south side spur
04-24-2022, 11:09 AM
https://www.sanantoniomag.com/nba-life-is-a-family-affair-for-devin-vassell/
Why Spurs guard Devin Vassell is grateful to be chasing success with the help of mom and dad
BY Kathleen Petty (https://www.sanantoniomag.com/author/kpettysanantoniomag-com/)
Published: April 2022 (https://www.sanantoniomag.com/issues/san-antonio-magazine-april-2022/)
It’s not unusual for it to be 1 a.m. when Devin Vassell reaches his car at the AT&T Center following a late Spurs home game. Regardless of the time—1 a.m. in San Antonio, 2 a.m. in Portland or 8 p.m. in Philadelphia—Devin’s day is not over until he calls his dad.
Win or lose, the two have debriefed following each of Devin’s games since the guard was in high school at Peachtree Ridge in a suburb of Atlanta. Now in his second season with San Antonio, the 21-year-old certainly wants to hear from his coaches. But he also knows his dad will be honest in pointing out any flaws. And if Devin doesn’t identify anything that went wrong, then he can’t prevent it from happening again.
“Devin and I talk about some of the things he might do better,” says Andrew Vassell, Devin’s father, who played in college and coached his three kids when they were young. “We have that same call after every game, no matter where he is.”
https://d1m6300l53o0vp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/edit-jhuskin-0378-highres.jpg
Aside from being drafted at No. 11 by the Spurs in 2020, Devin says having the support of his parents each day is “probably the best thing that’s happened to me.” When he landed with the San Antonio Spurs, his parents offered to move to the Alamo City with him for the duration of his first, four-year contract. Still a teenager after playing two seasons with Florida State University, Devin had lived at home and then on campus. He’d never had to pay rent or buy furniture.
He can’t remember a time when basketball wasn’t his main focus and the idea of elevating his game to the professional level while figuring out how to manage his money and handle all of his bills for the first time was, put simply, overwhelming.
“They help me out so much. They say, ‘You focus on basketball, and we’ll focus on everything else,” Devin says. “I appreciate them a lot.”
It’s been a whirlwind, says mom Cynthia, but one they know they’re blessed to take on. “We lived in Atlanta for 22 years, but we just picked up everything and left,” says Cynthia, a former nurse who handles her son’s day-to-day affairs while Andrew works at CarMax. “When you get drafted you just have to kind of figure this whole thing out, so we’re helping him navigate it so he can play basketball.”
Basketball from Birth
Cynthia jokes that her husband had his sights on turning Devin into a ball player before he came out of the womb. He had a small, stuffed basketball ready to place next to him in his crib at birth and when Devin turned 1, dad bought him a Little Tikes basketball hoop despite the fact that he still couldn’t really walk.
“His older brother played basketball, so he was a gym baby,” Cynthia says. “He waddled himself over to that hoop, and to our surprise he dunked the ball in the basket.”
The two know parents can be biased but say even Devin’s daycare teachers would comment that he was advanced, and by the time he was 6, Devin was already playing up an age group on the court.
Devin’s older brother is 13 years his senior and his sister 11 years so before he was 10, it was just him and his parents at home. The family had taken vacations during the summers with the older kids, but with Devin, free time was spent traveling to basketball tournaments.
Then in middle school, Devin was cut from the team. “It devastated Devin, but it didn’t stop him from loving the game,” Cynthia says.
They eventually switched schools so Devin could play, and his parents say from then on, his game flourished.
Devin became the second highest scoring player in his high school’s history, but he remained ranked outside the top 400 for his age group and while he was committed to playing in college, Division I recruiters weren’t lining up to talk to him. “He was always the underdog,” Andrew says.
Florida State made an offer his senior year, and Devin was in. He told his parents he planned to play for two years and then enter the NBA draft.
“He would always say to me, ‘I’m going to play in the NBA,’” Cynthia says. “But what are the odds of that? So, I would ask him what his backup was if he didn’t play basketball. He said, ‘Mom, I keep telling you that I’m going to the NBA, so please don’t ask me that anymore because it hurts my feelings.’”
During his freshman year at FSU, Devin averaged only around 10 minutes per game—and he had to convince his coach not to redshirt him before the season even started.
“He came home that summer and said, ‘One more year,’ and I was like, ‘Devin, you’re only playing 10 minutes.’ But we never made him feel like he couldn’t do it,” Andrew says. “Whatever you have your mind set to, we’ve got you.”
Devin returned sophomore year with resolve to stand out and he did. He averaged 12.7 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, helping lead FSU to a 26-5 record.
Still, Andrew says, when he entered the draft, they were prepared for him to go late in the first round or even in the second round.
The Spurs selected him at No. 11.
“I looked at my husband and said what’s a Spur?” Cynthia says. “I’m originally from New York and my husband is from Jamaica. We’d never been to San Antonio.”
They may not have been San Antonio fans, but Devin and Andrew knew the Spurs and the reputation of Coach Gregg Popovich.
“Coming out here was easy for me,” Devin says. “Especially with Coach Pop and knowing the type of organization they are—they care about winning and good basketball and their players.”
