By Steven Schindler
Sunday March 24, 2002

This was not supposed to be the year of the San Antonio Spurs. They didn’t have what it took anymore. The Los Angeles Lakers swept them from last year’s Western Conference Finals in 4, they were labeled “gutless pigs” by the national press and the rest of the league wanted very little to do with them.

San Antonio’s Spurs were in disarray at season’s end. David Robinson was getting older, all but four players from the ’99 championship roster had either been shipped out of town or left on their own volition and Tim Duncan was surely re-thinking his decision to stay in the River City. As the Spur’s future, Duncan was looking for a little help and all it seemed he got this off-season was a little known French guy whose main job was to deliver the morning practice pastries.

There was a lot of non-chemistry brewing on the Alamodome hardwood for the silver and black. No more magic medical mojo from retired transplant darling Sean Elliot. No more slash and dash from the dastardly Portland defector Derek Anderson. Nothing but a bad new nickname, a lot of holes to fill, and a lot of questions to be answered.

So in came nine new guys this off-season. A fresh new crew to hopefully surround The Admiral and Duncan with some talent so that David could perhaps retire with one more ring and T-Dunk could have some support for championship runs in the future.

Steve Smith came in from Portland when disgruntled Derek Anderson lived up to his initials and bolted there. Tony Parker was French, only 19 years old and an unknown quantity. Bruce Bowen was brought in for some defense but wasn’t known to shoot a lick.  Cherokee Parks seemed to be on a mission to find some skin to plant a tattoo on and Amal McCaskill’s hair swung everywhere knocking guys down on every transition.

Was all of this change going to be enough? Antonio Daniels came and went as starting point guard. Danny Ferry was still white and couldn’t jump, and from day to day Terry Porter either didn’t play well because of his advanced age or was hailed as the geriatric hero of the new millennium when he sank a couple of threes.

As colorful as all of this sounds San Antonio’s new mix wasn’t gelling and they hadn’t beaten Shaq and Kobe’s Lakers in their last six meetings. They barely seemed capable of splitting a home and home series with the resurgent Dallas Mavericks and their ability to beat NBA teams swimming above the .500 mark appeared suspect at best.

So the Spurs started their season with a baby-faced point guard and a 2-2 split against some tough Western Conference competition. T-Dunk and crew flashed some spark in the season’s first 2 months ripping off 7 and 10 game winning streaks. The young Tony Parker exhibited some unusual poise for his age and the perimeter shooting of Steve Smith, Antonio Daniels and Danny Ferry were providing some sweet contrast to the inside power of David and Tim. All seemed well and good at the time.

But critics were quick to point out that the competition thus far had been mostly weaker teams from the east, mostly teams with losing records, and it was true. Whenever the Spurs ran up against a playoff hardened Sacramento, Minnesota, Dallas or Philadelphia they didn’t seem to be able to finish things off. In spite of typically heroic efforts nightly from Duncan these encounters usually ended up in the “L” column.

David Robinson disappeared at times and the perimeter shooting well seemed to run dry when needed most. Coach Greg Popovich appeared to be in a fog, leaving The Admiral on the bench for whole quarters at a time. Tony Parker was suddenly playing in a rookie funk. Danny Ferry and Bruce Bowen went down with slow-healing injuries and die-hard fans wondered what the heck was going on? What was Popovich going to about it?

Coach Pop surely wondered the same thing. But he did know one thing for sure, that patience was a virtue in this scenario. He played roster roulette through January and February in search of floor combinations that might work. The win-loss-win-loss inconsistency of those months made most loyal San Antonio fans pull their hair out. But this extended period of roster juggling did one thing, it gave valuable playing time and experience to the entire Spurs bench.

Often suffering two or three losses in between occasional wins the Spurs could only manage sporadic 3 and 4 game winning runs during those two months. Nothing to write home about and surely nothing to pin your championship hopes on either. But if this team was to ever manage to field its starting five again, you got the feeling it might prove much stronger and deeper than anyone had imagined.

Then came the month of March. Back came the rested and healed pair of Danny Ferry and Bruce Bowen. Back came some starting five consistency. Back came the long-distance buckets and hard-nosed defense. And suddenly back came the winning. The Spurs won their first game of March against the Timberwolves and haven’t looked back as they rolled on to take 12 straight.

Where did these guys come from? Where’d they learn to do this? If these Spurs are in a self-proclaimed rebuilding mode, they are doing so while on track to win 56 games this season.

They are doing so with a 19 year-old rookie point guard who can do 0 to 60 in less than 4.5 seconds. They are doing so with a top-5 defensive effort and a proven inside-outside offensive game that can now flat roll over you. They are doing so getting consistent quality bench minutes from Italian League refugee Charles Smith and ’99 holdover Malik Rose who has stepped up his game with big time improvement in his points (8.5 to 14) and shooting average (44.1 to 55.3) in the month of March.

Through all the adversity, roster juggling, hand wringing of the first 55 games of the season, a healthy team has suddenly emerged that has finally gelled on and off the court and is indeed stronger than most would have imagined. Just ask the Mavericks and Lakers after their most recent encounters of the “Spurs” kind!

Take Tim Duncan for granted and he will burn you for 30. Give the “Admiral” and inch and he’ll elevate his embalmed carcass skyward and slam a few offensive boards down on you. Leave Ferry, Porter or Steve Smith open outside and they will burn you long distance. Let Bruce Bowen too close and he’ll steal you blind, then bury a bomb from the corner that he pulled from “you know where”! Give Tony Parker a 10 spot and he will run circles around you and dump sugar-glazed crullers in your face. This kid has impressed everyone with his fearlessness in crunch time.

Mowing the Mavs and Lakers in back-to-back monster wins puts the Spurs right back in the mix in the west and now they begin an 11-to-12 game stint against what could end up being all playoff teams. Where they stand at the end of this run should tell us all we need to know about what the Spurs are made of and how they will fare in this year’s NBA playoffs.

Copyright © 2002 by Steve Schindler. All rights reserved.