No, the criticism wasn't nuanced, it was just about fans who haven't seen enough of Fox thinking that he's a different player than he actually is.
Described as an undersized, inefficent low effort chucker by the most clueless person on Spurstalk on the day he joined.
Instead we got a player who's everything opposite of those things he's being accused of.
So far he's playing on elite efficency.
Doesn't force things, in fact it looks like Mitch had to tell him to take more shots and be more selfish over the past few games.
His C&S 3pt looks great, meaning there won't be any issues when he's off the ball.
And most importantly, he's a way better defender than anyone advertised.
I said it when he joined, playing with competent rim protection instead of layup lane Sabonis will be a huge difference, but I didn't expect Fox to be this good defensively.
Don't get me wrong, he'll never be an all-NBA defender, he very well might be the best all-star point guard defender among regularly sized gurads.
Maxey, Mitchell, Brunson, Harden, Curry, Booker, Murray...Fox is a way better defender than all of them.
He's also better than Cade and Luka, despite the size difference.
SGA is the only great defender among elite lead guards.
And that's a huge thing for us, especially come the playoffs.
Fox guarded both Booker and Avdija for some stretches over the past two games. Not by mismatch hunting, but by design. And while he's obviously not an elite defensive stopper, he's maybe even the fastest player in the league and has elite hands. His steals aren't a product of him gambling the passing lanes all the time like Dejounte did, but he'll actually punish careless handles.
Which is enough for him to be a respectable defender and I doubt we'll ever see him being the designated target on defense like it's the case with all those lead guards I listed.
SGA is the only guard sized player who could really hurt Fox in their matchups, but he hurts everyone, can't do much about it.
As for the suboptimal things, he's obviously not an elite passer.
But he's smart enough to know his limits and it doesn't look like he'll throw many errant passes.
Those 6 assists he's averaging will be just enough.
Sidenote, but both C&S 3pts Harper took also looked really smooth and natural, I don't think Fox/Harper/Catle lineups will be an issue spacing wise.
Due to the already mentioned and somewhat unexpected defensive skills Fox has, that lineup won't have any size issues in most matchups.
As for his contract, I really hate how people are either 0 or 100 about it, when as per usual the truth is always inbetween.
There's almost always a compromise in trades.
The only reason we got Fox is that he was dirt cheap considering the instant impact value he adds and his preference to go to the Spurs were the decisive factor.
The compromise is that we had to give him a max extension, no questions asked. That was obviously pre-arranged before he even joined.
Is paying Fox 30% of the cap too much? Probably. (Don't mention 50, 60 or whatever million numbers when that's irrelevant, max contracts are given based on cap percentage.)
But it's not a massive overpay, he's surely a 25% player.
And most importantly we won't have any cap issues for two more years after this one and we won't be in the luxury tax for three more years.
And those tax issues will happen only if both Castle and Harper play their way into max extensions, which will obviously be a great thing for us.
And even if we get into those tax issues, it's going to be only for one year because Harper's first year of extension would be Fox's last year.
If the ownership can't afford one year of luxury tax on a top contender, what are we even talking about?
Fox will also always have value and be easy to trade unless catastrophic injuries happen, but that's a risk with every max contract.
If we decide to trade him in 2028 or 2029, it's going to be easy enough because he'll have 2 or 1 year left on his deal and be just 30/31.
Most teams are desperate to get a guard of his level and even if he declines a bit, he'll still be a great player. We won't get a haul back for him, but he'll never enter negative asset territory.
Another thing is that all the young contenders have overpaid players on their roster. That's how things function if you're competitive with a bunch of rookie contracts.
Is Hartenstein worth $28M a year? Not really, but only his final year causes cap issues and they can get out of it.
Bottom line is that Fox haters club is obsessed with a hypothetical situation that could happen in 2028 at the earliest while he's winning us games right now.
We were fucking garbage by Spurs standards for 5 years, we get arguably the best player we ever traded for, but not only that he wanted to come to the Spurs which was unheard of for decades, even during the best years, but it's still not enough for some of you doomers. Something always has to be wrong. You'd be happy only if we got a 25 year old KD 2.0 for 3 SRPs and Zach Collins.
At least try to look at things from a realistic angle from time to time.
(This isn't referring to just you, but a huge number of Spurs fans that can't understand all the variables required to pull of a Fox-like trade.)
