点击查看原文：Why ‘fearless’ young Spurs have Tony Parker making heady comparisons
Why ‘fearless’ young Spurs have Tony Parker making heady comparisons
Former San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker, center, talks to a Spurs’ fan during the Spurs’ second home game of the season against the Toronto Raptors at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025.
LAS VEGAS — The famous Frenchman hadn’t played in a while, but he’d been watching.
Watching his Spurs carry on without him.
Watching them win big games like seasoned pros, leaping ever closer to the level where he knew they belonged.
Watching two determined young guards get to the rim over and over again, showing they might be ready to become championship-level sidekicks, if not superstars in their own right.
But unlike Victor Wembanyama? This famous Frenchman had the decades of perspective to recognize how familiar it all looks.
“The DNA is still there,” Tony Parker told the Express-News this weekend of a Spurs franchise trying to revive its glory days. “It’s the culture and everything we built for 20 years. But it’s kind of a modern way.”
To be sure, the modern update still is a long, long way from the vintage version, and nothing that happens in an in-season tournament can change that. Even with as many heads as the Spurs turned on their way to Saturday’s NBA Cup semifinals, a few games in the fall don’t compare to the pressure and stakes of any series in the spring.
Still, the developments of the past few weeks haven’t been entirely meaningless, either. Parker, a Hall of Famer with four title rings, takes care not to become a prisoner of the moment, but he doesn’t think he’s overreacting when he points out what he sees in Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper.
Back home in San Antonio, it might still be considered sacrilegious to make certain comparisons. But while much of the basketball world focused on the return of Wembanyama from a 12-game injury absence, Parker made a point of noting that the Spurs’ rise isn’t just about finding another face-of-the-franchise big man to follow Tim Duncan.
It’s about the reigning Rookie of the Year and the most recent No. 2 pick in the NBA draft making their forebearers proud, too.
“They’re so fearless,” Parker said of Castle and Harper. “That’s how I was. That’s how Manu (Ginobili) was.”
Maybe that compliment, as earnest as it sounded, is premature, if not outright unfair. Maybe we won’t know enough about Castle’s and Harper’s fear, or lack thereof, until we see them try to make a play in late April or early May.
And maybe it will turn out that whatever they create alongside Wembanyama will look nothing like what the Big Three of the Spurs’ last dynasty conjured up on a regular basis. After all, the sport has changed since then, and so has the identity of San Antonio’s coach.
But Parker isn’t wrong when he says there still are through lines from the Spurs’ first championship to this NBA Cup squad. Most members of the roster were coached for at least a bit by Gregg Popovich. A few of them got to experience a year with Duncan as an assistant. And all have spent time with those two legends, plus Ginobili, at the team facility.
That, combined with a front office that dates back to the turn of the century and a young head coach who learned the job under Popovich himself, means that the Spurs have more decades-long carryover than most organizations could dream of.
“There’s a lot of foundation, a lot of fiber and identity that we’re trying to continue to grow in the light of our organization,” coach Mitch Johnson said. “We understand there will be some modernizing, some change, whether that comes from how the game is being played or who our best players are.”
In other words, sometimes it’s just a classic Spurs vibe. A great example of that came in the closing moments of their Cup quarterfinals victory over the Lakers on Wednesday, when the Crypto.com Arena crowd went crazy over back-to-back plays by LeBron James.
At one end of the floor, the 40-year-old James soared for a thunderous slam dunk straight out of 2005. At the other, he came out of nowhere to block a shot. These were the two most dazzling highlights of the night, and perhaps the month.
And how did the Spurs react? Pretty much like Duncan, Ginobili and Parker would have. They shrugged it off, went right back at the Lakers, and took a 12-point lead into halftime.
While it was happening, one onlooker on the sideline was particularly impressed.
“The brand of basketball we have been playing just makes me proud, because it’s getting closer to the ideal basketball, in my opinion,” said Wembanyama, who was set to return from a calf injury Saturday. “Everybody has something to eat. Everybody can step up at any time. Everybody can take up responsibilities. Everybody trusts their next teammate.
“It’s just beautiful to see.”
He wasn’t the only famous Frenchman who thought so.