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Devin Vassell has been at the center of the Spurs\u2019 turnaround and also at many of the team\u2019s community events.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an excitement bubbling in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s something that combo guard Devin Vassell hasn\u2019t felt before.<\/p>\n
Vassell, in his sixth season, is one of the longest tenured Spurs, and now that the team is headed back to the playoffs, there\u2019s a surge in excitement and attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely different in San Antonio right now,\u201d Vassell said recently. \u201cEven going to the grocery store, everybody\u2019s excited. \u2018The Spurs are back!\u2019 This is the stuff I\u2019ve always heard about San Antonio and the Spurs. The fan base is huge and they love the Spurs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vassell, the 11th overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, is a link to the great San Antonio teams of the past.<\/p>\n
He played with veterans LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMar DeRozan and Rudy Gay as a rookie, and he\u2019s part of the wave of young talent taking the league by storm. The Spurs are loaded with up-and-coming youngsters like Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant, not to mention veterans like De\u2019Aaron Fox.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarter and Dylan call me, \u2018the youngest OG in the league,\u201d and it\u2019s funny to even hear that because I am only 25,\u201d Vassell said. \u201cBut I\u2019m going through my sixth season and I\u2019ve seen a lot. I\u2019ve had a lot of different teammates. I\u2019ve seen the ups and the downs.\u201d<\/p>\n
In San Antonio, that means a playoff drought. Vassell\u2019s Spurs haven\u2019t won more than 34 games in any season before this one, their 50-win and playoff breakthrough.<\/p>\n
Through it all, he said, he kept working and working and believing in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to say it was hard to believe, but it was definitely tough going through it as a competitor,\u201d he said of the Spurs\u2019 struggles. \u201cYou want to win. And when you\u2019re not winning and not used to being in that position, it\u2019s definitely tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what makes this season feel all the more rewarding.<\/p>\n
Right now, everything is coming together. Everybody on the team is embracing their role, even if that means sacrificing shots and sacrificing personal goals. That can be hard for a young player to understand, but in San Antonio, it\u2019s part of the culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get rewarded with wins. You get rewarded with your teammates having good games,\u201d said Vassell, who\u2019s averaging 14.2 points per game in 58 games. \u201cEverybody playing for each other is the biggest thing, and I feel like that\u2019s just the Spurs way, honestly. Everybody passes up a good shot for a great shot. Having your brother\u2019s back is what we\u2019ve preached since I\u2019ve got here and it\u2019s great to see it working right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vassell, who joined the Spurs during the COVID-shortened 2020-2021 season, hasn\u2019t just been omnipresent on the court over the last five years. He\u2019s also been one of the team\u2019s most familiar faces participating in fan and community events.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s represented the Spurs all over San Antonio, participating in sneaker givebacks at local high schools and Christmas events at the Boys and Girls Club. He even hosts a kids\u2019 basketball camp in the offseason; he\u2019s held one in his hometown of Atlanta for a few seasons, he says, and last year, he held one in San Antonio for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get so caught up in the lifestyle and everything\u2019s about us and basketball,\u201d Vassell said. \u201cWe have goals and ambitions, but then we take a step back and realize there\u2019s people who need help. Sometimes just being in their presence is what they need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right there next to him, witnessing his good work, are his parents Cynthia and Andrew Vassell Sr. Vassell said that he was taught to value giving back to the community as a youngster, and it means the world to be able to share it with his parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been out here for almost as long as I\u2019ve been out here,\u201d he said. \u201cAnytime I have anything to do in the community, they\u2019re always there. They\u2019re at all the home games. A lot of the coaching staff jokes around a lot because most of the away games, they\u2019re at them too. They\u2019re my support system. They always have my back with basketball and anything. If I have events in the community, I know for sure they\u2019re going to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Andrew Vassell Sr. and Cynthia Vassell, Devin Vassell\u2019s parents, are regular fixtures at games and at his community events.<\/p>\n
The Spurs were thrilled to clinch a playoff spot, Vassell said, because it was one of the season\u2019s primary goals. But they only let themselves enjoy it briefly because they have such bigger goals on the horizon.<\/p>\n
They want to be champions, and they want to establish a place for themselves in the firmament of both their franchise and the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, all of us in that San Antonio Spurs uniform, we\u2019ve never been there,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re obviously excited, but that\u2019s not the end goal. It\u2019s just one step.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where do the boundaries of a championship season begin and end?<\/p>\n
Vassell said the team\u2019s camaraderie off the court has been just as great as it is on it.<\/p>\n
And when asked about the team\u2019s outstanding player \u2013 center Wembanyama, a true MVP candidate \u2013 he said it\u2019s only the beginning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s huge to see where he came in to see where he\u2019s at now,\u201d he said of Wembanyama.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a mindset thing and a confidence thing and I think he knows now that basically he runs the league. On both sides of the floor, he can do things that nobody else in the league can do. And when he\u2019s playing with that kind of confidence and when he\u2019s playing at the MVP level he\u2019s playing at right now, we\u2019re a really, really, really, hard team to beat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Devin Vassell has been at the center of the Spurs\u2019 turnaround and also at many of the team\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[245162,355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-551140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-devin-vassell-spurs","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}