Spurs’ Dylan Harper dismisses De’Aaron Fox concerns: ‘That’s kind of my uncle’

Dylan Harper’s rookie season went about as well as an NBA rookie season can go without ending in a championship.

The Spurs guard earned first-team All-Rookie honors, helped San Antonio reach the NBA Finals and established himself as a major part of the franchise’s future. Still, losing to the Knicks took some of the shine off everything that came before it.

“I took a few weeks off after the season,” Harper said in an exclusive interview with Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson. “Allowed myself to gather my thoughts. Just assessed the whole year plus the Finals and just understand moving forward what I have to do and what I need to do for myself and for the team for us to get over that hump.”

The other question involves De’Aaron Fox. Harper started just four games as a rookie, largely because Fox remained ahead of him.

That arrangement naturally led to speculation about whether two prominent ball-handlers can continue sharing the same backcourt. Harper doesn’t sound especially worried.

“Fox basically took me under his wing my whole first year and helped me and allowed me to grow in this space,” Harper told Scoop B. “Me and him never had a problem.”

He added that he has never understood why playing multiple ball-handlers together is automatically considered a problem. The Spurs, after all, reached the Finals while doing exactly that.

More importantly, Harper described Fox as someone who taught him how to grind, manage games and navigate the league. Their families are close, too.

“That’s kind of my uncle,” Harper joked.

So, no, this doesn’t sound like a feud. It sounds like a 20-year-old guard learning from an established one while preparing to take on more.

The Spurs can sort out everyone’s official job title later. Reaching the Finals suggests the current arrangement isn’t exactly broken.