The San Antonio Spurs enter next season with a loaded backcourt. There are pros and cons to that, and certainly the Spurs didn’t plan for that to happen. But once the ping pong balls fell in their favor to land them the No. 2 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, it was all but guaranteed they’d add another player to their backcourt with Rutgers Dylan Harper on the board. After making it official on draft night, Harper joins a guard rotation that features reigning Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle and All-Star guard De’Aaron Fox, whom San Antonio traded for in February.
The immediate question centers around the odd man out. Fox certainly will be the starting point guard for the Spurs, and Castle will presumable slot in at the other backcourt position. That means Harper will find himself coming off the bench to start the season. That’s no problem in October, November and December, but what happens when Harper begins exceeding expectations so much that his performance demands that he should be starting? There’s always the possibility that he could start at small forward for the time being. At 6-foot-6 he has some size to contend at that position, though he’d need to put on some weight and muscle to really hold his own at that position. And given the Spurs’ trade to get Fox is still incredibly fresh, that may be the route San Antonio takes in order to have the most talent out on the floor together.
But Harper’s arrival may mean Fox’s days in San Antonio are numbered, at least one Western Conference scout thinks so, per ESPN. “If the 3-point shot ever becomes a true weapon [for Harper], he makes Fox expendable and gives San Antonio a nice trade asset,” the scout told ESPN’s Jeremy Woo.
Harper did not showcase a consistent 3-point shot in his lone season at Rutgers, shooting just 33% on roughly five attempts a game. He similarly struggled to find rhythm from beyond the arc in Las Vegas Summer League, going 1-for-8 on attempts in two games. That’s an incredibly small sample size, and his mechanics are there to suggest that he can become a serviceable threat from long range in due time. The timing of that, however, may suggest how long Fox is in San Antonio. He enters next season on the final year of his contract, making him a free agent in the summer of 2026. The Spurs have reportedly been “hopeful” to sign Fox to an extension before he reaches free agency, but that could change over the course of the season if Harper’s development moves quicker than what San Antonio may have anticipated.
If that’s the case, Fox could become a trade candidate at the deadline in February once again, which could help the Spurs fill out other parts of their roster that need more depth to surround Victor Wembanyama with. While it’s a conundrum for the Spurs to figure out, it’s a great position to be in given all the talent they now have at their disposal to pair with Wemby. And who knows, perhaps Fox does stay in San Antonio long term to be the starting point guard, and Harper becomes a Sixth Man for San Antonio for the first few years of his career. Or maybe Harper passes Castle who gets moved to a bench role. The point is, the Spurs have options, and we’ll see what they decide to do once the season gets going.
