{"id":601626,"date":"2026-04-12T07:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T07:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/601626\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T07:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T07:35:10","slug":"stephon-castle-makes-his-picks-for-best-nba-player-defender-coach-and-team-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/601626\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephon Castle Makes His Picks For Best NBA Player, Defender, Coach, And Team Of All Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Antonio Spurs<\/a> have been one of the best teams in the NBA in this 2025-26 season, and guard Stephon Castle<\/a> is a big reason why. Castle has impressed in his sophomore season, so much so that he was announced as the latest cover athlete for SLAM Magazine on Thursday. That\u2019s quite an honor, and he also took part in a rapid-fire session with them where he gave his picks for best NBA player of all time and more.<\/p>\n

Q: \u201cBest NBA player of all time?\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephon Castle: \u201cMichael Jordan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: \u201cBest WNBA player of all time?\u201d<\/p>\n

Castle: \u201cI\u2019ll say, A\u2019ja Wilson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: \u201cBest basketball team of all time?\u201d<\/p>\n

Castle: \u201cWarriors with [Kevin Durant].\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: \u201cBest defender of all time?\u201d<\/p>\n

Castle: \u201cKawhi [Leonard].\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: \u201cBest coach of all time?\u201d<\/p>\n

Castle: \u201c[Gregg Popovich].\u201d<\/p>\n

Those were some fairly non-controversial selections by Castle. A certain Isiah Thomas<\/a> might take issue with his pick for best player, though.<\/p>\n

Thomas has questioned why today\u2019s generation still views Michael Jordan as the GOAT<\/a>. Well, it might have something to do with his phenomenal resume. Jordan<\/a> won six titles, six Finals MVPs, five MVPs, one DPOY, and 10 scoring titles in his storied career. Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> superstar LeBron James<\/a> is really the only challenger to Jordan for that GOAT title at this point. You can\u2019t go wrong with either of them.<\/p>\n

We get to Castle\u2019s WNBA pick next, and he went with Las Vegas Aces superstar A\u2019ja Wilson<\/a>. Wilson has won three titles, two Finals MVPs, four MVPs, three DPOYs, and two scoring titles. The 29-year-old still has time to add to that resume, which is a scary thought.<\/p>\n

Getting back to the NBA, Castle has the Kevin Durant<\/a>\u00a0and Stephen Curry<\/a>-led Golden State Warriors<\/a> as the best team ever. Durant and Curry took the Warriors to the NBA Finals in each of their three seasons together from 2016 to 2019. They first won it all in 2017, and set the NBA record for best winning percentage in a single postseason run by going 16-1 (.941).<\/p>\n

The Warriors would then defend their title in 2018 and could well have three-peated if not for injuries. Both Durant and Klay Thompson<\/a> went down in the 2019 NBA Finals against the Toronto Raptors<\/a>. Durant played only 12 minutes in total in that series, and the outcome certainly would have been different had he been healthy.<\/p>\n

The benefactor of those injuries was Castle\u2019s pick for the best defender, Kawhi Leonard<\/a>. Leonard was named Finals MVP following the Raptors\u2019 triumph, but it\u2019s not that accolade that we are focusing on here.<\/p>\n

Leonard is a two-time DPOY (2015, 2016) and has made seven All-Defensive teams. He was an outstanding defender at his peak, and if not for injuries, he would have been in the conversation for best defensive player ever.<\/p>\n

While it was unclear who Castle would have gone with for the first four questions, there was no doubt who his pick would be for the best coach. The iconic Gregg Popovich<\/a> was his head coach when he entered the NBA in 2024.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Popovich suffered a stroke five games into the 2024-25 season and had to step away from the team. He would then step down in May 2025, walking away from the game with an outstanding 1390-824 record.<\/p>\n

Popovich also won five titles with the Spurs and was named Coach of the Year thrice. He is unquestionably in that conversation for the greatest coach of all time.<\/p>\n

The Spurs haven\u2019t won an NBA championship without Popovich, and they\u2019re looking to change that this year. They have posted an excellent 62-19 record, and Castle unsurprisingly went with his own team here when asked who is winning the NBA title in 2026. It will be interesting to see how far the Spurs go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Antonio Spurs have been one of the best teams in the NBA in this 2025-26 season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-601626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}