Welcome to Area 51: The Spurs duo putting the NBA on notice

"RIM, VIC!" STEPHON CASTLE screamed, streaking down the floor with 8:28 left in the second quarter of the San Antonio Spurs' season-opening win in Dallas.

"Rim! Rim! Rim!"

Almost on cue, Victor Wembanyama pushed off with his right arm against the trailing Dwight Powell to dig in for one last burst of acceleration to the hoop. A few steps past the center court logo, Castle floated a lob that Wembanyama snatched mid-air for a reverse two-handed jam.

A whistle quickly pierced the noisy celebration as Dallas called a timeout to regroup.

The poster and subsequent celebration quickly went viral, the chemistry between the past two Rookie of the Year winners as obvious as their scintillating talent.

"I've seen that picture plenty of times," Castle told ESPN about his jubilant shoulder bump with Wembanyama in the aftermath. "We've talked about it. The biggest thing is being able to execute in the games that matter. That was a turning point in the game. We had started our run and that was a big-time lob. We were definitely hyped about it."

Still, what excites the duo most these days, however, is San Antonio's fast start -- at 8-3, the Spurs are off to their best start since 2016-17 -- and prospects for a future that was placed on hold back in February when news broke that Wembanyama would miss the remainder of the season due to right shoulder deep vein thrombosis.

The French phenom proclaimed in late September that "nobody has trained like I did this summer."

What he didn't divulge was the one-on-one time he spent with Castle during his jet-setting summer working to nail down the intricate details that make this new duo -- the 21-year-old point guard and the 22-year-old big man -- perhaps the most fearsome in all of basketball.

This, they say, is "Area 51."

Combining their jersey numbers and Wembanyama's "alien" nickname, Castle and the Frenchman played in just 45 games together last season, spending a total of 779 minutes on the floor. Castle tossed 36 dimes Wembanyama's way for 11 dunks over that span, according to GeniusIQ.

Castle and Wembanyama each notched a triple double in a loss to the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, becoming the fifth duo in NBA history to each log a 20-point triple double in a game -- and the first such duo to lose while doing it.

"They didn't get a ton of time [last season] on the court to build a rhythm," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "Last year when they shared the court, it was early in Steph's rookie season where he's trying to survive, especially in the variety of ways we played him. I think we're starting to see just those two scratching the surface."

"[Wembanyama] was somewhere halfway across the world during the draft, and I believe he may have Facetimed or called [the draft picks] at 4 a.m. That example tells you just his dedication and investment and how valuable he believes the relationships with his teammates and organization are."

So far, and unsurprisingly, Area 51 shines brightest on the defensive end.

Entering Wednesday, San Antonio owned a defensive rating of 98.8 with Area 51 on the floor together, and outscored opponents by 15.4 points per 100 possessions across 242 minutes, which ranks second best (behind Wembanyama and Devin Vassell) among the 25 duos that have played 200-plus minutes, per ESPN Research.

"We both take pride in being two-way players," Castle told ESPN. "Our identity on this team is defense, and I feel like we're the heads of that. So, how many pick-and-rolls that we guard together, how many times we have to read off each other's guy, how much I have to help him rebound, just all those little things on that side of the floor just makes it so much more important for us as a team."

And with the NBA's seventh-ranked offense and sixth-ranked defense, the rest of the league can't help but take notice.

FRESH OFF A 116-103 loss in Boston last season, Castle and Wembanyama boarded a six-hour, cross-country flight to San Francisco. It was late in the evening on Feb. 12. They'd just finished their sixth game in 10 nights.

They were exhausted. After they landed at 4 a.m. local time, they made their way to a waiting Sprinter van, bound for the five-star St. Regis Hotel, where they'd be staying for their All-Star game festivities.

Wembanyama was set to play in his first All-Star Game and had made news earlier that week by saying he'd bet on himself to win the game's MVP.

But it was Castle who left San Francisco with the hardware, capturing MVP of the Rising Stars Challenge, as his team earned a berth in the All-Star Game. Castle also finished second in a hotly contested final at the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

Wembanyama, for his part, departed All-Star weekend encouraged but tired, saying, "I'll try to cool down and forget a little bit about basketball for 48 hours."

On a cool, windy morning in Austin, the Spurs filed into the Moody Center at the University of Texas for shootaround, ahead of their first matchup coming out of All-Star break against the Phoenix Suns. It was Feb 20.

Spurs CEO R.C. Buford stood near the entrance as the players walked past one by one.

Wembanyama was nowhere to be found.

A couple hours later, the team announced the then-21-year-old would miss the remainder of the season due to deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder.

"You wouldn't wish that on your worst enemy," Spurs point guard De'Aaron Fox said.

"We were at All-Star together and I'm coming back to play in Austin thinking we've got our big fella in, and then he's out," Castle said. "It was weird to get adjusted to."

Behind the scenes, the experience, and the trauma of it, led to deeper conversations with Castle.

"To see how quick it can all get taken away from us, it just opens our eyes to that perspective of how lucky we are to be able to play," Castle said.

"Having an important summer was the main thing we talked about. Just wanted to make sure he stayed healthy, stayed conditioned and just kept working on his game, knowing that the next year we were going to need him -- big time."

