De’Aaron Fox To Undergo Season-Ending Surgery

Spurs star point guard De’Aaron Fox is undergoing season-ending surgery on Tuesday for his pinkie finger, according to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link). He’s suffering from tendon damage in the finger. As Charania clarifies in a follow-up post, the injury occurred during training camp, but the veteran point guard played through the injury to this point.

This was an expected decision, as we wrote about earlier in the month.

The decision to have the surgery now was to speed up the healing process, per Charania, and get the injured Spurs on a similar recovery timeline to establish better chemistry in the offseason. Superstar center Victor Wembanyama is currently out for the year while suffering from deep vein thrombosis.

The Spurs, at 27-37, are 4.5 games out of the play-in picture. Being without Fox and Wembanyama obviously is a blow to their chances of making the postseason. However, they just beat the 10th-place Mavericks and have multiple games against projected lottery teams in the coming weeks, so there’s plenty of time left in the season.

In the meantime, Chris Paul is likely to receive an uptick in minutes. The Spurs may also opt to spread Fox’s minutes across younger players on the roster, with Stephon Castle potentially having a shot at a starting role. Former first-round picks Malaki Branham and Blake Wesley could get minutes after being out of the rotation, or the Spurs might opt to play veteran point guard Jordan McLaughlin more.

The Spurs acquired Fox at the trade deadline after the Kings made him available. He averaged 19.7 points and 6.8 assists in 17 games (all starts) with the team. His 19.7 scoring average would have been his lowest since his 2018/19 season, but it’s important to note that he was still rounding into form and only briefly overlapped with Wembanyama. In his most recent outing against Dallas, Fox recorded 32 points, nine rebounds and 11 assists.