Robertson Has Won His Spurs : But the San Antonio Guard Fears He May Have Lost His Jumper

Alvin Robertson, who has never found a pickup basketball game he didn’t want to dominate, lately has been frequenting the more popular and competitive gyms and playgrounds around San Antonio.

Most days, after he finishes practicing with the San Antonio Spurs, Robertson grabs a spare basketball, changes into clothes suitable for pickup games and continues his workout. He often plays until there aren’t enough bodies left for even a half-court game. Then, he might solicit someone for a little one-on-one.

And what happens when no one is left standing to play?

“I’ll have somebody just feed me the ball, so I can shoot,” Robertson said. “Maybe have someone put a hand in my face to make me shoot over it. It’s not hard to find somebody to help. They want me to play better, and they want the Spurs to do something in the playoffs.”

Robertson, the Spurs’ 6-4 guard, has this crazy idea that, even after an 82-game regular season, he needs extra practice to prepare for the first round of the National Basketball Assn. playoffs. The Spurs will play the Lakers in Game 1 Thursday night at the Forum, and Robertson is worried that his jump shot won’t accompany him on the trip from San Antonio.

He could be right. Robertson, who set an NBA single-season record for steals with 301 and was a starter in the All-Star game in just his second season, fears that he has misplaced his shot.

Even though he finished the season with a 17-point scoring average and a 52% shooting percentage, Robertson has shot just 47% since February’s All-Star break, and has made only 11 of 41 shots in the Spurs’ last four games. His slump, combined with the loss of point guard Johnny Moore for the season and big men Artis Gilmore and Steve Johnson for much of the last month, has contributed to the Spurs’ late-season collapse, which included 21 losses in the last 26 games.

Now, at least, Gilmore and Johnson are back.

Robertson, not the best outside shooter even when he’s on, said: “You have a couple off games and it snowballs. I got a little lackadaisical near the end of the season. We’ve been losing, and I got into that attitude. You can keep saying, ‘I’ll play better next game,’ but you can’t just go out and do it. I’ve got to try to get it back--in a hurry.”

So, he has hit the local gyms.

“I don’t tear up those guys,” Robertson said about the gym rats he plays against. “There are some good players out there. Mostly, I’m just working on finding my shot.”

Apparently, Robertson has never heard of resting for the playoffs. Bob Bass, the Spurs’ general manager, had been out of town for two weeks and did not know of Robertson’s extra-curricular activities.

Bass said he wasn’t surprised to hear it, but he didn’t seem too happy, either.

“That sounds like something Al would do,” Bass said. “His work habits are so good that I figured he’d do something to break out of it.”

Whenever Robertson’s game drops off, he hits the courts. Usually, his problems can be worked out there.

“Alvin used to do the same thing when I had him,” said Eddie Sutton, the University of Kentucky coach who coached Robertson at Arkansas. “Every time he’d get in a slump, he’d go to the gym. He just loves to play basketball. That’s all you can say.”

Except for a consistent jump shot, and some recognition, there isn’t much Robertson lacks. Combining acrobatic skills and grace, he is one of the NBA’s quickest players and certainly one of the hardest workers on defense.

Robertson has been compared to Sidney Moncrief, a star for eight seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks, ever since he set foot on the Arkansas campus. Both starred for the Razorbacks. Both are 6 foot 4 inches of determination. Both are slight of build but known for toughness. And both stress defense more than offense.

“Every guard that goes to Arkansas is compared to Sidney Moncrief, because he was the first,” Sutton said. “But Alvin came the closest by his senior year. Sidney has been a great pro. I think Alvin will be, too. He’s a complete player.”

The Spurs were convinced of that after Robertson’s rookie season, 1984-85. Robertson, the seventh choice in the 1984 draft, averaged 9.2 points, 3.4 assists and 1.6 steals in backing up star guard George (Iceman) Gervin. In the nine games Robertson started in place of Gervin, the Spurs were 7-2 and Robertson averaged 13.4 points and 5.2 assists.

During the off-season, Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons told reporters that Robertson would be his starting off-guard and that Gervin, fading at 33, would be used off the bench. That decision frosted the Iceman, who requested a trade. On Oct. 24, the popular Gervin was sent to Chicago for David Greenwood, an extremely unpopular move in San Antonio.

“It was unpopular only because the fans loved (Gervin) and they took it out on management, not Alvin,” Bass said. “We felt like Alvin was ready to play or we wouldn’t have made that trade. It wasn’t our idea to trade (Gervin). He just didn’t want to play in back of Alvin.”

Not many NBA guards want to play against Robertson, a tenacious defender. Dallas’ Rolando Blackman, whose team played the Spurs six times during the regular season, shook his head when asked what it’s like to go against Robertson.

“Alvin is a pest,” Blackman said. “He can disrupt your offense. He’s always constantly in motion.”

From the moment Robertson was old enough to control a basketball, he was in constant motion on the court. He is the third-oldest of eight boys reared by Robert and Essie Robertson in the Akron suburb of Barberton, Ohio.

Alvin and his brothers spent much of their time playing hoops at Elson Park, about three blocks from the Robertson home. Robertson recalled that, in those days, it was the natural meeting place for most aspiring ballplayers.

