The San Antonio Spurs entered the 2024-25 season with championship aspirations, but a shocking revelation from rookie Stephon Castle has exposed why those dreams crumbled.
Despite Victor Wembanyama’s stellar 24.3 points and 11.0 rebounds per game, the team finished 34-48 and missed the playoffs. Castle’s bombshell?
The Spurs held just eight team practices throughout the entire 82-game season, a stunningly low number that coincided with head coach Gregg Popovich’s season-ending health crisis.
Castle’s Revelation Stuns NBA Fans
During a recent Twitch livestream, Castle casually dropped information that raised some eyebrows through the basketball community.
Stephon Castle says the Spurs only practiced 8 times during the season pic.twitter.com/jLy5v7lmcj
— 🥽 (@spursbeliever) June 27, 2025
The contrast was stark for the 20-year-old guard. At UConn, where he appeared in 34 games, Castle experienced daily practices as part of the collegiate routine. His rookie NBA season saw him play 81 games for the Spurs while participating in just eight formal team practice sessions.
Castle offered his perspective on why practice time was so limited.
“We got so many games like back to back,” he explained during the stream. “You know, like we are always traveling and long ass season, 80 games, we can’t practice like college. In college, we would have played like what, 30-40 games.”
Popovich’s Health Crisis Reshapes Spurs Season
While NBA teams typically practice less frequently than college programs due to the demanding schedule, eight practices for an entire season represent an extreme outlier. The explanation may lie in the unprecedented circumstances surrounding the Spurs’ coaching situation.
Popovich, who guided the franchise for 29 years and accumulated 1,422 career wins along with five championships, coached only the first five games of the season. On November 2, he suffered a stroke at the Frost Bank Center, beginning an absence that would ultimately end his legendary coaching career.
The uncertainty surrounding Popovich’s condition lingered for months. The Spurs announced in February that he would not return for the remainder of the season to focus on recovery.
His official retirement came in May, when he transitioned to a new role as President of Basketball Operations. Assistant coach Mitch Johnson, who served as interim coach following the stroke, was promoted to the head coaching position.
Silver Lining in a Turbulent Season
Despite the organizational upheaval and limited practice time, Castle emerged as a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing campaign. Selected fourth overall in the 2024 NBA Draft, the guard averaged 14.7 points, 4.1 assists, and 3.7 rebounds per game in his debut season.
His impressive performance earned him the 2024-25 NBA Rookie of the Year award, making him the second consecutive Spur to claim the honor following Wembanyama’s win the previous season. Castle joins an exclusive group of Spurs rookies to win the award, including Tim Duncan and David Robinson.
The limited practice schedule raises questions about how the Spurs will approach team development under Johnson’s leadership. With a young core featuring Wembanyama, Castle, and newly drafted players Dylan Harper (second overall) and Carter Bryant (14th overall) from the 2025 draft, establishing a more traditional practice routine could be crucial for maximizing the team’s potential.
The season also saw Wembanyama’s campaign cut short when he was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder following the All-Star break, ruling him out for the remainder of the year. The convergence of coaching changes, health crises, and minimal practice time created a perfect storm that derailed what many expected to be a breakthrough season for the rebuilding Spurs.