Another Level
After a first season with limited crowds and plenty of COVID-related restrictions, Devin is coming into his own this season.
Having played just over 30 games a season in college, Devin says it took some adjusting to get used to the 82 games a year of the NBA. “We joke around about it, but it feels like every day is a Wednesday. You’re either playing or you’re not, so all of your days just get kind of run together,” he says. “It requires getting to know your body and how you’re supposed to eat and take care of yourself.”
Sometimes that means getting into a cold tub after a game (and delaying that call to dad) while other times it means rehabbing while injured. He’d also grown accustomed to not just playing with his teammates in college but also living in the next room and eating his meals with them. As a pro, you practice or play, head to the locker room and go home. Devin found it took more time to make connections.
After Derrick White was traded ahead of the All-Star break earlier this year, Devin was named starting shooting guard. He’d already made an impact for the Spurs, but the change put him in position to help lead the team in a new way. The Silver & Black may have five championships, but Devin says its young players see themselves as underdogs, and that while it’s not Tim, Manu and Tony anymore, there is just as much an appetite for success.
“Being a leader doesn’t mean that you know everything. It just means that you speak up. If the team isn’t playing to its potential, you say something,” he says. “I like to hold everyone accountable because I like to hold myself accountable. At the end of the day all I want to do is win.”
He also wants to make his parents proud, which means figuring out how to take this opportunity he’s been given and use it to impact people outside of the gym. He partnered with the San Antonio Food Bank to collect donations last year and with Operation Warm in February to provide coats to kids in need, but he hopes to do more. “I’m lucky and I’m blessed to be able to play and do something I love,” Devin says. “There are a lot of people who need help or need resources and if I’m in a position to do that, why wouldn’t I? That’s definitely something my mom and dad instilled in me.”
Cynthia is helping with that too, talking with Devin and his financial advisor about where his passions lie and how he might give back to the community.
On home game nights, Cynthia and Andrew are always in the stands—if they get stuck in traffic and are a few minutes late, Devin notices.
Once Andrew retires in December, he hopes to be at as many away games as possible, too. Eventually the couple will return to Atlanta. They miss getting to regularly see their older children and grandkids (including a 6-year-old grandson who can’t stop talking about his Uncle D and the NBA 2K video game he and teammate Keldon Johnson are featured in). But they plan to always be involved in managing Devin’s career.
“Every time I walk into the AT&T Center it’s a blessing for me,” Andrew says. “It’s almost surreal. My son is out there playing against LeBron James, who we’ve watched his whole life. It’s a dream come true and it’s truly a blessing. He’s on a stage where he can change things and touch people. He’s a humble kid and I’m looking forward to all of the ways he’s going to be able to help people down the road.”
Why Spurs guard Devin Vassell is grateful to be chasing success with the help of mom and dad
BY Kathleen Petty (https://www.sanantoniomag.com/author/kpettysanantoniomag-com/)
Published: April 2022 (https://www.sanantoniomag.com/issues/san-antonio-magazine-april-2022/)
It’s not unusual for it to be 1 a.m. when Devin Vassell reaches his car at the AT&T Center following a late Spurs home game. Regardless of the time—1 a.m. in San Antonio, 2 a.m. in Portland or 8 p.m. in Philadelphia—Devin’s day is not over until he calls his dad.
Win or lose, the two have debriefed following each of Devin’s games since the guard was in high school at Peachtree Ridge in a suburb of Atlanta. Now in his second season with San Antonio, the 21-year-old certainly wants to hear from his coaches. But he also knows his dad will be honest in pointing out any flaws. And if Devin doesn’t identify anything that went wrong, then he can’t prevent it from happening again.
“Devin and I talk about some of the things he might do better,” says Andrew Vassell, Devin’s father, who played in college and coached his three kids when they were young. “We have that same call after every game, no matter where he is.”
https://d1m6300l53o0vp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/edit-jhuskin-0378-highres.jpg
Aside from being drafted at No. 11 by the Spurs in 2020, Devin says having the support of his parents each day is “probably the best thing that’s happened to me.” When he landed with the San Antonio Spurs, his parents offered to move to the Alamo City with him for the duration of his first, four-year contract. Still a teenager after playing two seasons with Florida State University, Devin had lived at home and then on campus. He’d never had to pay rent or buy furniture.
He can’t remember a time when basketball wasn’t his main focus and the idea of elevating his game to the professional level while figuring out how to manage his money and handle all of his bills for the first time was, put simply, overwhelming.
“They help me out so much. They say, ‘You focus on basketball, and we’ll focus on everything else,” Devin says. “I appreciate them a lot.”
It’s been a whirlwind, says mom Cynthia, but one they know they’re blessed to take on. “We lived in Atlanta for 22 years, but we just picked up everything and left,” says Cynthia, a former nurse who handles her son’s day-to-day affairs while Andrew works at CarMax. “When you get drafted you just have to kind of figure this whole thing out, so we’re helping him navigate it so he can play basketball.”
Basketball from Birth
Cynthia jokes that her husband had his sights on turning Devin into a ball player before he came out of the womb. He had a small, stuffed basketball ready to place next to him in his crib at birth and when Devin turned 1, dad bought him a Little Tikes basketball hoop despite the fact that he still couldn’t really walk.
