San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich may never have been more dialed into the Spurs’ draft preparation than the two-plus months that followed the final game of last season, a victory over the Detroit Pistons at Frost Bank Center on April 14.
“I wish the next season started (tomorrow),” Popovich famously vowed as that trying season concluded. “I need about a week-and-a-half and I’ll be ready to go.”
For over two decades, Popovich’s involvement in preparation for the NBA Draft was secondary to his role as head coach. During the longest stretch of continuous playoff appearances in league history (22 straight), the Hall of Fame coach’s team went to six NBA Finals and 10 Western Conference finals. His prep was all about the next game so he relied on then-general manager R.C. Buford and his subalterns to oversee the Spurs draft board, their picks often among the final few of the first round.
For the draft that began Wednesday night at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center, his enthusiasm for vetting draft prospects may have been at an all-time high. The reason was evident to hoops fans worldwide: Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 center from Paris whom the Spurs made the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft, the consensus NBA Rookie of the Year and a member of the NBA’s All-Defensive first team, had put together a monumental season with highlights that left observers shaking their heads, mouths agape.
Wembanyama has shown the world he has a chance to develop into one of the greatest players in the game’s history. One of the most significant aspects of what has come to be known as the Wemby Effect was the joy it brought to Popovich, who turned 75 during his young star’s first season.
So, Popovich was an avid participant in every aspect of the draft preparation, including personally interviewing players the team brought to town in the weeks leading to Wednesday night. The Spurs made University of Connecticut guard Stephon Castle the No. 4 overall selection, the third-highest pick for the team since 1997. Only their selections of Tim Duncan (1997) and Wembanyama (2023) with No. 1 overall picks were from more advantageous spots.
“I’ll say this,” Spurs general manager Brian Wright said when asked about Popovich’s increased role this time around. “I’ve been incredibly impressed by the entire group. This is probably one of the most collaborative draft processes I’ve been a part of across all of basketball operations. It was great to see, and I think the outcomes were great tonight.”
Castle, just 19, had his very first personal interaction with Wembanyama not long after NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced his selection.
“We were just talking about coming down to San Antonio and (I) just can’t wait to get to work,” Castle said in New York. “Just excited for our future and excited for this upcoming season.”
Called the most impactful perimeter defender available by many observers, including ESPN draft guru Jay Bilas, Castle seems an ideal fit for a Spurs team that intends to leverage Wembanyama’s rim protection and end-to-end defensive excellence to return to an era akin to that which produced one long playoff run after another behind such outstanding defenders as Duncan, David Robinson, Sean Elliott, Mario Elie, Manu Ginóbili, Bruce Bowen and Tony Parker.
Wright said there is much more to like about the 6-foot-6 Castle than his defensive chops.
“He’s very versatile. He’s tough. He’s smart,” Wright said. “Most of the time you don’t see highly rated players go to a school and be willing to play a role. He played on the ball and off the ball in high school and was doing things he just wasn’t able to showcase at UConn because they were so good. They were deep and they were experienced. And so that experience to sacrifice for the betterment of the team is something that stood out to us, as well.
“He’s smart, he’s a team-first guy, he’s a hard worker and he comes from a program where they’re getting coached hard every single day. They work hard, they practice hard, they’re competitive and they execute. And that meant a lot to us.”
In other words, Castle seems like the perfect addition. He even wore a silver and black suit to the draft.
“Well, what I picked for the draft wasn’t intentional,” he said in his post-draft interview. “But I guess it all really worked out. I guess I kind of manifested it to happen for me.”
It may well be that the Spurs believed Castle to be the only perfect player. What they did with the No. 8 overall selection, acquired from the Toronto Raptors (in exchange for Jacob Poeltl in 2023), spoke volumes about their opinion of the entire 2024 draft class. They traded the pick to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
About an hour after the first round concluded, the Spurs revealed they had received Minnesota’s 2031 unprotected first-round pick and a protected 2030 pick swap, hardly a bonanza in return for such a high first-rounder. That, too, seemed like a mini referendum on the weakness of the 2024 draft class.
Castle may prove one of the exceptions to the belief that the draft class lacks potential impact players. The knock on his game has been his long-distance shooting — he made only 26.7 percent from 3-point range in his one season with the Huskies — but Wright believes Castle’s shooting mechanics are sound enough for improvement. Wright points to his 75.5 percent shooting from the foul line as a starting point.
“With mechanics and free-throw percentage you break the season up into stretches,” Wright said. “He missed some time. How did he shoot coming back from injury? How did he finish the season?
“I think you look at all these things and on a team like Connecticut, you don’t have the ability to shoot yourself out of a slump sometimes. You get eight shots or seven shots sometimes. You don’t get 18 shots to shoot yourself out of a bad shooting game. So, you have to take the whole context into the equation. We believe he’ll continue to improve there. And it starts with who he is as a kid and how hard he works and we believe he’ll make strides.”
In Popovich, Castle will find an analog to Connecticut head coach Dan Hurley, who is renowned for coaching his players hard.
“I was just playing for the best coach in college basketball,” Castle told the media a few minutes after shaking hands with Silver. “And now I’m slipping to the NBA and going to play for a legendary coach like Coach Pop.
“It’s a blessing.”
(Photo of Dan Hurley and Stephon Castle: Jamie Schwaberow / NCAA via Getty Images)