“We’d put up maybe $2 a person for a game,” Robertson said. “You could make some money doing that. It was fun. They still do it now.”

Although Robertson is paid well to play for the Spurs--he makes $231,125 this season and will make $302,250 in 1986-87--he enjoyed the game just as much when the stakes weren’t nearly so high.

The only thing that impressed Jack Greynolds, varsity coach at Barberton High School for 30 years, at tryouts for the sophomore team was Robertson’s hustle. Robertson was only 5-5 at the time, and every skinny joke in the book applied to him. Only after Robertson had sprouted to 6-2 in his senior year did Greynolds believe that Robertson had a future in basketball.

“We are a three-year school and we’d bring in the ninth graders at the end of the school year to see what talent we’d have coming the next year,” Greynolds said. “Here’s Alvin, short and skinny, and wearing this jersey way too big for him. It was number 8, but Alvin’s shorts covered half the number, so it looked like a zero.

“I remember saying to him, ‘Son, I’m not even going to learn your name.’ I don’t think I’ll need to.’ Well, Alvin made the JV team as a sophomore and was only the ninth man on the team. Between his sophomore and junior years, well, he grew and became a great player.”

Greynolds said that Robertson simply wanted to be a great basketball player and refused to accept anything less.

“The most aggressive player I’ve ever seen in 30 years here,” is the way Greynolds describes Robertson. “I never saw anyone who hates to lose as much as Alvin. He came back (to Barberton) last summer, and I watched him in pickup games at the gym. He treated it like the NBA finals. The other players in the game, including my son, weren’t that intense.”

Had Robertson transferred such intensity to the classroom, he might have drawn many major college recruiters to Barberton. But Robertson, in his words, didn’t apply himself at school. Greynolds said that Robertson failed all six of his classes after basketball season was over and had to go to summer school to earn a diploma. With no scholarship waiting, Robertson played a season at Crowder Junior College in Neosho, Mo.

Robertson played so well there, though--while improving his grades--that he transferred to Arkansas after his freshman season.

For the next two seasons, he and Darrell Walker, now with the New York Knicks, were an effective backcourt combination. But the only consistency in Robertson’s play was hard work. In his sophomore season, for instance, Robertson was named the most valuable player of the Southwest Conference tournament, then scored only six points as the Razorbacks were ousted in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

As a senior, Robertson got his act together and led the Razorbacks in scoring, but it was his defensive skill that impressed Bob Knight enough to give Robertson a spot on the U.S. Olympic basketball team.

Sutton said: “I remember talking to people involved in selecting the Olympic team and I told them that I thought Alvin could be a good 10th or 11th man on the team. But then, Knight saw how he played and Alvin ended up starting.”

The Olympic experience helped Robertson get the attention of NBA scouts. After Knight’s brutally tough Olympic qualifying camp, Robertson was on everybody’s list as a high first-round draft pick. Had the Spurs not chosen him with the seventh pick, the Clippers would have taken him with the eighth selection. Instead, the Clippers settled for Lancaster Gordon.

After a season’s apprenticeship behind Gervin, Robertson has responded well to his starting role.

At one point in January, when the Spurs were reasonably uninjured, the club was 20-15 and Robertson was playing exceptional basketball. In a February game against Phoenix, Robertson became only the second player in NBA history to record a “quadruple double” when he had 20 points, 10 assists, 11 rebounds and 10 steals.

Denver Coach Doug Moe said at the time: “This may be a strong statement, but Robertson is probably the best all-around guard in the league.”

Since the All-Star break, though, Robertson’s outside shooting has failed him. No one on the Spurs seems too concerned, as long as Robertson continues to play well in other areas. But Robertson is confused and upset.

“Hopefully, I can regain my confidence in my shot,” Robertson said. “I just haven’t played that well since the All-Star break. I’ve got to go up a couple notches for the playoffs. Not only is my shot off, but I feel my individual and team defense has suffered, too.

“My problem is, I miss a couple and then I don’t look for the shot anymore. If I could hit a few in a row, then I think it could come back.”

It is entirely possible that Robertson is putting too much importance on his outside shooting. Ordinarily, he scores most of his points off inside moves or drives to the basket.

“Alvin is a scorer, but not a shooter,” Sutton said. “He always has been. He’s as complete a player as I’ve ever seen, and he definitely has the best defensive instincts I’ve seen. But he wasn’t always like that. He was wild, out of control when I first got him. Like a young stallion. You have to get that out of him.”

Said Robertson: “It’s the system at Arkansas. Coach Sutton demands discipline. If you want to play, you’ve got to follow that system. I wanted to play.”

Robertson said he can’t wait to meet the Lakers in the first round. His difficult assignment will be to guard Magic Johnson.

“(The Lakers) are such a running team, you’ve got to get Magic in the backcourt and not let him get a full head of steam,” Robertson said. “You never stop him. He’s going to do his thing. But you’ve got to do your thing.”

Robertson will not find a way to prepare for Magic Johnson in local pickup games, but he may rediscover his jump shot.

“I’m still waiting for it to come back,” he said.