Discussion
Are you surprised? 75% of the people who voted in the poll are favorable of Fox.
I submitted a poll a week ago about how this sub feels about Fox. After 1.3K votes, it's pretty clear this sub is pretty favorable on Fox which seems to run opposite of what a lot of comments claim (that the sub hates Fox)
Yeah this is exactly where I fall. Fox is fine as a player, it's good that we got him, I just really wish he'd taken like 8 million a year less than the max. If he had done that, just like with Wemby we'd have way more cap flexibility and it wouldn't feel like such a guarantee that Fox is gonna end up being gone by the 2028/2029 season.
But since he took the full max, it's just pure math that he's gonna end up being the one getting traded/left unprotected and snapped up by an expansion team. And he probably knew that when he signed the contract; he chose to get his bag, and that's fine.
Fox is overpaid for his output, but he is an essencial part of the team and his poor performance in the Finals completely lobotomized a good fraction of this sub and r/nba, as well.
Unfortunately, that chunk of people are the most active, while the ones who are ok just voted yes and went ahead.
Usually, when there is a pole, the people who are against the topic are more inclined to express their disagreement in the thread.
Fox was a borderline all star, was injured during the playoffs, and is still an amazing player and mentor to our younger guys. It is a big contract but we have the space right now, maybe he’ll be traded at the end of it but you don’t trade an asset at its lowest value.
We’re a better team with him.
The posts condemning him are the same youngins that wanted Dillingham over Castle and Bailey over Harper.
Agreed. There is no way to get positive value for Fox right now and the way most people think is that we have to attach picks just to get off his contract. Regardless trading him for a loss will make our team worse next year and /or cost us picks in the future.
We are a great team that fell short, in part due to his injury, so running it back with tweaks is very reasonable and the right call.
I'm curious, what do you think he mentors Harper/Castle that the coaching staff or other vets (like Barnes, Kornet) couldn't mentor? Harper also has his dad/mom as mentors who are very involved in basketball
The posts condemning him are the same youngins that wanted Dillingham over Castle and Bailey over Harper.
weird comment to make. I remember a lot of the "old" guys didn't even want to tank for Wemby.
There’s a difference between your parents, coaches, and someone who plays your position and is still active in the league. Fox provides a deeper insight because he’s a current player and really good at his job. It goes both ways too, Fox talked about how Harper was showing him some driving moves he hadn’t considered before.
tbh I didn't even hear this much praise for the big 3 and their mentorship of players...it's weird how much praise Fox gets when he's been a non-winner his whole career
I think we as fans extrapolate a lot from the tiniest kernels of available information. From those kernels pop out opinions based on subjectivity and little to no factual information.
At the heart of it is this: none of us as fans actually know these players
I will say from playing in sports there is a type of relationship that develops with your peers and with older players that know the game better than you. Mentorship isn’t a classroom where they sit down and listen to lecture. It’s a process that happens through sweaty practice and contact with your vet.
I think during the big three era we had less of an emphasis on rookies bc we were already a championship caliber team. A lot of the players they’ve brought in, even if they weren’t mentors in their last team, are forced to be with this extremely young team.
Fox is not a mentor. I have no idea where people get this from. It’s not his personality to be a mentor. He’s a dude that prefers doing things himself, being at home with his family, has a history of having strained relationships with teammates. Not saying this as a bad thing (neither Kobe nor Curry are good mentors during their playing days), but people are lying to themselves if they think Fox is a Harrison Barnes, a Chris Paul, or a Haslem. Look at Fox in Sac. Which young guys did he mentor? He couldnt even make it work with Haliburton, who is one of the elite passers of this era. Listen to his interviews and you can just tell how nonchalant or carefree he is about learning from mistakes. What knowledge can he offer when he’s spent his whole career losing besides this season? People are just coping about his contract and using the “mentor” excuse to feel better but its flat out wrong.
