By Jared Weiss | The Athletic, 2025-12-11 12:37:32
洛杉矶电 — 凯尔登·约翰逊 (Keldon Johnson) 心心念念的，只是一只羊驼。
NBA杯的奖金相当可观：如果最终夺冠，每位球员可以拿到一笔高达530,933美元的丰厚奖金。这笔钱足够在卡波买一套公寓，或者入手一辆全新的兰博基尼了。
约翰逊想要的则要简单得多。他正在圣安东尼奥郊外的牧场里建一个池塘。就像德州的一切事物一样，这个池塘的规模也小不了。
他的11还是12只山羊——他自己都数不清了——四头迷你牛、两匹马、六只鸡和一头驴，都需要一个新伙伴的加入。他正在考虑养只绵羊，或者羊驼。
嗯，来只羊驼应该不错。
NBA在球员面前摆出了五十万美元的奖金，就是为了让他们认真对待这项赛事，这是一个必要的激励措施。联盟希望这项杯赛最终能成为一项拥有深厚底蕴的传统。但在此之前，它更像是一个“发家致富”的传统。
时间能沉淀情感，也能赋予意义。NBA杯是一项新赛事，但约翰逊走到今天这一步的旅程却早已开始。这位圣安东尼奥马刺队的前锋七个赛季以来一直在球场上奋不顾身，然而，他所在的球队单赛季从未赢下超过34场比赛，他也从未品尝过季后赛的滋味。哪怕只是能闻到一丝锦标赛竞争的气息，也足以让他欣喜。这可比乐透区的腐臭味好闻多了。
约翰逊正努力改变这一切。
周三，在一场决定谁能前往拉斯维加斯参加NBA杯半决赛的关键之战中，洛杉矶湖人队迅速取得领先，展现了他们为何是赛前更被看好的一方。但在首节末段，约翰逊连中三记三分——五分钟内独得13分，彻底改变了比赛走势。几分钟后，马刺队已经领先17分，并再也没有给对手机会。
中场休息时，在返回更衣室前，他停下来接受了NBA on Prime频道的卡西迪·胡巴特 (Cassidy Hubbarth) 的采访，后者问他是不是在想着那只羊驼。
约翰逊说：“我们要继续保持良好习惯，继续作为一个整体去打球。这样，那只羊驼就唾手可得了。”
随后，约翰逊回到更衣室，回味着那一刻。
“说实话，我感觉就像在更衣室里说的那样，我们感觉像是在为某种信念而战；这场比赛的意义远超一场普通比赛，”约翰逊在马刺以132-119取胜后说道。“我们感觉自己清楚，我们有能力赢下这场比赛，也清楚我们是在为某种目标而战。”
约翰逊很享受NBA杯这个概念，就像他对待其他所有事情一样乐在其中。但在这份轻松愉快的表象之下，是他对这支球队更深层次的使命感。NBA杯为约翰逊提供了一个开启赢球传统的机会——这是他整个职业生涯都在等待的时刻。
尽管马刺队在今年之前一直输球，但他对球队的投入却只增不减。
“我会继续做自己，继续充满活力，因为局势终将扭转，而我依然会是那个我，”约翰逊在2023年11月马刺遭遇18连败时说道。“所以当我们开始赢球时，你们会说，‘无论输赢，KJ还是那个人。’事实也必将如此。……但我们终将开始赢球。”
如果说本赛季迄今为止马刺队有什么确信无疑的事，那就是无论（大部分时间）赢球还是（偶尔）输球，KJ始终是同一个人。他的教练和队友们不约而同地用同一个词组来形容他，这绝非偶然：心脏与灵魂。
“为了球队的利益，他每场比赛都将自己的身体置于险境，”马刺队教练米奇·约翰逊 (Mitch Johnson) 说道。“我们队里有很多个性鲜明的球员，也有球队的门面担当，但那个家伙才是这支队伍的心脏与灵魂，我想你看这支球队的时间足够长，就能体会到这一点。”
通常，几分钟就足够了。约翰逊能迅速在比赛中留下自己的烙印。他身高6英尺6英寸，是一台充满活力的“破坏铁球”，同时又兼具恰到好处的手感和技巧，让这一切得以奏效。
当他踏上球场，总有人会应声倒地。一次本该一无所获的进攻回合，会因他而变成一次黄金机会。他会为队友的精彩表现而欢呼，庆祝得仿佛自己刚刚赢得了总冠军。对约翰逊来说，无论场上时机多么重要或多么微不足道，他都能在其中发挥作用。
正是这种精神，在维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 缺阵期间将马刺队紧密地团结在一起。自从近一个月前，文班亚马在对阵金州勇士队的NBA杯比赛中因小腿拉伤倒下后，圣安东尼奥取得了9胜3负的战绩。约翰逊一直在耐心等待，等待着他的贡献能够转化为胜利的那一刻。这次杯赛，正是他向世人展示他一直以来努力成果的机会。他为球队的崛起付出了血、汗和泪水，如今球队终于拥有了迈出下一步所需的天赋。
NBA杯是他第一次有机会举起奖杯，向全世界宣告马刺队回来了。
“作为一个团队，向NBA其他球队证明我们自己，证明我们是一支有实力的队伍，这对我们很重要，”约翰逊说。“即使我们很年轻，仍在磨合，但我们的实力是实打实的，我们想在这里掀起一些波澜。而在赛季的这第一阶段，还有什么比在杯赛中打出名堂、真正向冠军发起冲击更好的方式呢？”
要想掀起最大的波澜，他们需要文班亚马。在他缺阵的情况下，球队表现不错，但很难想象没有这位“比赛改变者”，他们能终结俄克拉荷马城雷霆队的16连胜。
而这很可能就会发生。当被问及是否认为文班亚马可能在周六对阵雷霆队的杯赛半决赛中复出时，米奇·约翰逊回答说：“很有可能。”
“他今天状态非常好，”这位教练说道。“今天早上他的训练意图很明确，效果也很好，我们得看看他明天的身体反应和恢复情况。”
在周三早上的投篮训练中，文班亚马在测力板上进行了一些跳跃测试。测力板可以测量人跳跃和落地时的冲击力数据，以帮助判断球员运动时是否产生足够的冲击力，以及下肢是否存在不平衡。文班亚马似乎对测试结果还算满意，这表明周六重返赛场是有可能的。虽然他本周一直在进行赛前热身，但强度比平时更低，流程也更简化。
