Stephon Castle's invite to All-Star Weekend ends a near four-decade-long drought

Stephon Castle has been invited to participate in the Slam Dunk Competition on NBA All-Star Weekend, February 14-16, in San Francisco. Castle has been an explosive dunker all season, putting players on posters so often he probably has to stamp his signatures on all the royalty checks he's sending out. He's a worthy addition, and has reportedly committed to the Saturday night event.

Steph is the first Spurs player to participate in the Slam Dunk Contest since Greg Anderson in 1988. That's 37 years. While they've had their fair share of dunkers, San Antonio has never really been known for adding athletically explosive players. Sure, Manu Ginobili and Kawhi Leonard were strong dunkers with some bounce, but they were in-game dunkers, not show dunkers.

Spurs are represented heavily on All-Star Weekend

As one of the best rookies in the NBA, Castle is expected to participate in Friday's Rising Stars game. The Castrol Rising Stars game features the best first and second-year players, along with a few NBA G-League players deserving of recognition. They'll play in a small tournament-style contest, and the winner will be a part of this year's tweak to the All-Star Games.

Yes, that was an "s" at the end of All-Star Game. If you haven't heard by now, there has been a change to the format of All-Star Weekend's staple competition. Sunday will now feature another small tournament-style contest where the honored players will be put into three teams, with the fourth team being the winner of the Rising Stars Tournament.

Many players have expressed dissatisfaction with such a radical change to the format, but they have nobody to blame but themselves. The NBA would not have felt the need to do something so drastic had the players taken the game seriously. Unfortunately, the quality of the product had deteriorated to the point where it was a joke that you would ask fans to watch it, so something had to be done.

Victor Wembanyama has been getting all-star votes at a much higher pace this season compared to last. He's almost certain to be one of the Western Conference players selected to play in the tourney, giving him the first of many all-star appearances on his already impressive resume.

Also, Wemby is a sophomore himself, so it remains to be seen if he'd attempt to play in the Rising Stars Tournament as well as Sunday's All-Star Tournament.

Castle's decision to accept the NBA's invitation to the Slam Dunk Contest ensures that Spurs fans will have a player to root for every night of the NBA's premier weekend. They haven't had that since the 2012-203 season when Kawhi Leonard played in the Rising Stars Game, Tony Parker participated in Saturday's Skills Competition and also joined Tim Duncan as All-Stars for Sunday's game.