MINNEAPOLIS — There may be some magic in the wristband that bonds the Slash Bros together.
The Spurs’ three point guards, De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper, have become a special group within the locker room. They call Fox “Unc.” He chuckles, shakes his head, yells, “I’m only 28!” then they laugh as they walk out of the room. As they scurry away, a keen eye could catch the black wristbands dangling past the hems of their sleeves.
Fox has worn it for years. It’s a thick rubber band, fused by his logo as the centerpiece. It holds on tightly to each flick of the wrist from the All-Star point guard. It’s there when he catches fire and there when he’s holding ice.
He takes it off after games, putting together a sleek business casual outfit that calls for a Patek Philippe or Rolex timepiece to class up his wrist. The band serves its purpose during the game, then goes back in the bag until it’s called upon again.
However, Harper’s isn’t going anywhere. It’s a gift from Unc. He cherishes it. He shows it off proudly.
Harper’s post-game attire ranges from Nike track suits to Nike track suits, or just his Spurs gear if he doesn’t feel like getting classy. Walking out of his news conference following the Spurs’ 139-109 Game 6 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves to advance to the Western Conference finals, he excitedly flicks his wrist to reveal his version of a “Rollie Presidential.”
“It’s his logo, we wear it every game,” Harper tells The Athletic. “Supporting the brand. Fox is my vet, so me, him and Steph wear it. I asked for his band, and it became a thing.”
Around midseason, Harper wanted to be like Unc. He asked about the wristbands, thought it would be cool to make some and started the process.
“He was like, ‘I’m gonna get my agency to get me some,’ ” Fox tells The Athletic. “Then he got some and he was like, ‘I only play well in yours.’ ”
Fox dropped off a pile of Fox bands, and then Castle wanted in, too. He kept giving them more, but they kept losing them. Kids will be kids, after all.
“I keep enough for me, but it’s dope, man,” Fox says. “Seeing those young guys and the way they look up to me, it’s fun.”
Now, this is where the magic comes in — around the time the Slash Bros became the Band Bros, Castle and Harper’s 3s started going down. Not, like, getting a little better. They went from shooting in the 20s from beyond the arc to the 40s in the blink of an eye. Magic.
The team that appeared to be ahead of schedule went from a maybe to an absolutely.
The Spurs embarked on an undefeated run in February and looked like certified contenders from there. Now, the fourth team to go from the lottery to 60 wins is taking on the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, a franchise that swiftly but steadily climbed the ladder over several years, for a chance to go to the NBA Finals. That certainly sounds like the definition of ahead of schedule.
“I’m not being facetious,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said Friday night, “but ahead of schedule of what?”
Whether it be their own projections — the players were talking about making it out of the Play-In Tournament during training camp — or historical precedent, this team, by any measure, is ahead of schedule. They arrived early thanks to the overwhelming presence of Victor Wembanyama, but that strength is channeled through the Spurs’ point guard triumvirate.
A trio, cobbled together out of necessity after some unexpected fortune, that wasn’t supposed to work together. It looked like a Frankenstein backcourt on paper before the ball ever bounced.
How would a veteran point guard, Fox, who is not a knock-down shooter, play next to a tweener guard, Castle, who absolutely cannot shoot, and a rookie phenom, Harper, who needs free range to develop (and also cannot shoot)?
It turns out that with a little magic and trust, it can exceed the wildest expectations. This team is not making the conference finals without the trust that Fox has shown his protégés, and the admiration they’ve reflected right back.
“I think it’s dope and it’s something that I don’t take for granted,” Fox said in his postgame news conference. “Having guys who are this talented, have watched me throughout my career and then we get to be in the same locker room and get to be on the court together, it’s something I love.
“And I want them to feel that success from as early as you can get in your career, because you never know when those things can come back around.”
Fox takes pride in giving them little tidbits he calls a cheat sheet for navigating the league. The coaching staff gave Castle the breadth to make mistakes and play through them, getting frequent reps running point until people stopped having the “Is Steph Castle a point guard?” conversation.
