{"id":823088,"date":"2026-08-23T11:28:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T11:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/823088\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T11:28:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T11:28:20","slug":"open-thread-happy-birthday-to-devin-vassell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/823088\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread: Happy birthday to Devin Vassell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Today is Devin Vassell\u2019s twenty-sixth birthday. What a roller coaster ride for such a young man. In his professional life, he was drafted eleventh overall in 2020. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, his first season was truncated. The team was in disarray, at least by Spurs standards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The year before Vassell was drafted, the Spurs played their last playoffs. That summer, they drafted Keldon Johnson, now the longest tenured member of the squad. Ever since, they had not had a winning season or played in a playoff game\u2026until 2026. The Spurs went from a 34-48 record in 2025 to a 62-20 record that not only introduced the Spurs draftees to the postseason, it took the team to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Vassell commented during a postgame press conference that he and Johnson had been working toward this for a long time. He referred to KJ as his \u201cbrother\u201d as he shared a heartfelt moment about the team making the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">From the drafting of Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, and Carter Bryant to the addition of veterans De\u2019Aaron Fox, Harrison Barnes, Luke Kornet, Kelly Olynyk and Bismack Biyombo through the finding hidden gems Julian Champagnie, David Jones Garcia, and Jordan McLaughlin, the team made a huge leap last season. And Vassell was an integral piece to their success.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">When not in season, Vassell hosts a variety of basketball camps both in San Antonio as well as in his home state Georgia. He joined some teammates in visiting Victor Wembanyama this summer, indulging in art and culture while working out and staying sharp.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The ceiling on the Spurs is significantly higher than it has been in years, and after their Finals appearance, the next steps promise to be the most exciting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Happy birthday, Devin, may all your wished come true this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Welcome to The Thread. Join in the conversation, start your own discussion, and share your thoughts. This is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/nba\/teams\/san-antonio-spurs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spurs<\/a> community, your Spurs community. Thanks for being here<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.poundingtherock.com\/community-guidelines\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">community guidelines<\/a> apply which should remind everyone to be cool, avoid personal attacks, do not troll and watch the language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today is Devin Vassell\u2019s twenty-sixth birthday. What a roller coaster ride for such a young man. In his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,179227,99],"class_list":["post-823088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio-spurs-discussion","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823088","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=823088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}