they want to get into the mix here.
Orlando Magic
The Magic have had a bottom-10 offense every year since the Hoover administration. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration, but this is now Year 13 of “at least 20 teams scoring more points per possession than the Magic.” Eventually, they’re going to have to invest in a high-level scoring guard to change that.
The Magic control all of their own draft picks moving forward, but the real question in a possible trade here is player value. Orlando isn’t giving up Paolo Banchero or Franz Wagner. They’re too good and too central to this team’s defense-first identity. Jalen Suggs probably isn’t a viable centerpiece for a trade of this magnitude. Could Orlando use its picks to loop in a third team with something a bit more Sacramento’s speed?
Fit is another reasonable question here. Fox is an inconsistent 3-point shooter. The Magic are, by far, the NBA‘s worst 3-point shooting team. Fox’s value comes in what he does with the ball in his hands, and if Orlando’s plan is for Banchero and Wagner to control it quite a bit, it probably makes more sense for them to trade for a guard that emphasizes 3-point shooting rather than creation off the dribble. It’s tempting, but the fit here probably isn’t strong enough to justify the investment it would take for Orlando.
Brooklyn Nets
The Nets have been linked to just about every star that has hit the market or even come close this season, and sure enough, according to SNY’s Ian Begley, they are interested in Fox as well. As one of the worst teams in the NBA, the Nets aren’t good enough to seriously contend with only Fox joining the team. They’d have to have some way of landing a second star. Maybe that’s Butler through free agency this offseason. Maybe it’s through a second trade. The Nets are loaded with tradable assets. In addition to their own first-round picks, they control five of New York’s next seven first-rounders along with a smattering of picks from other teams. Presumably, they would plan to use some of these picks for Fox and others for a second star.
Would that be a good idea? Maybe for some teams, but it’s hard not to think about everything Brooklyn just went through as a cautionary tale. The Nets just tried the whole “gather as much star power as possible” approach and look where it got them. To be frank, any combination of stars they unite is going to be less talented than the Kevin Durant-James Harden-Kyrie Irving trio they just had. Brooklyn’s best course is probably just to rebuild organically and try to make a splash later, when there’s more incumbent young talent.
But the New York market appeals to stars. If the Nets do land Fox, they’d potentially feel comfortable in the idea that he could find his own running mate. It’d be an enormous risk, but never rule the Big Apple out in conversations like this. It’s a great recruiting tool.