马刺队已经明确表示，他们不会让他仓促复出，即使是面对一场他们显然非常重视的比赛。赢得NBA杯将是球队在当前管理层领导下发展过程中的关键一步，但他们丝毫没有兴趣拿这个22年来乐透区产出的最重磅大奖去冒任何一丁点风险。
NBA杯的奖金对那些坐在板凳席末端的球员意义重大，这笔钱相当于他们年薪近40%的奖金。如果双向合同球员在球队夺冠时仍在队中，他们可以获得奖金的一半。
约翰逊也想到了这一点，他想到了大卫·琼斯-加西亚 (David Jones-Garcia)，这位来自多米尼加共和国、充满活力的马刺队新秀后卫。如今球队的控球后卫都已恢复健康，他正在奥斯汀为球队的G联赛附属球队效力。虽然约翰逊也用得上这笔钱，但对琼斯-加西亚来说，这将是一次巨大的飞跃。他将如何储蓄或挥霍这笔钱，充满了无限可能。
“大卫·琼斯，兄弟，开着兰博基尼卡车荣归多米尼加，”约翰逊说。“我话可先放这儿了。”
事实上，在提到羊驼之前，约翰逊自己也不确定要拿这笔钱做什么。除非他要去安第斯山脉购买几只小羊驼 (Vicuñas)，否则他很可能还会有不少结余。也许足够买一两辆兰博基尼卡车了。
但世界上所有的羊驼和兰博基尼都无法弥补输球的痛苦。亲手扭转一支球队的命运，并以自己的方式赢得胜利，这份回报才是真正的奖赏。
“我的意思是，能得到那只羊驼当然很棒，”他说。“但归根结底，我感觉我是在为我的兄弟们而战。为马刺这支球队而战——这才是我的心之所向。”
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。
点击查看原文：Keldon Johnson, the Spurs' 'heart and soul,' propels San Antonio to NBA Cup semis
Keldon Johnson, the Spurs’ ‘heart and soul,’ propels San Antonio to NBA Cup semis
LOS ANGELES — All Keldon Johnson wanted was his llama.
The NBA Cup comes with a substantial prize: a nice, clean, $530,933 per player if you win it all. That’s enough money to buy a condo in Cabo or a brand new Lambo.
Johnson would like something simpler than that. He’s building a pond at his ranch outside San Antonio. Like everything in Texas, it’s gonna be a big one.
His 11 or 12 goats — he’s lost count by now — four mini cows, two horses, six chickens and one donkey could use another friend to join them. He’s thinking a sheep or a llama.
Yeah, a llama would be nice.
The NBA dangles a half-million-dollar prize in front of players to get them to take the Cup seriously, a necessary incentive. Eventually, they hope the cup will be a rich tradition. But until then, it’ll be a tradition to get richer.
Time builds sentimentality and purpose. The Cup is new, but Johnson’s journey to this point is far from it. The San Antonio Spurs forward has been throwing himself all over the court for seven seasons now, yet he’s never won more than 34 games. He’s never seen the playoffs. Even a whiff of competing in a tournament would be welcomed. It smells a lot better than the stink of the lottery.
Johnson is trying to change that.
On Wednesday, with a trip to Las Vegas for the NBA Cup semifinals on the line, the Los Angeles Lakers got out to a quick lead and showed why they were favored entering the evening. But late in the first quarter, Johnson buried a trio of 3s in a row — 13 points in five minutes, a complete game changer. A few minutes later, the Spurs were up 17 and never looked back.