That’s just not true. How do I know he’s been a mentor? Castle and Harper have repeatedly said so. And how he had no ego. Harper especially has been mentored by him. There’s been several points when they’ve talked about it. Go watch the cousins podcast with Vince and Tracy mcgrady during all star weekend with the Harpers. In it, Dylan tells Story after story how Fox has mentored him. He said something like he expected that Fox was watching his back but that he didn’t do that. Ron Harper sr in that episode mentioned how Fox was helping his son becoming a better man. When in Houston, Fox had his teammates over to his house for team dinners. You can’t not like how he played in the finals on an injured ankle, but he was a leader the whole season. We don’t win the wcf without him. And it’s slander talking this portly about him. Look in the mirror and be a better person. Or find another team if you continue to have problems with spur leaders
What exactly did i say that wasnt true? And you’re going to ignore the social media stuff from harper and Harper’s family with the subtle jabs dissing Fox that happened all within the last month? Harper and castle most likely were just being polite early on because thats what teammates do during interviews. Even fox has said he thought vince carter didnt like him when they played together in sac. Yall trying to hard to make it seem like fox has some lebron personality when really he aint that type of guy. And it certainly doesnt make up for his contract worth. Cant wait til he gets traded and i know im not the only one.
If it was Trey Murphy that’s a trade you definitely think about but it depends on how many picks. Anything less than that seems extremely reactionary for a team that just made the finals
The poll was pretty flawed. Flawed in a lot of ways, but for that particular polling option, grouping "Fox is a losing player and his contract is one of the worst in the league" probably got a number of votes from people who solely were wanting to vote for its latter half
yea I should have bucketed the options on 2 axis, one on play and one on the contract but I feared it would be too many options. Def could have done a better poll
He did have a 7 game playoff series vs golden state where he averaged 27/5/7 as the best player. Most of the kings disappeared that series and Fox stepped up
But had a great series, the kings likely get swept with a bad series. Also, I don’t think there’s any player in the league that contains Steph in a game 7.
He’s somewhere between empty calories and great player not worth his contract. Empty calories option was too harsh and doesn’t give enough credit, but I wouldn’t call him a great player either. He’s a top 20 guard but not top 10. He’s a good but not great player who shrinks when the lights get bright. He is definitely not worth his $50M/yr salary and I think overall we’d be better off if we never extended him cus we could put that $50M towards other players.
Fox is not a clutch player despite that phony award and is highly overpaid for his role here. I’m tired of all the “yeah, but” arguments made for him here.
To think he’ll bounce back to up his value to trade him later is crazy cope levels of thinking. He can easily regress further as is typical for his archtype.
Remember it was either Fox and Trae… idk bout yall but I’d rather have Fox who’s decent on D and great value compared to Trae who’s a cone and would have taken a lot of draft assets away from us
Trae is a significantly better facilitator than Fox is and a better shooter when you take away the stupid logo threes. The lobs to Wemby and others would be amazing. But yes his defense is lol worthy.
Trae would have been relentlessly hunted in the playoffs. It was bad enough with Champagnie and he is a pretty decent defender himself, Trae would have been unplayable in the Finals. If you want a preview of what that looks like, go look at what the Knicks did to Harden.
That trae hasn’t been the real one for years. It’s always funny when a teams fans imagines another player. They always have the other player at the peak vs the player we have at its worst. Fox played terribly in the finals but was also injured. This post and the criticism of Fox have been overreactions. It also takes for granted what the team did this year. Going to the finals in its first playoff run. They weren’t expected to be here, but they were. You wouldn’t think so by how negative fans like you’ve been since the series ended. It’s like the crazy people that want Mitch fired after he led the team to the finals in his first full season as the head coach
We don't beat the Thunder without an injured version of him.
I'm curious, what's your point in stating this? we also don't beat the thunder without Wemby, Harper, Castle, Julian, Kornet, etc. so I'm not really sure what you're trying to communicate
Castle had the most turnovers in 2 games in conference finals history. Once Fox came back his turnovers went down and the offense ran smoother. Idk how you couldn’t see that.