Johnson trusts Fox to help them learn the ropes, see the bigger picture and find patience amid the chaos they create. But when Johnson was asked what he thinks Harper and Castle have learned from Fox, he wasn’t even sure.
“I don’t know what those guys learned. They just go. I’m being serious,” Johnson said. “They’re as coachable as anybody that we have. They listen when we tell them stuff. And then they get on the court, and they’re just like attack dogs and they just go.”
Their main instruction from the coaching staff is to go in there and be tenacious, trusting Fox to figure out how to let the game breathe.
“(Coach Johnson) says the best quality is being relentless,” Harper said. “We try to put our imprint on the game right out of the gate. (Castle) does a great job of doing that, and when I come in the game, I try to just put that imprint and just be that attack dog that Mitch called us.”
Castle and Harper play with a combination of power, grace and balance that makes them both unstoppable at times. Castle does so often enough to already be a star in his second season. Harper looks primed for a comparable leap next season. The Wolves were good candidates to stop them, but they couldn’t do it.
In Game 6, the Spurs trio combined for 68 points on 25-of-34 (73.5 percent) shooting and 19 assists. The 21-year-old Castle passed Luka Dončić to become the youngest player in NBA history with 30 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and five 3s in a game, per Stathead.
The only players to have 30 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in the playoffs, without factoring in 3s, are Magic Johnson, LeBron James (three times), Paolo Banchero and Dončić. But you have to factor in the 3s, because it’s ironic that Castle is the one doing it after the way his season started.
“It feels good. It’s definitely a blessing,” Castle said. “I feel like there’s somebody on our team that breaks a record every few games.”
For this trio, it’s only fitting that the one who appeared to be the worst shooter at the beginning of the year is pulling this off. Their whole brotherhood is founded on this genuine sense of not caring who gets to shine.
“They really don’t care who gets the credit. They don’t care whose number is called,” Spurs wing Devin Vassell said. “It’s just great to be a part of it, because at the end of the day, nobody’s selfish. Everybody just wants to win.”
They and everyone else in that locker room understand the bigger purpose beyond themselves. It’s not just to the team. It’s the emergence of a baby GOAT, a basketball transformation in Wembanyama. They have a responsibility to the sport itself to nurture Wembanyama’s greatness.
When Fox has been asked about putting aside his ego to play second fiddle to Wembanyama, he’s always laughed and said something like, “What are you talking about? It’s Wemby.”
It’s never been easier to ask an All-Star to sacrifice than it was to ask Fox to run pick-and-rolls with Wembanyama. The irony is that he had, essentially, the worst statistical output of his career and became an All-Star for it. He is absolutely loving his role on this team because he has escaped the basketball gulag that has been the Sacramento Kings for the gold standard of NBA franchises.
However, he didn’t know that stepping into a mentorship role would become so rewarding. Fox is training the guys who could one day replace him. The reward of finally winning and enjoying it outweighs whatever comes down the road.
Harper feels the same way. He could’ve had his own team, as Cooper Flagg does, or been the key starter who revived his franchise like Kon Knueppel.
After some of the dominant performances he’s had this postseason, conversations with people around the league have been more about whether he can win an MVP one day than they are about whether he should start.
When asked about being a sixth man Friday night, Harper interjected that Keldon Johnson is the sixth man. Fair enough, considering Johnson won that award. But Harper is a sixth man of tremendous importance, and that’s more than good enough for him today.
“Just being in the position I’m in, all year was like, did he get drafted to the wrong spot?” Harper said. “I never thought about that because I kind of knew how good we were. And I knew the impact that everyone brought to the table. I knew that we could do things like this.”
He didn’t know that one of the greatest gifts he’d receive all season was a pile of wristbands. Those pieces of rubber, the official apparel of the Slash Bros, holding tight to every flick of the wrist.
A constant reminder that he, Fox and Castle ended up in the right spot.