“His older brother played basketball, so he was a gym baby,” Cynthia says. “He waddled himself over to that hoop, and to our surprise he dunked the ball in the basket.”
The two know parents can be biased but say even Devin’s daycare teachers would comment that he was advanced, and by the time he was 6, Devin was already playing up an age group on the court.
Devin’s older brother is 13 years his senior and his sister 11 years so before he was 10, it was just him and his parents at home. The family had taken vacations during the summers with the older kids, but with Devin, free time was spent traveling to basketball tournaments.
Then in middle school, Devin was cut from the team. “It devastated Devin, but it didn’t stop him from loving the game,” Cynthia says.
They eventually switched schools so Devin could play, and his parents say from then on, his game flourished.
Devin became the second highest scoring player in his high school’s history, but he remained ranked outside the top 400 for his age group and while he was committed to playing in college, Division I recruiters weren’t lining up to talk to him. “He was always the underdog,” Andrew says.
Florida State made an offer his senior year, and Devin was in. He told his parents he planned to play for two years and then enter the NBA draft.
“He would always say to me, ‘I’m going to play in the NBA,’” Cynthia says. “But what are the odds of that? So, I would ask him what his backup was if he didn’t play basketball. He said, ‘Mom, I keep telling you that I’m going to the NBA, so please don’t ask me that anymore because it hurts my feelings.’”
During his freshman year at FSU, Devin averaged only around 10 minutes per game—and he had to convince his coach not to redshirt him before the season even started.
“He came home that summer and said, ‘One more year,’ and I was like, ‘Devin, you’re only playing 10 minutes.’ But we never made him feel like he couldn’t do it,” Andrew says. “Whatever you have your mind set to, we’ve got you.”
Devin returned sophomore year with resolve to stand out and he did. He averaged 12.7 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, helping lead FSU to a 26-5 record.
Still, Andrew says, when he entered the draft, they were prepared for him to go late in the first round or even in the second round.
The Spurs selected him at No. 11.
“I looked at my husband and said what’s a Spur?” Cynthia says. “I’m originally from New York and my husband is from Jamaica. We’d never been to San Antonio.”
They may not have been San Antonio fans, but Devin and Andrew knew the Spurs and the reputation of Coach Gregg Popovich.
“Coming out here was easy for me,” Devin says. “Especially with Coach Pop and knowing the type of organization they are—they care about winning and good basketball and their players.”
Another Level
After a first season with limited crowds and plenty of COVID-related restrictions, Devin is coming into his own this season.
Having played just over 30 games a season in college, Devin says it took some adjusting to get used to the 82 games a year of the NBA. “We joke around about it, but it feels like every day is a Wednesday. You’re either playing or you’re not, so all of your days just get kind of run together,” he says. “It requires getting to know your body and how you’re supposed to eat and take care of yourself.”
Sometimes that means getting into a cold tub after a game (and delaying that call to dad) while other times it means rehabbing while injured. He’d also grown accustomed to not just playing with his teammates in college but also living in the next room and eating his meals with them. As a pro, you practice or play, head to the locker room and go home. Devin found it took more time to make connections.
After Derrick White was traded ahead of the All-Star break earlier this year, Devin was named starting shooting guard. He’d already made an impact for the Spurs, but the change put him in position to help lead the team in a new way. The Silver & Black may have five championships, but Devin says its young players see themselves as underdogs, and that while it’s not Tim, Manu and Tony anymore, there is just as much an appetite for success.
“Being a leader doesn’t mean that you know everything. It just means that you speak up. If the team isn’t playing to its potential, you say something,” he says. “I like to hold everyone accountable because I like to hold myself accountable. At the end of the day all I want to do is win.”
He also wants to make his parents proud, which means figuring out how to take this opportunity he’s been given and use it to impact people outside of the gym. He partnered with the San Antonio Food Bank to collect donations last year and with Operation Warm in February to provide coats to kids in need, but he hopes to do more. “I’m lucky and I’m blessed to be able to play and do something I love,” Devin says. “There are a lot of people who need help or need resources and if I’m in a position to do that, why wouldn’t I? That’s definitely something my mom and dad instilled in me.”
Cynthia is helping with that too, talking with Devin and his financial advisor about where his passions lie and how he might give back to the community.
On home game nights, Cynthia and Andrew are always in the stands—if they get stuck in traffic and are a few minutes late, Devin notices.
Once Andrew retires in December, he hopes to be at as many away games as possible, too. Eventually the couple will return to Atlanta. They miss getting to regularly see their older children and grandkids (including a 6-year-old grandson who can’t stop talking about his Uncle D and the NBA 2K video game he and teammate Keldon Johnson are featured in). But they plan to always be involved in managing Devin’s career.
“Every time I walk into the AT&T Center it’s a blessing for me,” Andrew says. “It’s almost surreal. My son is out there playing against LeBron James, who we’ve watched his whole life. It’s a dream come true and it’s truly a blessing. He’s on a stage where he can change things and touch people. He’s a humble kid and I’m looking forward to all of the ways he’s going to be able to help people down the road.”