Devin Vassell has been at the center of the Spurs’ turnaround and also at many of the team’s community events.
There’s an excitement bubbling in San Antonio.
And it’s something that combo guard Devin Vassell hasn’t felt before.
Vassell, in his sixth season, is one of the longest tenured Spurs, and now that the team is headed back to the playoffs, there’s a surge in excitement and attention.
“It’s definitely different in San Antonio right now,” Vassell said recently. “Even going to the grocery store, everybody’s excited. ‘The Spurs are back!’ This is the stuff I’ve always heard about San Antonio and the Spurs. The fan base is huge and they love the Spurs.”
Vassell, the 11th overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, is a link to the great San Antonio teams of the past.
He played with veterans LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMar DeRozan and Rudy Gay as a rookie, and he’s 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’Aaron Fox.
“Carter and Dylan call me, ‘the youngest OG in the league,” and it’s funny to even hear that because I am only 25,” Vassell said. “But I’m going through my sixth season and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve had a lot of different teammates. I’ve seen the ups and the downs.”
In San Antonio, that means a playoff drought. Vassell’s Spurs haven’t won more than 34 games in any season before this one, their 50-win and playoff breakthrough.
Through it all, he said, he kept working and working and believing in the future.
“I don’t want to say it was hard to believe, but it was definitely tough going through it as a competitor,” he said of the Spurs’ struggles. “You want to win. And when you’re not winning and not used to being in that position, it’s definitely tough.”
That’s what makes this season feel all the more rewarding.
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’s part of the culture.
“You get rewarded with wins. You get rewarded with your teammates having good games,” said Vassell, who’s averaging 14.2 points per game in 58 games. “Everybody playing for each other is the biggest thing, and I feel like that’s just the Spurs way, honestly. Everybody passes up a good shot for a great shot. Having your brother’s back is what we’ve preached since I’ve got here and it’s great to see it working right now.”
Vassell, who joined the Spurs during the COVID-shortened 2020-2021 season, hasn’t just been omnipresent on the court over the last five years. He’s also been one of the team’s most familiar faces participating in fan and community events.
He’s 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’ basketball camp in the offseason; he’s 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.
“We get so caught up in the lifestyle and everything’s about us and basketball,” Vassell said. “We have goals and ambitions, but then we take a step back and realize there’s people who need help. Sometimes just being in their presence is what they need.”
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.
“They’ve been out here for almost as long as I’ve been out here,” he said. “Anytime I have anything to do in the community, they’re always there. They’re at all the home games. A lot of the coaching staff jokes around a lot because most of the away games, they’re at them too. They’re my support system. They always have my back with basketball and anything. If I have events in the community, I know for sure they’re going to be there.”
Andrew Vassell Sr. and Cynthia Vassell, Devin Vassell’s parents, are regular fixtures at games and at his community events.
The Spurs were thrilled to clinch a playoff spot, Vassell said, because it was one of the season’s primary goals. But they only let themselves enjoy it briefly because they have such bigger goals on the horizon.
They want to be champions, and they want to establish a place for themselves in the firmament of both their franchise and the league.
“Obviously, all of us in that San Antonio Spurs uniform, we’ve never been there,” he said. “We’re obviously excited, but that’s not the end goal. It’s just one step.”
Where do the boundaries of a championship season begin and end?
Vassell said the team’s camaraderie off the court has been just as great as it is on it.
And when asked about the team’s outstanding player – center Wembanyama, a true MVP candidate – he said it’s only the beginning.
“It’s huge to see where he came in to see where he’s at now,” he said of Wembanyama.
“It’s 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’s playing with that kind of confidence and when he’s playing at the MVP level he’s playing at right now, we’re a really, really, really, hard team to beat.”