NEW YORK – As if it were nothing special to spend Christmas here, with snow covering 7th Avenue, holly and bows forming the traditional, festive Macy’s facade a block from Madison Square Garden and a Yule Tide game against the New York There’s enough Knicks on national television, the San Antonio Spurs took the holiday sentimentality up a few notches for their talented rookie and his family.

Stephon Castle, 20, a 6-foot-1 guard from UConn who is averaging 11.6 points per game in his first year with the Spurs, thought he was being harassed at the end of San Antonio’s Christmas Eve practice at the Garden.

His mother Quannette celebrates her 50th birthday at Christmas and she was a guest at Spurs training along with the rest of Castle’s immediate family. When it was over, Quannette was brought onto the court to sing Stephon’s best version of “Happy Birthday,” and he wasn’t supposed to have any help. Just him singing to his mother in the garden.

However, towards the end of the song (by which time the rest of the Spurs were already there), Quannette interrupted her son to tell him that she had an early Christmas present.

In front of the rest of the team, she presented him with his 2024 NCAA championship ring, which he won with the Huskies last April.

“It was crazy, I had no idea this was coming,” Castle said. “They kind of flipped the switch on me.”

The gift was also a surprise for Quannette. The Huskies had sent the ring to the Spurs some time ago, and San Antonio decided to use the Christmas trip to New York as an opportunity to make its ring presentation even more special. When they learned that the Castle family would be in town – the Castles attended the Spurs’ game in Philadelphia on Monday and are staying in New York for a week – the Spurs planned for Quannette to give the ring to her son.

Quannette’s husband and Stephon’s father, Stacey, is a New York basketball legend and one of the city’s best high school players in the 1990s. He was involved with the Spurs support team, but Quannette said she didn’t know she was going to present Steph with the championship ring until five minutes before it happened.

“I actually did 50 things before I turned 50, and that’s probably the number one thing the Spurs would want me to do if I was involved,” Quannette said. “Giving him the ring was very exciting. … I had a special lunch with my daughter, I threw a party, but this is one of those special things even though I didn’t plan it and didn’t know about it.”

Quannette and Stacey were joined in the garden by their daughter Staci and their other son Quenton. The family now lives in Atlanta, but both parents are from New York. Quannette said this week marks the family’s first trip to the city together.

The Spurs took the train from Philadelphia to New York after Monday’s narrow loss to the Sixers, arriving at Penn Station with a layer of snow on the streets and the team’s luxurious hotel just a few blocks away.

They will face the Knicks on Wednesday at noon in the first of the NBA’s five games as part of the league’s annual Christmas extravaganza, and for many of them it will be their first game of Christmas (Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes are exceptions, of course). .

The Spurs landed on the biggest day of the league’s regular season thanks, of course, to the star power of second-year sensation Victor Wembanyama, the reigning Rookie of the Year, who complemented his menacing defensive skills at 7-foot-4 with an improved 3-point game .

San Antonio had one of the worst records in the NBA last season, which typically doesn’t earn a franchise a Christmas game the following year. But these Spurs won; If the season ended today, they would be number 9 in the play-in tournament.

This makes playing in New York at Christmas special for many reasons, not just Wemby’s rise.

The Spurs added another reason with their celebration of the Castle family.

“It’s really a dream come true,” said the Spurs rookie.

Required reading

(Photos: Darren Carroll / NBAE via Getty Images)