The San Antonio Spurs came back from down 15 points in the second half, and Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle should have officially surpassed De'Aaron Fox.
The San Antonio Spurs won Game 3 on Friday night against the Portland Trail Blazers, 120-108. The Spurs trailed by 15 points in the third quarter, before Dylan Harper put the team on his back, dragging the Spurs to as big as a 15-point lead of their own in the fourth quarter.
With Victor Wembanyama out, the Spurs were billed as De'Aaron Fox's team before tip-off. However, he looked slow, uninspired, and sloppy to kick the game off. The Spurs' backcourt was instead carried by Stephon Castle, who offered 33 points (20 in the first half!) and Harper, who added 27 of his own (career-high!).
While Harper and Castle are both raw, their ability to take over when it mattered most shone through. Fox, meanwhile, signed a maximum contract extension last summer with the Spurs, but has not lived up to his 2023 Clutch Player of the Year Award.
In San Antonio, it seems that the future is now.
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Jrue Holiday is still one of the best two-way players in the NBA, and remains one of the gutsiest players in the league. He went nuclear, scoring 29 points for Portland, and was very likely the best player on the court all game long, although the duo of Castle and Harper, combined with excellent defense down the stretch, kept the Spurs in the game.
When the Spurs drafted Harper second overall in 2025, pairing him with Wembanyama and Castle, fans expected that Fox would remain the offensive engine of the team until the young guards had taken their time to develop.
The Spurs traded for and then extended Fox with the expectation that he would be a postseason leader who could carry them in the event that Wembanyama missed time with injury.
In Friday's game, Fox was given an opportunity to do both. He finished with 18 points and six assists, not a bad stat line by any means, but after scoring only 17 points apiece in Games 1 and 2, it's safe to say that Fox has not been the franchise leader he was expected to be.
The saving grace was easily Harper and Castle, who covered their veteran teammates' shortcomings. Castle has already cemented himself as a key piece of the Spurs moving forward, and if Harper can continue to prove himself as a playoff riser, then Fox's long-term position in the Spurs' rotation is dubious at best.
When the Spurs signed Fox to the extension, it was very apparent that he might be traded before it ended. After all, with Harper waiting on the bench and Catsle ready to take over as a primary ball-handler, the Spurs could embrace youth.
After Friday's showing, that seems to be more of an inevitability than every before.