SAN ANTONIO - Stephon Castle knew he was walking into a little bit of nonsense at Spurs Media Day, even if he didn’t want to deal with it in the moment.
He was at the podium when he glanced over and spotted Devin Vassell and Carter Bryant standing behind the reporters. Vassell had his hand up, and he had a question ready for Castle.
"What's up, bro?" Castle asked reluctantly, turning to his right to see Devin Vassell and Carter Bryant standing behind four rows of reporters. Vassell had his hand raised.
"Who's got more bounce?" Vassell queried.
"You or Carter? And why is it Carter?"
Castle didn’t hand Bryant the win, but he did answer before the two eventually drifted off together: it was him.
That kind of back-and-forth fits the relationship Bryant has built with Vassell, a veteran he now leans on constantly. The rookie has been taking notes from him for a while, and not just when the jokes are flying.
"He's been amazing," Bryant said Wednesday of his relationship with Vassell. "I'm just going to keep learning from him. He's willing to teach me and I'm here to learn from him."
Bryant arrived in San Antonio a season ago after being drafted with the No. 14 pick of the 2026 NBA Draft. His defense was already there, and his offensive game looked promising. What he still needed was time, experience and confidence.
The early stretch of his pro career came with plenty of self-reflection and more than a little self-doubt. At night, he’d go home wondering whether the work was actually showing up.
He kept himself close to the team’s veterans, trying to absorb whatever he could. One of his favorite habits became watching Vassell get shots up after practice, and that fly-on-the-wall approach has since turned him into somebody the staff and locker room notice.
"He's a gym rat," Vassell said. "Every time I come in here, he's in the gym.
He's always learning. He's always asking coaches questions ...
I think he can have a really good year."
Vassell is heading into his seventh season, and that number lands harder now that younger players keep calling him "Unc." He doesn’t love the nickname, but he has embraced the responsibility that comes with being one of the older voices on a team fresh off an NBA Finals berth.
"They're lucky, right?" Vassell quipped before turning serious.
"I (do) feel like I have that demeanor. I've been here for 7 years.
I understand that. I've been around some good vets."
That leadership role didn’t come overnight. Vassell had to figure things out early in his own career on a team that was stuck near the bottom of the Western Conference. LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Gay and Patty Mills helped set him on the right path during his rookie season in 2020-21.
Now he sees a bit of that same path in Bryant, who played just under 10 minutes per game in the playoffs and took only 44 shots. Vassell believes the young guard is pointed in the right direction.
"He has a lot of upside," Vassell said. "He just needs to understand (that) playing simple, playing the right way, will get you a long way. I'm going to try and keep him under my wing."
Both players have also had to sit with disappointment. Vassell handled the aftermath of Game 5 of the NBA Finals and started processing it on the walk to the car. Bryant’s version took longer, full of the kind of replaying and second-guessing that lingers after a run ends.
"New York did the right things," he explained. "They kept at it, and that's what good teams do.
They just persevere and keep going ... and they came out on top. I think I've watched every single game we played in the Finals back at least 15 times each."
Even though most of his first playoff trip came from the bench, Bryant is already thinking about how he can help if the Spurs get back there. He doesn’t expect his value to mirror Vassell’s, but he wants to matter just as much.
"I want to be a matchup nightmare," he said. "One through five, being able to guard multiple positions, contest shots at the rim, be a rim protector (and) ... make life hard for anybody."
He’s also got bigger ambitions than that. Bryant wants to become the best basketball player in the world. For now, though, he’s taking the same patient approach he’s seen from his veteran mentor.
"Maybe one day we'll look up in 8 or 9 years and I'll be in those conversations," Bryant said, "but as of right now, I'm just trying to win basketball games ... that's how I'm going to get to that point one day. (By) understanding what I can provide for this team."
The Spurs’ next step will depend heavily on players like Vassell and Bryant, and Vassell isn’t interested in pretending anything has already been earned.
"We're not guaranteed a No. 1 seed," Vassell said. "We're not guaranteed to be in the playoffs.
We're not guaranteed any of this stuff ... and we didn't win anything. So, at the end of the day, nobody's satisfied.
We're just ready to get this thing back rolling."
Bryant is clearly paying attention. As his role grows, so does his confidence in the work that got him here. But on one point, he doesn’t need any more time to decide where he stands.
"I love Dev," Bryant said. "He became my favorite player in the NBA after last year ...
I hit him after the season and told him I have so much respect for him. If he was on any other team, he'd be a 20-to-25-points-a-night guy.
Easily. He's so skilled, so talented."
"The sacrifices he took for us to make that next step as a team (are) amazing," he added.
In Other News...
Spurs Title Hopes Now Ride On Stephon Castle Becoming More
The Spurs did not spend the summer tearing up a roster that reached the NBA Finals, so the next step in San Antonio is supposed to come from inside the building. A lot of that burden lands on Stephon Castle, whose second NBA season brought visible growth as a shooter, defender and playmaker, enough progress to make him look like a player the Spurs can trust in bigger moments.
What they need now is more offense, and more often, from a young guard the team believes can rise to an All-Star level. If Castle makes that leap, it would give San Antonio another layer alongside De'Aaron Fox and Victor Wembanyama, and make the Spurs less dependent on any one route to scoring when the games tighten in the spring. [Read more 🡒]
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Around the division, the conversation keeps circling back to how much roster flexibility still matters this time of year. For the Spurs, Harriss arrival adds useful depth, but it also sharpens the competition at the back end of the roster, where every spot has to be justified and every practice matters. With training camp shaping up to be more revealing than usual, San Antonio may soon have to make one of those uncomfortable decisions that comes with trying to balance present value against long-term plans. [Read more 🡒]
Spurs Backcourt Debate Is Putting Devin Vassell In A Tough Spot
The Spurs are in the middle of a rotation puzzle that could shape how their backcourt looks going forward, with Stephon Castle, De'Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper all part of the discussion as the team weighs whether all three can share the floor in a starting role. However that shakes out, Devin Vassell has still emerged as one of the cleaner fits in the mix, thanks to the kind of off-ball gravity and shot-making that can keep an offense organized even when the guard alignment is still being sorted.
Vassell's value is not just in what he creates for himself, either. He averaged 13.9 points and 2.5 made threes per game in the 2025-26 season, and his efficient shooting helped keep him in a prominent offensive lane. For a Spurs team trying to balance talent, spacing and roles in the same backcourt, that makes Vassell one of the more important pieces to preserve as the conversation around the lineup continues. [Read more 🡒]