Less than a week after ESPN’s Shams Charania reported the Sacramento Kings were open to trading All-Star guard De’Aaron Fox and that the San Antonio Spurs were Fox’s desired destination, the two teams combined with the Chicago Bulls on a deal Sunday that sent Fox to San Antonio and two-time All-Star Zach LaVine to Sacramento as his replacement.

Sunday’s three-team trade features seven players and multiple first-round picks on the move, with the Kings getting a pair of unprotected first-rounders and the Bulls getting back a protected pick this year that could have gone to the Spurs.

How did each team make out in the trade, and what implications could it have going forward, including the possibility of more moves before Thursday’s trade deadline? Let’s break down Sunday’s trade from all angles.

Jump to a grade:
Chicago | Sacramento | San Antonio

San Antonio Spurs get:

G De’Aaron Fox
G Jordan McLaughlin

Sacramento Kings get:

G Zach LaVine
G Sidy Cissoko
2025 first-round pick (top-14 protected; via Charlotte)
2025 second-round pick (via Chicago)
2027 first-round pick (via San Antonio)
2028 second-round pick (via Denver)
2028 second-round pick (own)

Chicago Bulls get:

F Zach Collins
G Tre Jones
G Kevin Huerter
2025 first-round pick (own; via San Antonio)

San Antonio Spurs: A-

Kudos to the Spurs for getting Fox without sacrificing the ability to continue adding to their core. San Antonio managed to hang on to all of its young talent of note by sending back little-used backup center Zach Collins as the primary matching salary rather than guards Keldon Johnson or Devin Vassell, both parts of the Spurs’ future.

Beyond that, San Antonio maintained access to all but one of its own future first-round picks, plus two other valuable assets. The Spurs retained both unprotected picks they have coming from the Atlanta Hawks, including one this year that’s looking increasingly promising with Atlanta on an eight-game losing streak and starting forward Jalen Johnson set to undergo season-ending shoulder surgery.

Additionally, San Antonio has Atlanta’s 2027 first-round pick and swap rights to the Hawks’ 2026 pick in between, plus swaps in 2028 (Boston, top-1 protected), 2030 (Dallas or Minnesota) and 2031 (with Sacramento). Factor in the Spurs’ young players, and they’ll still have the ability to add a third star if one fits into their salary structure. For now, they’ve committed to pairing Wembanyama with Fox, giving their budding superstar a long-term pick-and-roll partner.

Over the past three seasons, Fox has been among the NBA’s most dangerous pick-and-roll scorers. He ranks eighth among the 80 players with at least 500 attempts during that span by shooting an effective 54% in pick-and-roll situations, per Second Spectrum tracking. Opponents won’t want to switch on Fox-Wembanyama pick-and-rolls, giving both players advantages over their defenders, and traditional coverages probably will give Fox an avenue to either score or find his big man.

To set up Fox and Wembanyama for success, San Antonio will want to put maximum shooting around them. That’s where retaining Vassell was important. Vassell is a 37% career 3-point shooter whose high volume (6.5 attempts per game) puts pressure on opposing defenses. It suggests Johnson, who is shooting 31% from deep this season and 35% for his career, might be expendable. And it puts pressure on recent first-round picks Jeremy Sochan (29% from 3) and rookie Stephon Castle (27% from 3) to continue developing from beyond the arc.

Dealing for Fox speeds up the timeline for the Spurs while allowing them to further assess the value of their young players. In an ideal world, San Antonio might have waited longer to make a move like this. Fox is six years older than the 21-year-old Wembanyama and nearly seven years older than Castle.

The concern about how Fox might age on his next contract is also understandable, as he might need to improve his 3-point shooting to remain an All-Star-caliber player. He’s eligible for an extension this summer ahead of the final year of his contract and could sign in conjunction with a renegotiation that uses the Spurs’ cap space, bumping his $37.1 million salary to his projected max of $46.4 million.

Players similar to Fox — my SCHOENE projection system highlights Steve Francis as one example based on their production at the same age — have tended to lose value in their 30s.

It’s unclear if a perfect trade target would have ever come available for the Spurs, considering Fox named the team as a desired destination. Wembanyama’s precocious ability puts inherent pressure on the Spurs to build a team capable of making a playoff run sooner than later. San Antonio played this right by being aggressive in pursuit of Fox without being reckless.

It will be interesting to see if there’s time for the Spurs to make a run at the play-in tournament this season, considering competition that includes the new look-Kings, Dallas Mavericks and Stephen Curry‘s Golden State Warriors.

Whatever happens, this deal is more about setting up the Spurs for 2025-26 and beyond. With Wembanyama, San Antonio was already a rising threat in a Western Conference full of quality young teams. Adding Fox simply moves that closer to reality.

Sacramento Kings: B-

Dare we consider the possibility the Kings will actually improve the rest of this season thanks to this trade? Fox and LaVine have rated similarly in most all-in-one stats this season, and Fox’s play has been uneven over the 10 games since he returned from a brief absence because of a glute contusion in early January.

In that span, Fox’s usage rate has dipped to 23% of Sacramento’s offense — down from 29% before the injury — and he’s hitting just 44% of his 2-point attempts while also dealing with a sprain to his non-shooting right thumb. It’s probably just a slump, but it’s worrisome in the short term.

