The news that De’Aaron Fox will miss the final month of the season because of injury didn’t surprise his San Antonio Spurs teammates. Perhaps the announcement came a couple of days early. But it wasn’t unexpected, especially to Devin Vassell.
Directly following an early March game at the Sacramento Kings, which marked his first meeting against his former team since the trade a month before, Fox revealed insight regarding the nagging finger. He told reporters that he and the Spurs planned to have the pinky on his dominant hand examined in mid-March when they’d be in Los Angeles because the related doctor practices there. He then went a step further, admitting that surgery could occur right there.
The day before news of the surgery became public, one of Fox’s teammates discussed the possibility.
”I want De’Aaron to make the decision that’s gonna ultimately be best for him,” Vassell responded about whether the 27-year-old star might undergo a procedure before the season ends.
Anticipating that De’Aaron Fox could miss the rest of the season as he tended to that injured left pinky, here’s Devin
Vassell ahead of yesterday’s game…“I want De’Aaron to make the decision that’s gonna ultimately be best for him…”
Full answer
#Spurs #GoSpursGo #PorVida pic.twitter.com/Exi3nm6Nw0
— Hector Ledesma (@HectorLedesmaTV) March 14, 2025
The Spurs are scheduled to arrive in the City of Angels on March 16 to face the Lakers the next day. Following a San Antonio victory over the Dallas Mavericks three games before that Lakers match-up, Fox again alluded that the injured tendon in his left hand would be repaired with some expediency.
“It’ll get fixed soon enough.”
“I’ve been playing with it the whole season. A lot of the time I just say, it is what it is. But, I mean, I scored 60. I scored 60 with it and then I had 49 the next night with it. You try to just get through it,” Fox continued.
The Spurs have since announced that surgery on Fox’s left hand is scheduled for March 17 in Los Angeles.
De’Aaron Fox and Devin Vassell spoke of injury hours before surgery announcement
The Spurs’ second-leading scorer for the better part of the last three seasons, Vassell, slipped to third with the arrival of De’Aaron Fox. Ahead of the announcement of the procedure, the 24-year-old Spurs guard contemplated the big picture while discussing the possibility that Fox would miss the rest of this season.
“Obviously, it’s something that we all know he needs to get fixed. I don’t want to sit here and speak on what he should or shouldn’t do. I just want to make sure that he’s good and that he’s healthy because I know when he is healthy he’s going to help this team tremendously,” Vassell said.
The decision comes just weeks after Victor Wembanyama’s season ended because of blood clots.
“Obviously, I would love to have all five of my fingers and not have one get in the way or not have somebody tape them together,” Fox shared. “It happened the second day of training camp so at that point, I’ve got to play.”
Drifting further out of Western Conference’s Play-in contention, the decision to go forward with season-ending surgery became an easier one for the Spurs, even if Fox didn’t talk about it much with his teammates.
“He hasn’t really explained the injury, I guess, to me so I don’t really understand how it affects him during the game or however it does,” Vassell revealed.
As revealing are his wishes for Fox.
“I want to make sure that he’s good, that he’s healthy.”
Turns out, that’s the plan for the fall, not the spring, of 2025.
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