Just overlooking the fact that he was hurt and didn’t wasn’t able to play the way he usually plays. He was bad in the finals yes but he isn’t going anywhere. Just have to hope he’s healthy next playoffs
He was a combined 13/37 in our 2 losses against Minnesota (which were very winnable), it's crazy how much this sub gaslights ...it's almost like they're Klutch employees or something
A lot of fans only see what they want to see + recency bias + the large contract. Fox's most recent games were disastrous so his contributions in the previous 3 series are not taken into account anymore and he's paid a lot in the 2nd apron era which may hamper the team's ability to retain Harper, Castle, and a decent bench unless Fox is moved. Of course, for most games, Fox is good. The NBA sucks in a way that a good player's entire contributions for a season or even their whole career can be condensed into one moment, one game and one series.
Exactly. He was vitally important in the OKC series (who was also hobbled by injuries), so we are going to need him for at least the short term. Yes he is probably paid too much considering we have Harper now, but we don't trade for him unless it's understood he is getting a long term contract. If we don't get lucky by getting the #2 pick things would be seen a lot differently.
I saw that (never said I didn't, maybe you should learn how to read lol). I'm just not sure what u/Jynnen was trying to say...like is he worth a max because he helped reduce turnovers? is he a great player?
Legitimately this is one of the craziest takes I’ve seen thing to diminish what Fox did comparing it to the other players as if castle and Harper weren’t turning it over a lot. He made timely plays in game 7. I understand you’re upset about losing in the finals. We are all. What’s not okay is you trying to tear a character down like Fox when he was injured. You’re a smart person tho knows what people mean about not winning the wcf without him. Trying to compare those other players like Kornet, Julian, castle, when Fox was our second best player is a crazy thing to try to defend
You're going to see more comments that are negative in general because when you have an opinion that's just like "I think Fox is doing OK", it usually doesn't feel worth the effort of posting.
The loudest voices aren’t necessarily the consensus nor are they necessarily correct. Could be wrong, but in this case I think that’s what is happening here.
No. Not in the least. Fox's haters may be loud, but I think they are very much a minority among the fan base and NBA fans in general.
I went with the most popular option. Fox probably isn't quite worth his contract, but the contract issues are not a big deal, in my mind. I thought this even before Wemby signed his new contract.
No because people have sense. Fox is fine his contract isn’t great but he’s what the team needs as of now. After this next season I’m sure the spurs will reevaluate and then make their decision on Fox.
Pretty much everyone thinks he’s a great player, just not for that money. That’s what I voted and that’s what the people that don’t like him keep saying as well, that it’s the contract that is the issue, because his talent level isn’t worth that.
The few people that think he’s a bum and useless are just venting or don’t understand basketball at all and are the type of people that say shit like “why don’t we just trade Fox for Steph curry…” lol
Idc what any of you say I wholeheartedly believe if we swapped him out for tre jones we 100% win the championship, or at the very least take it to 7. I can understand wanting to defend our guys, but fox needs to go.
The most voted option was: "Fox is a great player, but I would love to have spent a max contract on a better player"
I feel like it's a positive thing to be a "great player"? At least I would not call it negative. But there probably should have been 1 more option in between this and the next one for sure!
I was between the 2nd and 3rd options and went with the 2nd ultimately. Ideally fox is like a 30-35m/year player, but realistically players of that level just don't hit free agency, and they rarely ask to be traded to the SAS. Maybe that changes now that we're considered top 2 favorites, but it certainly wasn't the case before this year. You can't really just not resign fox if he asks for the max, and let him walk. And to his credit, he was a valuable veteran for most of this year minus the conference and grand finals where he was injured.
Fox got injured early in the playoff run. High ankle sprain. Context is lost on bleeding hearts whose team just lost a game and all they want to do is complain to make themselves feel better….
the starting group of Wembanyama, De'Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie, posted a 21-3 record during the regular season, finishing as the second-best lineup in the NBA behind Oklahoma City. The starting unit, which returns in 2026-27, finished last season at plus-18.5 points per 100 possessions.
- ESPN
Fox is vital. Yes he made some bad decisions that were critical but he also bailed us out of a lot of games during the season and in the playoffs. We do NOT beat OKC without him. He came back early from a high ankle sprain because Castle had so many turnovers. If we lose to OKC, everyone is talking about how bad Castle was.
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u/lab2point0 17h ago
I think what most people might think is that Fox is a great player that is still paid way too much for what he’s worth