To some degree, LaVine’s high-volume 3-point shooting (7.3 attempts per game at a 45% clip this season, up from 39% for his career) could be a better fit for a Kings starting five featuring two low-volume 3-point shooters in DeMar DeRozan (2.7 attempts per game) and Domantas Sabonis (2.4 per game, though making 47% of them).

Of the 40 three-man lineups that have played at least 750 minutes together this season, according to NBA Advanced Stats, the Kings have four of the 10 lowest 3-point attempt rates that included the DeRozan-Fox-Sabonis trio. That’s hardly fatal offensively, but it puts something of a ceiling on Sacramento’s postseason offense.

We already know how well DeRozan can fit alongside LaVine from their three seasons together in Chicago. The LaVine-Sabonis fit should be natural, too. LaVine is used to working with a pick-and-pop center in Nikola Vucevic and has actually produced more points per chance from his pick-and-rolls this season than Fox’s, per Second Spectrum tracking.

The Kings might also need an organizer at point guard, or could rely on playmaking by committee as they did during Fox’s three-game absence — all wins, including one at Boston. Malik Monk averaged a team-high 8.7 assists in that span as Sacramento used only one nominal point guard, rookie Devin Carter.

The structure of this trade will give the Kings the ability to add salary before the deadline. They will be about $10.5 million below the luxury tax line with two open roster spots, and can use their $12.8 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception to take back contracts. Removing Huerter’s $18 million salary for 2025-26 also means Sacramento no longer has to sweat adding salary beyond this season.

This deal also gives the Kings more picks to trade. Saying they acquired three first-round picks overstates the case, as one of them is lottery protected from the Charlotte Hornets this year. When — not if — the Hornets miss the playoffs, that will convert into second-round picks in 2026 and 2027 to go with three other second-rounders Sacramento added. For a team that had only one guaranteed second-round pick to offer beforehand, that’s useful trade currency. I’d put high value on the unprotected pick coming from the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2031, though not as much as San Antonio’s own pick in 2027.

Still, I can’t help but wonder about the paths not chosen here. To little surprise, the Kings prioritized getting back current talent and cap flexibility over maximizing their draft-pick return by sending one of the three real first-rounders the Spurs surrendered to the Bulls for LaVine.

As effective as LaVine has been this season, adding him carries risk. The offer sheet LaVine famously signed with Sacramento as a restricted free agent in 2017 — matched by Chicago — contained protection for the team in case of issues with LaVine’s left knee after he sustained an ACL tear in February 2017 while playing for the Timberwolves. Since then, LaVine had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in May 2022 and had season-ending foot surgery last February.

LaVine has managed to come back looking much like the high-flying star who was an All-Star in 2021 and 2022. For this trade to work, the Kings will need LaVine to keep that up over the remaining two seasons on his deal beyond 2024-25.

Chicago Bulls: B+

The Bulls’ side of the trade is a bit more positive from the big-picture standpoint than in terms of the details. Moving LaVine while he’s healthy and playing well is the kind of realistic self-assessment we haven’t seen from Chicago in recent years, when the Bulls have resisted tearing down a roster with little upside.

Trading LaVine might set up Chicago to make more trades involving veterans by Thursday’s deadline, with center Nikola Vucevic a strong candidate while he’s playing at a high level and Lonzo Ball in the final year of his contract. I also wonder whether Jones is rerouted before the deadline, as the Bulls still have a crowd in the backcourt without LaVine.

Besides dealing LaVine, Chicago provided the other two teams in this trade a spot to send their unwanted salaries. Collins and Huerter will make a combined $36 million in 2025-26 and had played a combined 217 minutes in January. The Bulls could have created a modest amount of cap space this summer but now will probably be better off staying over the cap and using full Bird rights on guard Josh Giddey.

Undoubtedly, that’s the right approach for a Chicago team that is currently eight games below .500 and even in the loss column with the Philadelphia 76ers for the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference. This group was going nowhere, and the Bulls’ focus should be on adding to their base of young talent rather than chasing a play-in appearance.

The worst-case scenario for Chicago was somehow slipping to 11th in the lottery and sending the pick to San Antonio to complete the trade that brought DeRozan to the Bulls in the first place. By getting that pick back, Chicago has taken that possibility off the table and doesn’t have to sweat the lottery any of the next three seasons.

But it’s worth considering whether the Bulls might have valued the return of their own pick more than an equivalent selection from another team. It’s possible depending on how Chicago rebuilds that the Spurs might never have gotten the pick, which would have converted to a 2028 second-round pick after top-8 protection in 2026 and 2027.

Still, I’m not going to quibble much with the Bulls making a move with a longer view than we’re used to seeing. And it’s possible Chicago could get more out of this trade by rehabilitating Huerter’s value. His decline from a key part of Sacramento’s 2023 playoff team by shooting a career-high 40% from 3 to making just 30% beyond the arc this season has been mysterious.

Huerter is a 37.5% career 3-point shooter, so it’s 2024-25 that is the outlier much more than 2022-23. Perhaps a change of scenery will help Huerter get back on track.