Three Guards, One Alien, and the NBA’s Scariest Experiment

By Google News Sports · 2026-11-09T14:25:13+01:00

Stephon Castle, De’Aaron Fox, and Dylan Harper shared the court for just 69 minutes across the entire regular season and playoffs last year. Some of that is a testament to San Antonio’s seemingly endless lineup combinations, and some of it’s because Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson was being rational. Why play three point guards with iffy outside shots at the same time?

It’s a perfectly understandable decision! But when Harper made the transformation from gifted rookie to bona fide revelation in the playoffs, everything changed. As a 20-year-old who didn’t even compete in the NCAA tournament, Harper displayed a shocking level of comfort on basketball’s grandest stage. In five Finals games against the New York Knicks, last season’s no.

2 overall pick averaged 18 points and made 60.9 percent of his 2-point shots. Harper got where he wanted, casually bullied defenders in the paint, and had a fearless demeanor that belied his inexperience. It was a series of slim margins, and had Johnson been more willing to unleash Harper alongside Fox and Castle, San Antonio might have raised another banner. That’s how good he was.

In a constructive way, Harper’s breakout disrupted San Antonio’s hierarchy, complicating what should’ve been a more traditional pecking order. Fox is a 28-year-old multiple-time All-Star who just started a max contract, and Castle is a Rookie of the Year–winning defensive dynamo who packs winning intangibles into every possession.

The Spurs would still be a contender if Johnson kept the status quo, brought Harper off the bench, left Julian Champagnie in the starting five, and maintained a rotation that showed it’s capable of making the Finals. (Last season’s starting five sported a net rating of plus-19.2, which is ridiculous.)

But sometimes it’s necessary to be proactive. To me, restricting a special talent like Harper would’ve been too conservative, and demoting Fox or Castle was never realistic considering their standing, experience, and value. That left one option: letting all three work together. As Johnson clarified last month, altering the Spurs’ starting lineup was a “natural evolution that will still take time.”

No team can be the ultimate version of itself unless its best players can play together. That’s fundamentally why the Spurs decided to start Harper.

And, even with several risks baked into the decision—it couldn’t have been easy for Johnson to intentionally break up a starting five that obliterated the league last season—the thought of unlocking an even more dangerous version of the team was, understandably, enticing.

Stephon Castle, De’Aaron Fox, and Dylan Harper

After a slow start, the Spurs have spent the past couple of weeks reestablishing themselves as a title contender. Their 8-2 record is tied for the best in the league, and they currently rank first in net rating.

Victor Wembanyama is the first-, second-, and third-easiest way to explain this team’s success, but there have also been stretches in which Fox, Castle, and Harper look like they were born to play basketball together. These three dynamic, two-way players are learning how to complement each other while simultaneously allowing Wemby to simplify his game and be the most dangerous version of himself we’ve ever seen.

Finding enough minutes, shots, and touches for all three guards should be viewed as more of an opportunity than a dilemma. Harper, Fox, and Castle are, on the surface, duplicative, but each one brings something different to the…

Originally published by Google News Sports