WEMBANYAMA'S WHIRLWIND SUMMER spanned the globe, while Castle spent the bulk of his offseason working out in Los Angeles with Olin Simplis, an NBA trainer known as "the guard whisperer."

Still, the duo found time for each other, especially during the early stages of the offseason in San Antonio as the 2025 NBA Playoffs tipped off, when Wembanyama wasn't cleared medically to participate in on-court work.

In their time at Victory Capital Performance Center, the Spurs' state-of-the-art practice facility, Castle and Wembanyama watched film of their games every chance they got -- and then walked through simulated possessions of the clips. As the offseason stretched into summer, the duo also found out Fox would miss the early portion of the season due to a hamstring injury, making their on-court chemistry even more paramount to the team starting fast. Fox said he suffered the injury playing his third five-on-five game after receiving medical clearance to return from a March hand surgery that required a 12-week recovery process.

"From that point to now, we still watch a lot of film together," Castle said. "Pick-and-roll stuff, defensive stuff, because a lot of times it's just me and him in the action. So, just being able to know what he thinks and for him to know what I'm thinking has been a big help for us."

While most of their summer work took place in San Antonio, Wembanyama also ventured out to Los Angeles in July to deepen his connection with Castle. Wembanyama spoke with Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett about the mental side of the game during that trip and flashed glimpses on the court of what was to come this season during open runs with teammates at Loyola Marymount University.

Former NBA player Patrick Beverley participated in those runs.

"That man in those runs, he looked good. He looked so healthy," Beverley said in August on the Pat Bev Podcast with Rone. "He looked so motherf---ing talented. He was doing s---. He spinned off a motherf---er, half his body is out of bounds and his arm is in the rim like this. It was the wildest s--- in the world."

Wembanyama received clearance in July to return to on-court activities.

"Just him coming out there and us building that chemistry early in the summer way before training camp, before everything, it was definitely helpful," Castle said. "A lot of reps, a lot of watching film together, that helps and gets overlooked a lot. We've been working on that all summer and it's starting to just shape itself out."

It's also improving overall cohesiveness for a team that spent the summer bonding off the floor. Castle wasn't a part of San Antonio's roster for 2025 summer league but worked out with the squad prior to its arrival in Las Vegas.

Once Wembanyama arrived in the second quarter of the team's July 10 win over Philadelphia, the 21-year-old joined teammates Fox, Castle, Jeremy Sochan, Harrison Barnes, Keldon Johnson, Julian Champagnie and Vassell in courtside seats.

"In terms of vibes, they're high," Barnes said. "There's a lot of off-court chemistry that has been built over the summer, just guys hanging out, things like that. The connectivity is showing up on the court. I just feel like the energy is different. That's the biggest thing I've noticed, just in terms of how guys communicate, how guys are connected in timeouts on the court during runs, positive and negative."

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What Wemby did this offseason to improve

Michael C. Wright details how Victor Wembanyama pushed himself this offseason to improve for the upcoming season.

WHEN WEMBANYAMA FIRST caught wind of the Area 51 nickname last season, he didn't hesitate to voice his approval. Castle agreed.

"I love the name," he said.

Living up to it, however, takes work and time. During a two-game skid in early November, Wembanyama stumbled against relentless double teams, scoring a combined 28 points, shooting 32.1% and committing 11 turnovers. Over that same span, Castle shot 44.8% and coughed up 9 turnovers.

Still, it's clear the duo has already made considerable strides in their first full year together.

Through the first 11 games of this season, Wembanyama and Castle have averaged over eight more pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions (16.9) than last season and have been more efficient in doing so (0.98 points per chance over the first nine games, compared to 0.84 last year), per Genius IQ.

One conversation quietly permeating the locker room is Castle's penchant for posterizing opponents with powerful dunks. Castle told ESPN early in the season that if teams continue keeping guards posted near the rim, he'll try to dunk on them every time.

Wembanyama knows this, too, which is perhaps why he lets out a quiet laugh when describing the athleticism and skillset that complete Area 51.

"He's still hard to stop for the defenders," Wembanyama said. "You just can't ignore him, because if you give him this much space, he's gonna take off and dunk on you. His playmaking qualities, he's always had that. His talent, he just does stuff you can't work on. He just has it."

Defensively, Area 51 continues to wreck the pick-and-roll. Over the first 11 games, opponents have run 69 pick-and-rolls that involved Castle guarding the ballhandler and Wembanyama handling the screener. Teams scored 0.79 points per chance on those plays, making Area 51 the eighth-best defensive duo this season of the 31 twosomes around the league that faced at least 50 pick-and-rolls.

Eighty-two different two-man lineups had played at least 200 minutes together. Area 51 held opponents to 42% from the field, which ranked No. 5 among those duos.

"The connection that me and Vic have, I'm just glad people are starting to see that from the outside," Castle said. "Vic as a teammate is very, very patient. So, he's made it easy for me to adjust. When I first came in, I mean, it was Wemby. Everybody wants to play with Wemby. So, it was cool to be able to share the court with him.

"Now, he's like my brother. We can talk about anything."