The San Antonio Spurs have to be raring to run it back after they came so close to winning it all in 2026 — only for a few late-game hiccups to mess it all up and deny them a championship. While the New York Knicks deserve all the credit in the world for making it difficult for San Antonio and actually mounting those comebacks, the Spurs must be feeling as though they well and truly shot themselves in the foot in the NBA Finals.
The Spurs brought back all of the key members of their 2025-26 roster that won 62 games in the regular season, and just to make things better, they added veteran forward Tobias Harris to give them even more weapons to deploy on the wing. They have everything they need to compete for a title — with many believing that they're the odds-on favorite to win the title in 2027.
Suffice to say, there is no need for San Antonio to rock the boat. Their young core led by Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper is only getting better. They have veterans, such as Harris and Harrison Barnes, to guide the team. Mainstays Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson, and Julian Champagnie are still around.
But there is always room to improve, even for a team as complete as the Spurs'. To that end, here are three potential trade candidates who could find themselves involved in rumors heading into the 2026-27 season.
De'Aaron Fox
If Spurs fans were to blame anyone for their inability to close out the Knicks in multiple games in the 2026 NBA Finals, they would immediately point the finger towards De'Aaron Fox. Fox was brought in during the 2025 trade deadline to come in as the team's lead point guard of the future, but he did have his moments of shame in the grandest stage last season.
He most notably decided to lay the basketball up in the closing seconds of Game 4 of the NBA Finals instead of dribbling it out to burn a few more seconds off the clock. This allowed OG Anunoby to block his layup, give the Knicks back the basketball, and this set up Anunoby's game-winning tip-in heard 'round the world.
This offseason, many fans implored the Spurs to trade Fox away — especially when they have Dylan Harper, who impressed throughout the playoffs despite being just in his rookie campaign, looking primed to take over the reins. However, Fox has four years left on the contract extension he signed, and he'll be making a total of $221.7 million — making him basically impossible to trade away.
The Spurs aren't just about to dump the salary of Fox, not when his presence at least gives the team more stability from a ballhandling standpoint. San Antonio surely must have noticed that their offense tends to run more smoothly when Fox is at his best. For instance, whenever Fox would miss a few games here and there, Castle's turnover problems seemed to be more pronounced.
But the Spurs will have to mind the second apron soon enough. Wembanyama already signed his huge contract extension, and Castle will have to sign his next year. Trading Fox appears to be the easiest way for San Antonio to ease their cap burden for the long haul.
Nevertheless, the most likely outcome here is that San Antonio keeps Fox until the end of the 2026-27 season, giving him a shot at redemption in silver and black. But if Fox loses the plot once more come postseason time, the unrest from fans is only going to get louder, and the Spurs may have to take action by then.
Keldon Johnson
Johnson is the reigning Sixth Man of the Year, and he remains the beating heart of the Spurs locker room. He also happens to be the longest-tenured member of this roster, with San Antonio drafting him all the way back in 2019.
Article Continues BelowSuffice to say, Johnson has been through in and out of the ringer with the Spurs, so from an emotional standpoint, he deserves to reap the rewards as well now that the team around him has blossomed. He still has a role to play for the team anyway as a microwave scorer off the bench and as a leader behind the scenes.
But no one can deny the fact that Johnson was exposed during the 2026 NBA playoffs. His offensive game is very limited. He bowls over defenders with his physical play, and playoff teams know how to gameplan for this, making him a magnet for charge calls. He flourishes whenever he's allowed to carve up defenses with his straight-line drives, but when he's walled at the rim, he doesn't have enough playmaking juice to make defenses pay.
This made him an easy player to defend, and the Spurs' offense seemed to sputter when he would come in as one of its focal points. He only played 17.9 minutes per game in the playoffs, and he was even worse during the NBA Finals — averaging just 4.4 points and 3.0 rebounds on 35/38/42 shooting splits in 15.0 minutes per contest.
He's now in the final year of his contract, making $18 million for the 2026-27 season. There is no way the Spurs will be trading him considering how important he is to the locker room. If anything, they may want to sign him to a cheap contract extension.
Nonetheless, his importance to the team on the court has declined even more now that they have Harris, a much more complete offensive player. And if the Spurs need to utilize his $18 million salary to bring in a contributor in the event of (knock on wood) an injury, no one should be surprised if Johnson were to be traded.
Luke Kornet
The Spurs' signing of Kornet last offseason made sense; they wanted another tall rim protector to back up Wembanyama, and they can even pair the two in supersized lineups. But the 2026 NBA playoffs exposed Kornet in a way similar to Johnson — his emphatic block on Isaiah Hartenstein in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals notwithstanding.
San Antonio had to play Wembanyama huge minutes because lineups with Kornet tended to struggle. As a result, Wembanyama seemed to lose steam towards the end of games. Kornet's lack of mobility became an issue at times as well.
The Spurs aimed to rectify that by drafting two center prospects in the 2026 NBA Draft, and this could make Kornet surplus to requirements as a result. Again, San Antonio most likely will be keeping their entire roster as it is throughout the 2026-27 season, but Kornet's status as a trade piece is something to monitor nonetheless.