NEW YORK — As the Spurs’ Christmas Eve shootaround at Madison Square Garden was wrapping up, Stephon Castle welcomed his mother, up from Georgia to celebrate her birthday.

He led his teammates in serenading “Mamma Castle” of social media fame with a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” as hers falls on the 25th. She thanked the Spurs, in the midst of a Philadelphia-New York-Brooklyn holiday swing, for helping her son find his way as a rookie in the NBA. Then she pulled a small black box out of her pocket.

“I had no idea that was going to happen,” Stephon said, in the moments before the Spurs lost to the Knicks, 117-114, on Christmas Day. “That’s what you do it for, for those kind of moments. I’ve been waiting on it for a while, but was special to finally get it.”

UConn championship ring presentations have become a thing in The League, with Donovan Clingan, Cam Spencer and Tristen Newton receiving theirs earlier in the season. Now it was Steph Castle’s turn. The Spurs arranged for Quannette Castle to be the ring bearer.

“Cool moment,” said Mitch Johnson, the Spurs' acting head coach. “The ability to give Steph an opportunity to be celebrated for winning the championship last year. It’s funny, because we weren’t a part of it, but now he’s such a big part of us that for us to be able to celebrate it in that was was pretty cool.”

This holiday season finds Castle, 20, thriving among his elders in the NBA, sitting atop the Kia Rookie Ladder going into the Christmas Day game, earning new admirers every day. Back in November, LeBron James sought him out after he scored 22 against the Lakers at San Antonio Nov. 15 to offer some encouragement and a few tips.

“Just said, ‘keep going,’ he’s been watching, said, I’ve been playing great,' ” Castle said. “He told me to guard with two feet more, protect my body, stuff like that. It means a lot, it shows he cares about the game of basketball to take time out of his day to talk to a player who’s not on his team, that shows what kind of person he is. It definitely meant a lot.”

After the Spurs took Castle with the fourth pick in the NBA draft, they signed veteran guard Chris Paul, 39, to help mentor him.

“He’s been great for us, and for me especially,” Castle said, “just being able to see how he thinks the game, and hear the insight on why he does certain things, to see his preparation every day, it’s going to help me in the future a lot. One of the main things is to get in a routine so when things go bad you can always go back to that, and little things on the court, being able to read the game in a different way.”

They were on the court together late in the first half Wednesday, Paul finding Castle with a pass from half court, Castle, 6 feet 6, throwing it down with two hands and pointing to the nearest camera.

“It is crazy for him to be a rookie,” Paul said in November. “I’m so confident when he is on the court. When the ball is in his hands, I know what he is capable of now and being screener and all of that stuff. I’m just telling him what I see. I know his aggression and how he can get to the goal.”

Castle’s willingness to listen and learn set him apart at UConn, where coach Dan Hurley often called him “the anti one-and-done.” He arrived from Covington, Ga., with a five-star rep, but coaches and teammates were quickly taken with his maturity and lack of entitlement. That’s carried over and served him well in the NBA, too.

“The thing that’s impressed me most is his temperament,” Johnson said. “He has started, he has come off the bench, played well, struggled, and he kind of flat-lines in the best way possible. Recently, it’s been nice to not be making the same mistakes repeatedly, whether it’s certain passes, certain reads on the pick and roll, certain coverages on defense, his level of maturity and ability to retain information and improve upon previous mistakes is very, very valuable.”

Castle is averaging 11.6 points, 3.8 assists, 2.6 rebounds, very close to his numbers at UConn (11.1, 2.9, 4.7). He has topped 20 points four times. He’s been dealing with a shoulder injury and playing off the bench, but in the first game of the Spurs’ holiday East Coast swing he got 17 points on 7-for-9 shooting in only 13 minutes at Philadelphia on Monday night. Castle scored six points, with three assists and two rebounds in his first Christmas game; the Spurs play the Nets Friday at Barclays Center, as the 82-game regular-season grind continues.

“I would say I came in pretty prepared,” Castle said. “Coming from UConn, I feel like they did a good job and preparing me for what it’s supposed to look like. There has been a bunch I could probably name, but I’ve heard a lot of similar messages from the guys in this locker room, and my coaches, they all preach similar things (to UConn), so I felt pretty prepared, especially playing for a coach like that gets you ready for moments like this.”

Castle has kept in touch with his former teammates, and also been speaking to some of the Huskies newcomers as this season has gone along.

And yes, Castle believes Hurley could do just fine in the NBA.

“I feel like Coach Hurley could coach anywhere, honestly,” Castle said. “But I feel like his home is at UConn. So I feel like he made the right decision (in turning down the Lakers).”

Castle’s home, now, is in the NBA. He and Victor Wembanyama, the NBA Rookie of the Year last season, are forming a young core, capable of elite defense, that will try to restore what was once a NBA dynasty. As Hall of Fame coach Gregg Popovich, 75, who won five championships, recovers from a stoke, Johnson has filled in and has the Spurs (15-15) in playoff contention in the Western Conference. They have not made the playoffs since 2019.

“I feel like me and all the other guys try to stay in the present, don’t overlook things, take it game by game, scout (report) by scout, doing what we can to get stops,” Castle said.

So Paul says “it’s crazy” to think Castle is a rookie in The League. It’s crazier, still, to think he would be a true sophomore if he had gone back to college, but Castle has made it work, the one-and-done experience in college, the early transition to the NBA, none of it has been too much or too soon. The biggest adjustment, he says, is figuring out what to do with his free time. His newest piece of jewelry is proof that, at a young age, Steph Castle already has a lot of this stuff figured out.

“The ring shows a lot of hard work we put in all last season,” Castle said. “For me, it manifested from when I first got on campus to this point, it shows all the work we put in paid off.”

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