The San Antonio Spurs received a major blow as De’Aaron Fox was ruled out for Game 1 of their Western Conference Finals series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Without their veteran point guard, the Spurs rolled out the youngest starting lineup in the NBA’s history for a team in the conference finals.
Dylan Harper, the 20-year-old rookie, replaced De’Aaron Fox as the point guard in the starting lineup. He started the game alongside Stephon Castle (21 years old) at shooting guard. Devin Vassell, the 25-year-old wing, was the oldest player in this starting five, at small forward.
The power forward was Julian Champagnie, the 24-year-old sharpshooter, and of course, their star center, Victor Wembanyama (22 years old). The average age of this starting lineup is 22 years and 346 days. This starting lineup is 279 days younger than the previous recordholders, the 1977 Trail Blazers team that won the championship.
Without De’Aaron Fox available, they are missing an elite closer who was averaging 18.8 points, 5.8 assists, and 3.5 rebounds in the playoffs so far before right ankle soreness sidelined him tonight.
The Spurs had a hint that they would be without Fox and Luke Kornet heading into Game 1 against the defending champions. Their head coach, Mitch Johnson, dove into the Spurs’ game plan and addressed the players’ potential absence shortly before it was confirmed that Fox is out tonight, while Luke Kornet was upgraded to available.
“I expect De’Aaron and Luke to play if they can. It’s one of those deals that’s not going to go away for as long as we play, I believe. And I know they’ll do everything they can to play,” he said initially.
“Probably a little overblown. Most of the time, we know how teams are going to match up. Sometimes, based on the staters that look can be a little bit different because of the starters. I believe that can be what we’re coming out of in terms of as your own team, and you don’t want to overadjust and react to the opponent.”
“Sometimes you may want to do something to get yourself to a different type of start. So whatever it is, we will know what it looks like for the most part in terms of matchups,” Johnson added with confidence about the starting lineup they ran with today.
Already after the first half, Victor Wembanyama became the first player in the past 24 seasons (since Chris Webber did it in 2002) to have a double-double in the first half of their first-ever Conference Finals appearance. He became the first player on the Spurs since Tim Duncan did it in 2012 to have a double-double in a single half of a Conference Finals matchup.
Three quarters into Game 1, the Spurs are currently ahead 80-73 against the defending champions. All eyes will now be on Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle to keep the team rallying ahead to steal game 1 on the road against an opponent that they beat four times in five meetings in the regular season.
