Stephon Castle can follow in Wembanyama's footsteps and make history

Newly drafted guard Stephon Castle has some big shoes to fill coming into his rookie season. The San Antonio Spurs are looking for him to be the point guard of the future, as they've yet to find an elite one since the Tony Parker days. Aside from that, Castle has to follow what may have been the greatest rookie season of all time for the sport.

The 19-year-old is entering one of the best situations a rookie could possibly come into. He's being paired next to Victor Wembanyama for the foreseeable future, and he will spend his first year in the league under the wing of future Hall-of-Famer Chris Paul. The expectations are high for the former national champion, and the odds for Rookie of the Year tell the same story.

Castle is high up on the Rookie of the Year odds

This Rookie of the Year race could be wide open compared to last season, with many potential candidates to take home the hardware in May. Castle is looking to pull off what would be an upset in his debut year, as he is tied with Reed Sheppard and Matas Buzelis for the fifth-best odds to win the award.

It's fair to mention that these odds were released before Castle's first taste of NBA action in the California Classic, where he recorded twelve points, six rebounds, and three assists and did a little bit of everything in his NBA debut.

Stephon has the chance to do something that has yet to be done in a decade, and that's a team that has back-to-back Rookie of the Year winners. The last team to do it was the Minnesota Timberwolves, when Andrew Wiggins won the award in 2014, and Karl Anthony-Towns followed that up by winning it in 2015. Prior to that, no team had ever had consecutive ROY winners since the merger in 1976.

After Victor Wembanyama unanimously took home the title last season, it will be challenging for Castle to one-up that performance. Still, there's no doubt that he is capable of shocking the world and winning the honor, especially now after his first minutes of NBA action—add in that he gets to spend the rest of the off-season learning from CP3, and anything is possible.