There was a time when there was at least an ember of a thought that the San Antonio Spurs might want to eventually trade Stephon Castle. Nobody from inside the Spurs ever said or even hinted at that, just to be clear, but you know how the Twitter GMs get to dreaming stuff up.
Constructing their ideal Victor Wembanyama support staff, they pointed to San Antonio’s guard glut after they traded for De’Aaron Fox and drafted Dylan Harper and posited that one of them could feasibly go. If Castle’s shooting didn’t come around, perhaps he would be the short straw — especially if a certain player from Milwaukee were to become available and a premium young asset was needed to anchor an outgoing package.
Fast forward to mid-December and ESPN’s Brian Windhorst is saying the Spurs are so head over heels in love with Castle that he’s “not sure they would trade him for anybody in the league.”
Draymond Green took it even further when he recently said on his podcast that “the Spurs are just as lucky to have Stephon Castle as they are to have Wemby.”
We can all agree this is a touch of hyperbole, but you get the point. Castle is a two-way monster. Everyone sees it. His performance over the three NBA Cup elimination games — 30 and 10 in 27 minutes against the Lakers, 22 in handing OKC its second loss of the season, 15 and 12 in the final that actually doesn’t count on paper — had Stan Van Gundy and Dwyane Wade gushing like new parents.
The Spurs are already something of a defensive cheat code when they pair Castle’s perimeter pressure with Wembanyama’s paint protection. When those two have shared the floor together this year, the Spurs have outscored opponents by 13.5 points per 100 possessions with a 102.9 defensive rating, which would rank higher than the No. 1 Thunder, who might be the best defense in history.
Any concerns about Castle’s offensive upside are quickly being laid to rest, as well. He’s one of six players averaging at least 18 points, six assists and five rebounds on 50% shooting. His 3-point accuracy remains a work in progress, but he looks more comfortable than his 28% clip would indicate and he’s making 62% of his 2-pointers, almost a 25% uptick from the 50% he made in his Rookie of the Year campaign.
The book on him is still to give him a cushion because he’s not going to hurt you with pull-up 3s, but what he is going to do is chew up the runway in front of him. Castle’s 13.6 drives per game are up from 9.4 as a rookie, and when he gets into the paint, he’s a 70% finisher inside the restricted area and 54% outside, the latter being a major jump from the 34% clip he posted as a rookie.
Castle isn’t a blow-by guy. He works angles. Changes direction. When he snakes his way into space and fades away, you can see a lot of Chris Paul.
When he gets into your body and uses his strength and balance to separate into those gray-area step-backs, there’s a lot of Jimmy Butler.
It might feel premature to start drawing superstar comps for Castle, but with Butler in particular, there really are a lot of similarities. The two-way impact. The poise with which he pursues his scoring spots. The ability to finish through contact, so natural playing off two feet, generating more lateral than vertical leverage, the timing of his pump fakes as he puts you in jail under the rim. There’s some finesse there for sure, but force would be the one-word description for guys like Butler and Castle.
Versatility, too. Prior to the season, Spurs coach Mitch Johnson praised Castle’s proven ability to succeed in various roles, with and without the ball, and that’s going to be, and has been, a vital part of his value. Castle isn’t the traditional floor spacer that Harrison Barnes has become. You can’t put him into the 3&D box that a Devin Vassell fills. He probably isn’t an A1 scorer like Fox, and ultimately, he may not even be the pure point guard that Harper looked poised to become.
What makes Castle so uniquely valuable is that he has shades of all these things. A sort of supercharged Josh Hart in this way (if you want to keep the comps more modest for the time being) — a born ball pusher who plays both ends with action-junkie energy and stuffs every inch of the stat sheet.
Earlier this month, Castle joined Magic Johnson as the only players in history to have posted at least 250 points, 100 assists and 90 rebounds on at least 50% shooting through the first 15 games of their second NBA season.
In his two games since the NBA Cup, Castle has tallied 34 points and 14 assists on 66% shooting. He has made 12 of his 13 two-pointers. His playmaking is advancing on an almost nightly basis. His improvement as a catch-and-shoot threat, especially if you leave him alone (almost 40% on unguarded C&S 3s, up from 34% last year, per Synergy), bodes well for his viability as an adequate floor spacer alongside Wemby, Fox and Harper.
“Stephon Castle is a winner,” Draymond Green says. “He’s been a winner his entire life. And I think Stephon Castle has brought the winning ways to the San Antonio Spurs.
“The Spurs are a winning organization,” Green elaborated, “but they’ve been losing for a while and you’ve got to get those ways back. And Stephon Castle to me is one of the ultimate winners. He’s one of those types of guys. … He’s a winner. He changes cultures. He’s won at every level he’s played at. And he will continue to win bigger and better at this level.”