By Marilyn Dubinski | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2024-07-17 19:00:00
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
新赛季什么时候才能开始？
虽然斯蒂芬·卡斯尔在拉斯维加斯夏季联赛中因手腕扭伤仅出战了三场便提前退出，但这并不妨碍他给人留下深刻印象——而且不仅仅是马刺球迷。在《The Ringer》近期的一篇文章中，罗伯·马奥尼(Rob Mahoney)在谈到他对夏季联赛（目前为止）的五点观察时，对卡斯尔赞赏有加：
格雷格·波波维奇(Gregg Popovich)将很难把斯蒂芬·卡斯尔按在板凳席上。
作为一名NBA精英主义者，我的乐趣之一就是有机会向更广泛的篮球世界介绍崭露头角的新面孔，所以请允许我第一个报道：斯蒂芬·卡斯尔非常出色。作为上赛季NCAA最强球队中的最佳球员之一，你根本无法预知他在NBA赛场上的表现，因为只有夏季联赛才是试金石——这是最纯粹的篮球，没有战术安排和场上化学反应等因素的干扰。在一个美其名曰AAU锦标赛的舞台上，更确切地说，是在卡斯尔因手腕受伤退出拉斯维加斯夏季联赛之前的那场比赛中，我们看到了卡斯尔的真实实力。
那场比赛真是精彩绝伦。即使在夏季联赛这种级别的比赛中，卡斯尔也能凭借直觉打出制胜球，他能够看到那些天赋平庸的球员看不到的机会，并打出那些运动能力不足的球员无法完成的精彩表现。关于卡斯尔的投篮和场上位置的质疑不可避免，但这些几乎无关紧要；看他与这些准职业球员交手，最令人震惊的是，你会意识到，在他的职业生涯初期，想把他按在板凳席上是多么困难。马刺为什么要放弃这样一位能够自然而然地影响比赛的控球后卫呢？让卡斯尔上场，看看他能创造什么奇迹吧，无论是通过在进攻端压制对手，还是通过突破撕裂对手的防线。那些技术娴熟、理论丰富的球员很有趣，但那些几乎是本能地、仿佛与生俱来就能改变比赛走势的球员也同样令人着迷。
新赛季有很多值得期待的地方，比如自由球员市场的引援和维克托·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)的潜在成长，但也不要低估卡斯尔的影响力。他沉着冷静的性格可能会让你有时会忽略他的存在，而且俗话说，永远不要对夏季联赛反应过度，但在短短的几场比赛中，卡斯尔仍然成功地创造了另一种期待，这将使人们对新赛季的等待更加漫长。
点击查看原文：Open Thread: Stephon Castle receives high praise for Summer League performance
Open Thread: Stephon Castle receives high praise for Summer League performance
When will the regular season get here again?
We only saw Stephon Castle in three summer league games before he was shut down following a fall in Las Vegas that resulted in a sprained wrist, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t make an impression — and not just on Spurs fans. In a recent article from The Ringer about five observations from the Summer League (so far), Rob Mahoney had the following to say about Castle:
Gregg Popovich is going to have a hard time keeping Stephen Castle off the floor.
One of the pleasures of being an NBA elitist is getting the chance to introduce fresh new faces to the broader basketball world, so let me be the first to report that Stephon Castle is pretty awesome. There was simply no way to know this about one of the best players on the best team in college basketball last season because the only true crucible is summer league—the purest version of the game, spared from distractions like order and game plan and on-court chemistry. We can see the truth of Castle’s game in a glorified AAU tournament and, better yet, the single game of a glorified AAU tournament, before Castle withdrew from competition in Vegas with a wrist injury.
But what a game it was. Even in the summer league slop, Castle is an engine for intuitive, winning plays, connecting dots that lesser prospects wouldn’t see and manifesting plays that lesser athletes couldn’t create. The questions about Castle’s shot and position are inevitable, but those are almost beside the point; what’s most striking about watching him play against quasi-pros is realizing how difficult it will be to take him off the floor in the earliest days of his career. Why would the Spurs deprive themselves of a guard who comes by impact plays so naturally? Throw Castle into the mix and see what he can turn up, whether by jamming opponents up at the point of attack or slicing his way through the defense. Toolsy, theoretical players are fun and all, but so are the dudes who make shit happen almost incidentally, as if it were an entire way of life.
There are a lot of reasons to look forward to next season, such as the free agency additions to the roster and the potential growth of Victor Wembanyama, but don’t underestimate the impact Castle will have. His calm demeanor may make him easy to miss at times, and the old saying goes you should never overreact to the Summer League, but in just a small sample, Castle has still managed to create yet another level of intrigue that will make the wait for the next season even longer.
By Marilyn Dubinski, via Pounding The Rock