At halftime, before he went back to the locker room, he stopped to talk to NBA on Prime’s Cassidy Hubbarth, who asked him if he was thinking about that llama.
“Just continue to lean on our good habits, continue to play together,” Johnson said. “And the llama will be within reach.”
Then Johnson went back to the locker room and reflected on the moment.
“I feel like I was in the locker room and honestly, I was saying it felt like we were playing for something; it meant more than just a regular game,” Johnson said after the Spurs’ 132-119 victory. “I feel like we knew that we’re capable of winning this game and we knew that we playing for something.”
Johnson has been having fun with the Cup concept, just as he does with everything else. But that is just the surface layer of a deeper purpose with this club. The Cup presents Johnson with a chance to start a tradition of winning, something he’s been waiting for his whole career.
As the Spurs were losing until this year, his buy-in only got stronger.
“I’ll keep being myself, keep being energetic, cause the tide gonna turn, and I’m still gonna be myself,” Johnson said in November 2023 when the Spurs were on an 18-game losing streak. “So when we start winning, you’ll say, ‘KJ was the same person winning or losing.’ And that’s what it’s gonna be. … But we gonna start winning.”
If there’s one thing the Spurs know is for real so far this season, it’s that KJ is the same person, (mostly) winning or (sometimes) losing. It wasn’t an accident that his coach and his teammates used the same refrain to describe him: heart and soul.
“He puts his body in harm’s way for the betterment of the team every game,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “We got a lot of big personalities, and we got a face of the franchise, but that guy’s the heart and soul of the team, and I think you can see it when you watch this team long enough.”
Enough is usually only a few minutes. Johnson puts his mark on the game quickly. He’s a 6-foot-6, vivacious wrecking ball with just enough touch and finesse to make it work.
When he comes into the game, someone is hitting the floor. A possession that should yield nothing becomes a golden opportunity. He’ll see a teammate make a big play and celebrate it like he just won the title. No moment is too big or too small for Johnson to make an impact.
This is the ethos that has held the Spurs together through Victor Wembanyama’s absence. San Antonio has gone 9-3 since he went down with a calf strain in an NBA Cup game against the Golden State Warriors nearly a month ago. Johnson has been biding his time, waiting for the moment when his contributions could lead to winning. The Cup is his chance for everyone to see what he has been building. He’s put in the blood, sweat and tears to prime the team for an ascension, and now they have the talent to take that step forward.
The Cup is his first opportunity to hoist a trophy, to tell the world the Spurs are back.
“As a group, it’s important to us to be able to prove ourselves to the rest of the NBA, that we are a legit team,” Johnson said. “That even though we’re young and we’re putting pieces together, they’re really legit and that we want to come make some noise. And what better way in this first part of the season to make some noise in the cup and go have a run at the cup for real.”
To make the biggest noise, they’re going to need Wembanyama. They have been good without him, but it’s hard to imagine them breaking the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 16-game winning streak without their game-changer.
And it just might happen. When asked if he thinks Wembanyama may return for Saturday’s Cup semifinal against the Thunder, Mitch Johnson said, “Very much so.”
“He had a very good day today,” the coach said. “He had a good intent day this morning, and we’ll have to see how he responds and reacts tomorrow.”
At shootaround on Wednesday morning, Wembanyama did some testing jumping on force plates, which measure impact data from a person’s jumping and landing to help determine if a player is moving with sufficient impact and any imbalances in the lower body. Wembanyama appeared to be somewhat satisfied with the results from the test, which would suggest returning to the floor Saturday is in the cards. While he has been getting in a pre-game warm-up this week, it has been a more abridged and lower-intensity routine than usual.
The Spurs have made it clear they will not rush him back, even for a game they clearly are taking seriously. Winning the NBA Cup would be a crucial step in the franchise’s development under this regime, but they have shown no interest in taking the slightest risk with the grandest prize the lottery has yielded in 22 years.
The Cup prize money means a lot to players at the end of the bench who would see nearly a 40 percent bonus on their annual salary. Two-way players get half of the payout if they are with the team when they win the tournament.
That’s been on Johnson’s mind as he thinks about David Jones-Garcia, the Spurs’ electric rookie guard from the Dominican Republic who is playing with their G League affiliate in Austin now that the team’s point guards are all healthy. While Johnson can use the money, it would be a substantial glow-up for Jones-Garcia. The possibilities of how he could save or waste that money are endless.
“David Jones, papi taking it back to the DR with the Lamborghini truck,” Johnson said. “I said it here first.”
The truth is, Johnson wasn’t even sure what he was going to do with his money before he brought up the llama. Unless he’s purchasing some Vicuñas in the Andes mountains, he’ll probably have some spare change left over. Maybe enough for a Lambo truck or two.
But all the llamas and Lambos in the world can’t make up for losing. The reward of turning a franchise around and winning on his terms is the real prize.
“I mean, obviously, the llama would be great,” he said. “But I feel, ultimately, (I was) just playing for my brothers. I feel like playing for the Spurs organization, that was on my mind.”
By Jared Weiss, via The Athletic