Spurs of the Next Moment?

You guys still here?

The San Antonio Spurs aren’t actually dead, they just wish they were sometimes while they pick up the pieces of their hearts and other body parts, which the Lakers keep scattering all over the countryside.

And, if the agony of defeat isn’t enough, there’s the utter torment of having to discuss it with reporters, who remain fixed on last season’s humiliation, when the Lakers swept them by an average of 22 points a game in the Western Conference finals, after which the Spurs were called everything up to, and including, “heartless, gutless pigs” in print.

The media keep asking if the Lakers are “in their heads,” a treasured cliche.

It’s true, the Spurs’ confidence isn’t at its zenith, but they have more pressing concerns, in transition as they are from a nice-enough past into what could be a promising future.

For the Spurs, the problem is the present.

“It’s always there to some degree,” said Coach Gregg Popovich about last spring’s experience, manfully taking questions without winces or eye rolls.

“It’s just as irrelevant as the championship [the Spurs won in 1999] was. It’s a new group. They don’t really care about last year and they don’t care about the championship. They care about getting this team together, being as good as we possibly can be....

“It was a tough summer. It was real tough. I wanted to make sure our guys faced it, knew what happened to us. You’ve got to face something like this. We got our butt beat. No matter what the reasons, no matter who’s out, no matter this, that or the other, we got our butt kicked, we got embarrassed; it happened, that’s the deal.”

Now, there’s a new deal, because many of them are gone. Talk about your scattered remnants--only six Spurs remain from last season.

Avery Johnson, their fast-talking Little General, was allowed to leave, taking much of their leadership with him. Derek Anderson decided he’d been disrespected and locked himself into a seven-year deal in Portland, where he now comes off the bench. Sean Elliott became an announcer, Samaki Walker a Laker.

In their place came such young players as Tony Parker, Bruce Bowen and Charles Smith. Suddenly, the team was no longer old and thin but athletic and deep.

As recently as last spring, people wondered why Tim Duncan would want to stay beyond 2003, when he becomes a free agent. Now the Spurs have a future, with young players and cap room.

Parker, a budding phenomenon, was actually starting at point guard in his first week in the NBA, having arrived only months before from his native Paris--the one in France--at age 19.

Parker has since run into that rookie wall, but the best is surely to come. The problem is David Robinson, one of the foundations for all they’ve been and still hope to be, whose best was a while back.

So they’ve got young guys coming, no cohesion, their Admiral on his way out and their Laker nemeses dropping in occasionally to pulverize them and make the media go all atwitter again.

Better days may lie ahead. The trick will be surviving until then.

‘Phenom’ in French Is ‘Le Tony Parker’

It must be a new world, indeed, if a teenage European rookie can start right away, at the point, for a veteran players’ coach, on a team with title aspirations, but here he is.

This is like Fernando Valenzuela, emerging from the Sonoran desert with a chunky body and a natural’s game, with his smooth delivery and deft fielding ability. Oh, and he could hit too.

Amazed NBA coaches try to account for Parker’s stunning precocity. Orlando’s Doc Rivers and Indiana’s Isiah Thomas, Chicago natives, thought he was the son of another local player, Sonny Parker, who appeared briefly in the NBA.

Actually, Tony’s father, Tony Sr., was a lesser-known Chicagoan who started for Loyola and played overseas, where he met Tony Jr.’s mother, who’s Dutch.

In the European way, Tony Jr. turned pro young--at 15--and began playing against older players, including some from the NBA, including J.R. Reid and Keith Jennings.

At 19, Parker was recruited by several major U.S. universities, including UCLA, and actually wanted to attend Georgia Tech, but his team, Paris Basket Racing, wouldn’t let him out of his contract.

Last spring, Parker was unfazed and impressive in the Nike-sponsored U.S. Hoop Summit at Indianapolis against such young Americans as Darius Miles, and suddenly he’d caught the attention of scouts for NBA teams, which, unlike colleges, could buy out his contract.

Arriving at the pre-draft camp in Chicago in June, Parker looked lost, bounced around in his Spur workout by a University of Texas guard named Lance Blanks.

But then came a string of impressive visits. Parker’s workout in San Antonio was so stunning that Popovich, who had been unimpressed in Chicago, joked to his staff that the kid would probably be starting in 10 games, which turned out to be no joke.

Of course, first the Spurs had to get him. With the No. 28 pick, they tried to trade into the teens but failed.

Meanwhile, lots of general managers thought about Parker but went with more conventional picks.

The Golden State Warriors, desperate for a point guard, rejected offers to trade down from No. 14 and took Troy Murphy, although then-Coach Dave Cowens later said of Parker, “I don’t care where he played. I looked at him and said, ‘I’d like to play with that guy.’”

Boston thought about Parker at No. 21 but took North Carolina’s Joseph Forte. Orlando considered him at 22 but took Southern Methodist’s Jeryl Sasser.

Parker was still there at No. 28 and became a Spur. Then he started playing against NBA guys and everyone was amazed.

Said Robinson to the San Antonio News-Express’ Johnny Ludden: “The last time I saw a young player who acted like that, it was Tim.”

Said Houston Coach Rudy Tomjanovich: “I hate that little son of a gun, just the way I hated Duncan the first time I saw him make a reverse pivot.”

Still unfazed, Parker doesn’t know why everyone keeps asking if he was scared or intimidated.

“I was not expecting nothing,” he says. “I was just happy to be drafted in the first round. San Antonio was a winning team with superstars like David and Tim. I was just happy to be here.

