De’Aaron Fox plays video games Thursday during the Game in the Park event. Credit: Michael Gonzales
About an hour before ESPN dropped the news that De’Aaron Fox would undergo season-ending surgery to repair his injured pinky, the San Antonio Spurs guard was using his other fingers to play video games Thursday afternoon at The Rock at La Cantera.

Fox attended Game in the Park, a free event where fans came out to see the NBA star show off his gaming skills on computer equipment from Alienware. There to give Fox some competition was Fortnite gamer Ali Hassan — aka SypherPK — who has 10.4 million subscribers on YouTube and the 22nd most followed channel on Twitch.

SypherPK went live on Twitch Thursday while playing Fortnite with Fox inside the Alienware Mobile Gaming Lounge. After a few games of Fortnite, Fox and SypherPK had planned to go one-on-one in Dragon Ball, but technical difficulties stood in the way.

Instead, the duo went head-to-head on Golf with Your Friends. After 18 rounds of virtual golf, SypherPK bested the Spurs star by nine strokes. Too bad they didn’t go one-on-one on the basketball court or things would have been different.

“It’s been great. We had some fans in here playing Fortnite earlier,” Fox, 27, told the media after the gaming session ended. “Being able to interact with people is always a big thing for me.”

Fox agreed that he was a bit “rusty” playing Fortnite.

SypherPK said he “dodged a bullet” since their Dragon Ball plans didn’t pan out.

“It was a good time,” SypherPK added. “It’s always about meeting the fans and seeing their excitement.”

Fox said he’s enjoyed gaming since he was a kid. He said his wife, Recee, who played basketball for Lady Bird Johnson High School on the city’s far North Side, doesn’t like it when he spends too much time on the gaming console because it seems “more stressful than fun.”

“But that’s just being competitive,” Fox said. “It’s always fun to me. [Gaming] is just something to get away from basketball.”

Fox will have a lot more time to game now that his first season with the Spurs is over. Maybe he and Victor Wembanyama can have a little NBA 2K25 competition when they’re not cheering on their teammates from the bench during the next few weeks.

Just don’t rely on that pinky finger to push any buttons.

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This article appears in Mar 5-18, 2025.