Spurs' 3-Guard Lineup In Review: When Will 'Flowers' Bloom?

Tuesday's opener for the San Antonio Spurs featured the much-ballyhooed three-guard starting lineup, with De'Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper teaming up with Victor Wembanyama.

The idea?

“I can tell you,” Harper said. “There’s gonna be better days to come with that lineup.”

Did it work in the opener vs. OKC?

It did not, as the defending West champs flopped in a 116-104 loss featuring Victor Wembanyama going 1-of-13 from the floor.

And those three guards?

They scored. But they didn't win.

And how about in. Friday's second game of the season, against Houston?

Once again, points weren't the problem. But the Spurs dropped to 0-2 nevertheless with a 114-110 loss.

“Whether you grow flowers or plant things in the yard to look at every day, there’s not (always) much to look at,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said before the game. “You just need to give us some time.”

Johnson first put that group on the floor to start a game Oct. 14, a 123-103 home win over the Phoenix Suns. It was Fox's first preseason game after he missed the first three. Vassell had 12 points, six rebounds, and three steals.

Devin Vassell, the fifth starter, met with reporters last week. The starting five had not had many reps together, and Tobias Harris was still missing from the full group.

"I like it," Vassell said. "To come down and you have to worry about, you don't know who to pick up. It's Fox, it's Dylan, it's Steph. We have all five ball handlers that could come down and attack the basket and make a play, so I think it's gonna be tough for other teams. Obviously, it's not gonna be perfect. We're just figuring it out right away, offensively, defensively. It's gonna take its time."

"But that's the lineup that Mitch is playing out there. I'm excited for it, and we're going to get better. Every single time we step out on the court, we're going to get better. We're going to trust each other more. It was our first time really, really playing together, so we're going to have our good, we're going to have our bad, and we just got to learn from it," Vassell continued.

Fox, Castle, and Harper played 25 minutes together during the 2025-26 regular season and had a minus-26.9 net rating. They were plus-10 in 11 minutes in their first start together against Phoenix. Fox has pointed to shooting as the key to the group.

Vassell said he showed through the playoffs that he can be physical.

"That is kind of crazy, right? Just be more physical," Vassell explained. "I think through the playoffs, I showed that I can be physical. I know, obviously, a big emphasis is going to be rebounding, and so it's going to be different matchups. But I think the same way that you might say it's tough for us to maybe guard a bigger four, a bigger four is going to have to guard us on the other end, too."

"So we'll figure it out. When we have our anchor down there with Vic, we just got to make sure that we can't rely on him too, too much, and we still got to board. Dylan, with Steph, with me, we're all bigger guards, so we got to be able to get down there and crash," Vassell added.

Wembanyama, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, averaged a career-high 11.5 rebounds last season. San Antonio closed the preseason Friday with a 126-97 win over the Sacramento Kings.

In 23 playoff starts last spring, Vassell averaged 13.0 points and 5.3 rebounds. During the regular season, he averaged 13.9 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.5 assists in 67 games, 65 of them starts. He shot 38.4% from 3-point range.

San Antonio drafted Vassell 11th overall in 2020 out of Florida State, and he turned 26 in August. In October 2023, he signed a five-year, $146 million extension with the Spurs. His best scoring season came in 2023-24, when he averaged 19.5 points. Julian Champagnie started next to him on the wing for much of last season, and Keldon Johnson won Sixth Man of the Year coming off the bench.

San Antonio and the Oklahoma City Thunder bring the best out of each other.

"Right into the fire. That's what you want as a competitor, play against the best teams," Vassell said. "And so to start off our season in front of our home crowd against OKC, we know the atmosphere is going to be — we're just excited for it."

Oklahoma City went 64-18 last season, two games better than San Antonio. The Thunder also won the 2025 championship, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won MVP for a second straight season. Vassell scored 12 points and had two blocks in the Spurs' 118-91 win in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, which San Antonio won in seven.

The Spurs' defensive rating of 111.3 ranked third last season. Vassell wants the Spurs to get back to those habits.

"That's what we hang our hats on," Vassell said. "As much as we have all the talent in the world, defensively, if we could get stops when we're playing on transition, there's no team that can guard us. So if we can focus on that and get back to those habits and be even better than last year, [we'll] be a really tough team to beat."

Maybe it's all about Wemby not experiencing the poorest shooting night of his life. Or maybe it's about Johnson and those flowers needing time to bloom. ... starting Saturday with a visit to the 1-1 Dallas Mavs.