“I was not thinking how I’m going to do, I was just happy to be here, trying to learn as much as I can.”

Has he surprised himself?

“No, not really,” he says.

Everyone else is blown away. The Spurs, once a half-court team that often struggled on offense, are now up to No. 6 in scoring. Popovich says it wasn’t by design as much as Parker’s ability to break down defenders, get into the lane and find teammates.

Imagine where this prodigy could be in two or three seasons.

Of course, in the meantime, they still have a full schedule.

Mr. Robinson’s Old Neighborhood

“I was supposed to walk him [Robinson] out, but he scored four points. Let him walk himself out.”

San Antonio policeman,

after a recent game

The NBA has always been weird for Robinson, a former most valuable player, praised effusively for his grace and manners (Sports Illustrated ran a memorable cover of him with halo and angel’s wings) and alternately reviled for not winning or caring enough.

Everything seemed easy for Robinson. He was a rare, or unheard-of athlete for a 7-footer but away from the game, he was shy (he said) or aloof (some teammates said before getting to know him). He was from the suburbs, had a mathematics degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and, as Rivers, a former teammate, once noted, seemed happy to tap away at his laptop. In the summer, Robinson didn’t pick up a ball.

Of course, when a team underachieves, the blame always goes to its greatest star, and something assuredly was missing, if only in Robinson’s modest supporting cast.

The Spurs blew up annually in the playoffs, never more spectacularly than in 1995, Robinson’s MVP season, when they were seeded first and imploded against the Houston Rockets in the West finals, as Dennis Rodman flipped everyone out, taking off his shoes on the bench.

Duncan, another offshore prodigy, arrived in 1997 and Robinson slid graciously into a supporting role, leading to their 1999 title.

In those days, people were asking if the Spurs, who had swept them, were in the the Lakers’ heads, or if the Lakers had any heads at all, having been previously dispatched by the Utah Jazz in successive 4-1 and 4-0 series.

(There’s a lot of symmetry. In 1999, the Spurs tied the playoff record by going 15-2. Two years later, the Lakers broke the record at 15-1.

In 1999, the Spurs’ Jaren Jackson, who’d never been a factor before and never would again, rained three-pointers on everyone, turning close games into routs. In 2001, Derek Fisher made 15 of 20 three-pointers against the Spurs.)

In 1999, Robinson was 33, averaging 16 points and 10 rebounds, but his numbers kept slipping as he got older, Duncan got better and they got more scorers. Robinson often drifted out of the offense and, not infrequently, the game too.

Indignities now arrive atop indignities.

Before re-signing him last summer, the Spurs, who had $16 million available, tried to talk to Chris Webber, failing because Webber had fired his agent and everyone had to go through his aunt.

Webber’s aunt kept saying her nephew was interested, but the Spurs could never talk to him.

Meanwhile, Spur fans were up in arms. Owner Peter Holt, who finally ordered Robinson signed, told the Express-News: “There were e-mails, calls, people stopping me on the street, even my own family. Everyone wanted to know the same thing, ‘Why, why, why? Why haven’t you signed David?’”

Then, within hours of the newspaper reporting on its Web site that the Spurs had agreed to terms with Robinson, Webber’s people called the team, wanting to talk.

Now Robinson is down to 10.9 points (3.5 below last season’s career low) and 7.8 rebounds (.8, or almost 10%, below last season’s career low.) He often sits out the fourth quarter, which Popovich attributes to matchups.

Of course, Popovich once let opponents worry about matching up with them.

Now there is only dirty work for Robinson, who’s no longer a No. 1, 2 or 3 option on offense and guards the best big man to keep Duncan out of foul trouble. One day, Robinson is out on the floor chasing Karl Malone, who’s essentially a jump shooter; the next, he is trying to shove Shaquille O’Neal out of the lane.

Robinson is still as willing, but recently, not as effective.

“It’s not my job to be Superman any more,” he joked after a game last week, nodding toward Duncan’s cubicle. “We got Superman sitting over there. I’m supposed to be filling the gaps and doing the things that we need to do to be successful.

“I’m probably not the one to ask [why he sits out fourth quarters]. Right now there’s probably 1,000 reasons and Pop knows them all. I’m enjoying myself. I’m playing well. I’m feeling pretty good. There’s been one or two games where I haven’t felt like I played great, but for the most part I have played well.

“No question, when I go out and see the stats--you know, 12 points a game, eight rebounds--I’m thinking, that isn’t very much for me, coming from where I’ve come from.

“But, you know, I’ve got to gauge it from within what [Popovich] wants me to do for this team. I mean, I’m not going to shoot 20 times a game.”

Two days later, the bottom fell out.

The Spurs started the Laker game by pounding the ball into Robinson, who went 0 for six in the first half, started the third quarter with a 15-foot airball and didn’t play in the fourth, after which Popovich noted he had “a couple people who didn’t show” and Robinson ducked out on the media, the first time in his 13-year Spur career he had fled the heat.

That was after a pregame show in which Jayson Williams, NBC’s even-farther-off-the-wall answer to Turner’s Charles Barkley, said Robinson was “scared” of O’Neal (who wasn’t in town), noting “this isn’t a knife fight” and advising Robinson to “bring your heart.”

Heaven forbid. All they do in this league is step on hearts.

Tonight O’Neal is in town and so is Robinson. The Spurs’ transition continues, day by extremely challenging day.