Spurs fans won't be thrilled with increasingly likely outcome for this season

The San Antonio Spurs fell on the road against the Orlando Magic on Saturday, 112-111. They were playing on the second night of a back-to-back, and it was the second night in a row where they ended up losing by a single point to an Eastern Conference team. Ironically, San Antonio has played in three (out of three) one-point games since De'Aaron Fox got to town.

Unfortunately, the Spurs have been following a pattern as of late. Ever since Jan. 23, for every win they have picked up, they have then lost their next two games after that. It has been a frustrating trend to watch develop, but not one that looks to be changing anytime soon, either.

The hope has been that San Antonio can still build enough consistency over the course of the final one-third of the season to challenge for one of the coveted Western Conference play-in spots. And with the addition of De'Aaron Fox to the roster, that hope was looking promising. But now that the Spurs have lost two of their three games with Fox on the roster, we are seeing that perhaps the expectations were still too lofty.

San Antonio is angling toward missing the play-in

According to the San Antonio Express News' Jeff McDonald, Fox is currently suffering from a ligament injury in his shooting hand. He is "more than likely" to have offseason surgery to address this issue, but will continue to play through the ailment for the time being. However, as the losses keep stacking up for the Spurs, perhaps shutting him down for the season could come sooner than expected.

Lest we forget that San Antonio just recently signed Bismack Biyombo to help deal with their lack of frontcourt depth. This team is not exactly looking poised to make a big run to end the regular season and put them in prime position to secure a play-in spot. At the current juncture, it is looking more like they could actually pull the plug sometime post All-Star break to give themselves better draft positioning.

This is all purely speculation, of course. But if the Spurs are going to end up having to risk the long-term health of their point guard to maybe secure a postseason berth on the last day of the regular season or something of the like, it is not hard to envision them changing their direction. The fanbase may not like it, but the reality of this still being a rebuilding year is beginning to set in.