Stephon Castle joins Victor Wembanyama in exclusive club with second award win
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As blossoming star Stephon Castle has set himself up as the inevitable winner of this season’s NBA Rookie of the Year, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the San Antonio Spurs guard has captured his second Rookie of the Month award.
What might be surprising, however, is the company that Castle now keeps among the greatest players in franchise history. After also taking home the honor in January, the national champion with the UConn Huskies last year joins David Robinson, Tim Duncan and Victor Wembanyama as the only Spurs ever to win the award multiple times.
Stephon Castle’s standout March within a very good season
Through 17 games in March, Castle started 10 of them. He averaged a rookie-best 19.5 points to go with 4.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 28.8 minutes. The 2025 Rising Stars MVP scored in double figures in 15 of 17 contests, including nine with 20-or-more, with four of those performances coming off the bench. He was the only rookie to make more than 100 field goals, with 118 in the month. Castle’s 70 free throws made led all first-year players and his 81 assists ranked second. From March 14 to March 29, the 20-year-old guard/wing player enjoyed a streak of nine games where he put up at least 15 points, becoming the sixth Spurs rookie all-time with such a streak.
Castle averaged 25.5 points, 6.3 assists, and 6.3 rebounds against the top three defenses in the league throughout the month. On March 2, vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder, he finished with 32 points, eight rebounds, and three assists. He followed that with 22 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists at the Cleveland Cavaliers on March 27. Two nights later, he recorded 22 points, eight assists, and two rebounds vs. the defending champion Boston Celtics.
The first-year guard handed out a season-best 14 assists to go along with 17 points, five rebounds, and three steals in a 128-120 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on March 21. He’s the first rookie since Josh Giddey, who accomplished the feat on January 1, 2022, to put up those stats in the same game.
Castle is the only rook with more than 1,000 points this season. Among rookie league leaders, he ranks first in scoring at 14.2 points per game, field goals made with 372, and free throws made at 210. He’s second in steals, averaging .95 per contest, and fourth in assists, tallying 3.7 per night.
Castle joins Spurs legends with his Rookie of the Month win
Both Robinson (1989-90) and Duncan (1998-99) won all six Rookie of the Month’s in their respective first years as professionals. As of the 2001-2002 season, the NBA honors a rookie in each conference. Wembanyama captured the West award in each of the final three months last year on his way to a unanimous Rookie of the Year nod. All three were number one overall picks. Like Wemby, Robinson also won the ROY unanimously, while Duncan’s 113 votes came up just three shy of getting all of the tabulations.
Castle was taken fourth overall this past summer. Only Spurs legend Sean Elliott, who went third in the 1989 draft, has been drafted higher in Spurs history among players not named Duncan, Robinson, and Wembanyama. He’s on track to join them again in a little more than a month as the NBA Rookie of the Year winners.
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