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

LAS VEGAS – San Antonio Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox offered a candid observation when reflecting on how much of a difference a year has made for him.

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

A year ago, Fox was eyeing the end of his tumultuous tenure with the Sacramento Kings. It was just 12 days ago that the Kings surprisingly fired Mike Brown as their head coach. The Kings eventually traded an excited Fox to the Spurs in a three-team, seven-player, seven-pick deal on February 5.

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

Ironically, Fox and the Spurs are playing against the Browns and Knicks in the NBA Cup Championship Game on Tuesday night. The players and head coach of the winning NBA Cup team will each be awarded $500,000.

While the Spurs and Knicks both have 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 their rear-view mirror and possibly looking to rebuild, the Foxes like the chances of success with star center Victor Wembanyama and the surging Spurs on Tuesday and beyond.

“There’s a lot of talent in this locker room and guys love to see other guys succeed,” Fox said. “It starts right there and you trust the other guy behind you. We’re going out there and playing together. We have a lot of guys that can go to a lot of different gyms and put the ball in the basket and play in a lot of different scenarios.”

“But everybody is making sacrifices for each other. And this (vs. 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 part of the team that ended a 16-year playoff drought in 2023, while he earned All-NBA third team honors that season. Fox is fourth 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.

However, after the Kings failed to make the playoffs in 2024, Fox began to think that maybe a change was for the best for him. An indication of that mindset was a report from ESPN’s Shams Charania on October 14, 2024, that Fox had bypassed a three-year, $165 million max extension to remain with the Kings. On August 4, Fox agreed to a four-year, $229 million contract extension with San Antonio.

“We get to the playoffs and then you want to build on that,” Fox said of his Kings tenure. “And that doesn’t mean going from the third seed to the first seed. It just means being a playoff team. I didn’t feel like we belonged there. …

“Everything started falling into place that summer (in 2024). I’m where I want to be (now).”

Fox says he no longer watches Kings games, and has no particular connection due to all the changes made since his departure. He still speaks 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 players like Murray and veterans Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Russell Westbrook on their roster. Sources told Endscape that there is a rift between some of the Kings’ experienced players and Christie and his coaching staff.

Sacramento is expected to explore the possibility of trading one of its veteran players, a source told Endscape. In domestic games, Kings fans have recently criticized their team’s poor performance and have called on owner Vivek Ranadive to sell the team. A fan was recently ejected from a game for abusing LaVine, a player acquired by the Kings in the Fox deal.

“I don’t really have anything to say,” Fox said of the Kings. “It is what it is. I wish (Murray) the best. Whether it’s a rebuild, I want him to be in the best situation for him.

“The grass is greener this side.”

One of the many storylines heading into Tuesday’s NBA Cup championship game is Fox facing a close friend in Brown for the first time since leaving Sacramento.

Brown was fired in Sacramento on December 27, 2024, after a 13–17 start and five consecutive game losing streaks. However, just days later, Brown and Fox were spotted dining together in the Sacramento area.

Fox lobbied the Kings to reward Brown with a contract extension, which he ultimately received. Fox previously told ESPN that Brown’s firing was the final blow: He did not want to play for a fifth head coach in Sacramento, and he preferred to be traded later.

The Knicks hired Brown on July 7, and Fox was pleased with 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 crazy to see him in New York. For one thing, the Knicks are already a good team. He just lifts them up. Their aspirations are to win a championship. And I think that’s what they brought him there for.

“He has talent. He didn’t trade talent. You could see it (with his success) early in his season. He’s a championship coach.”

Fox entered this season as one of only two players, including Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic, to average 20 points, five assists and one steal in each of the last six seasons. After missing the first seven games this season due to a hamstring injury, Fox has averaged 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 looks like he’s found his feet.

So, does Fox believe NBA fans have forgotten how good he was during his injury troubles and transition from Sacramento to San Antonio?

“I would say yes,” Fox said. “I’m still doing what I was doing, and now I’m doing it more efficiently. And that’s because playing with these guys, obviously, I’m doing it on fewer shots than before. It’s been good. It’s been an adjustment for me not to be 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 young players. Second-year Spurs guard Stephen Cassel and general manager Brian Wright supported that notion.

“His aggressiveness and the way he sees the court,” Cassel said of how Fox has impressed him. “He always tells me to attack and not back down at any given moment. High IQ guard. What he does on both ends of the ice, having him on the court takes a lot of pressure off of us.”

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

Fox has made the playoffs only once since arriving in the NBA in 2017. The five-time NBA champion Spurs have not been to the postseason since 2019. There is hope for a change in fortunes this season for San Antonio with Fox, the 7-foot-4 Wembanyama, the 2024-25 NBA Rookie of the Year in Cassel, and other talented players.

Fox is also excited to play a meaningful game in the NBA Cup Finals.

“As much as people are saying it’s not, these games seem bigger,” Fox said of the NBA Cup. “You go out there and you can tell they’re taking it as seriously as we are. So, to be able to play in meaningful games early in the season is great for a group that hasn’t played a lot (meaningful games) other than HB (Harrison Barnes) and really Luke (Cornett). Everybody else hasn’t played in it. So, to be able to get that and you feel the physicality of it, I think it prepares guys for the playoffs. Prepares.

Off the court, being back in Texas is adding to Fox’s happiness.

Fox grew up in Katy, a suburb of the Greater Houston area, and 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 have two children.

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

“Being around family, I’m close to friends, I have a lot of good things going on in my life. My family, my kids, basketball, everything is fine right now. The next goal for us is to win (the NBA Cup) and try to win a championship.”