When Pointing Fingers, Gilmore, at 7-2, Is an Easy Target to Find

Quarterbacks, it is said, get too much credit for winning and too much blame for losing. It’s probably just as true for 7-footers in basketball.

Few basketball giants have taken as much heat as 7-foot-2, 255-pound Artis Gilmore.

He was blamed when Jacksonville lost in the NCAA finals to UCLA in 1971. While he helped the Kentucky Colonels win the American Basketball Assn. championship in 1975, he hasn’t come close to winning a National Basketball Assn. title in eight years, six of them in Chicago and two in San Antonio.

“People see me as a loser,” says Gilmore, who is having one of his best NBA seasons although the Spurs are only 14-18. “There isn’t anything that will change that. Nobody likes Goliath. I think I’ve had a tremendous career, but people don’t notice.”

Gilmore says criticism is “part of the game. I’ve accepted it. As long as I’m healthy, I can take the pressure. I’m just going to play and not worry about it.”

“I don’t think he’s ever gotten his due,” Spurs Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons says. “Whoever heard of Jacksonville before he got there, and what have they done since? It’s easy to point your finger at the big guy and say it’s his fault when you don’t win.”

Then, Fitzsimmons added, almost apologetically, “I have to admit we can only go as far as he’ll take us.”

Gilmore is averaging 20 points a game this season, his highest since 1978-79 and nearly five points higher than last season. He also is only one point per game from doing what no other Spur has done since the franchise joined the NBA in 1976--supplant George Gervin as the team scoring leader.

Gilmore also is among the league leaders in rebounding with 11.1 per outing, including 21 rebounds Oct. 27 in a victory over the Lakers, 20 more in a triumph over New York Nov. 4 and 19 in a loss to Boston last week.

He also is No. 2 in the NBA in field-goal percentage at .616, compared with his career average of .596, already the highest in NBA history.

But beyond the improved statistics, Gilmore, at age 35, is playing with the enthusiasm of a high school player.

“Anyone who remembers Gilmore last year can’t believe the animation, the hustle and energy,” said columnist Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Light.

“I never had a center quite like him in my coaching career,” said Fitzsimmons, in his first year with the Spurs although he started coaching in the NBA in 1970. “I always told myself if I had a center like him that I would use him more. He can’t play as many minutes as he used to, but he can still be very effective. He knows it’s late in his career, and he’s played hard.”

Explaining his improved production, Gilmore said, “We’re trying to have not so much of a perimeter game and more of an inside game. I’m really just the same Artis Gilmore, just much older.”

“For us to be a more effective team, we have to use Artis because he makes Gervin and Mike Mitchell more effective,” Fitzsimmons said.

Part of the knock on Gilmore in the past has been his passive nature, and Fitzsimmons admitted that sometimes is a problem.

“He’s not a violent person, but when he gets pushed around, he doesn’t like it and will push back,” Fitzsimmons said.