He’ll Sail Off Into the Sunset, or Go Down With the Ship

Let’s have a warm Laker farewell for ... David Robinson!

As a token of their affection, they’d like to present you with a 7-foot, 340-pound, fire-breathing dragon, who’s still upset you weren’t nicer when you gave him that autograph, back in the ‘80s.

Is this any way to send an all-time great into his dotage?

At 37, with two sore knees, a back that can go out at any moment, the game’s most terrifying force headed his way and as little as two weeks left in his career, the most beloved and overlooked of the San Antonio Spurs begins his last stand, happy as a diminished superstar on his way out could be.

“For me, this last stretch, playing against the best teams, that’s the way you want it,” Robinson said over the weekend. “If you’re going to be a champion, be a champion.”

And if you’re going to be a retiree, what better way to go out than with a title ... or tire tracks across your chest? A career dedicated to competing couldn’t end better, or at least that’s how Robinson feels now.

Under ordinary circumstances, it’s no longer a biggie if he plays or not (the Spurs were 15-3 without him this season, better than their 45-19 record with him). But Shaquille O’Neal is an extraordinary circumstance, making size all-important, requiring both of the Spurs’ 7-footers.

O’Neal can name his number against most teams, if so moved, but if there’s a full complement of Spurs available, the game actually changes for him.

In his last two regular seasons against them, he averaged 24 points and shot 44%, against overall averages of 27 and 57%.

In the last two playoff meetings, while the Lakers won eight of nine games, the Spurs still held O’Neal to 24 points and 49%, against overall postseason averages of 29 and 55%.

Of course, you don’t often get a healthy Robinson in the equation.

Last spring, when Robinson had a floating disk in his back, he missed the first two playoff games against the Lakers, which the Spurs split in Staples Center.

Robinson then returned for the last three but was a minor factor, even in the limited role he now plays, averaging six points and seven rebounds in 25 minutes.

Nor is he all better now. He sat out a game in the series against the Phoenix Suns and had his left knee drained after hurting it in a gung-ho effort for a 37-year-old, drawing a charge on Stephon Marbury.

Put it this way: Do you remember seeing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar throwing his body in front of people, trying to take charges in his twilight years?

Robinson’s left knee is actually his good one. The right one is a continuing problem. His back is so stiff, he couldn’t bend over to pick up a rebound that fell almost at his feet in one of the games in Phoenix, so a teammate had to come over to get it.

Robinson also averaged 9.6 points, 8.8 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in 25 minutes against the Suns.

He’s still David Robinson, after all, or the next best thing.

Officer, Gentleman and a Scapegoat

Who was he, anyway?

It was easy to characterize him away from the game. He was an Academy-groomed Naval officer. He was nice.

He was generous, donating $5 million to start an inner-city school here named after George Washington Carver, an act so selfless -- not to mention unusual -- it moved Commissioner David Stern to announce that from now on, the league’s community-service award would be named after Robinson.

He also was a great player, although how great was widely debated, as in 1994-95. That was the season when he was MVP, Sports Illustrated put him on its cover dressed as an angel and the Spurs made the West finals, the farthest he had been, after which they were upset by the Houston Rockets.

All the other seasons, until Tim Duncan’s arrival in 1997, the Spurs were upset even earlier.

“Athletic ability, he’s the best I’ve ever seen or ever played with,” Orlando Coach Doc Rivers, a former teammate, once said. “He’s more athletically gifted than Dominique Wilkins. He can run faster than most guards, can jump higher than almost anybody in the league. He has a God’s gift body. I think the only thing he doesn’t have ... is an understanding of the game and a passion for the game.

“He was asked to play basketball. The first time he ever played, he was asked. In high school, the coach asked him to come out his junior year and he actually said no.

“The guy said, ‘Why don’t you give it a try?’ He tried out and made it and then the best player got hurt. And that’s the only reason he played.”

In another context, it might not have mattered if Robinson grew up in the suburbs of Virginia, and was always tapping away on his laptop, a long time before everyone was carrying them around.

With better luck, he could have gone down as a latter-day Bill Russell, another long, lean, left-handed, defense-oriented center.

However, Russell joined a perfect team, the Celtics, who had lots of offense and needed someone who could play on the other end. Robinson joined the Spurs, who had nothing.

How bad were they? In the year they had to wait as he satisfied his obligation to the Navy, they went 21-61 under Larry Brown -- by far the worst of Brown’s 20 NBA seasons.

“You wear it [criticism], there’s no question,” said Robinson. “I wore it on my shoulders. But I think that’s part of the challenge. You understand it. When you are the player, you take the heat....

“I got plenty of praise and I got plenty of criticism and that’s just the way it was. I didn’t roll around in the praise so when they criticized me, I think I tried to use it more often as motivation for me....

“It was frustrating at times, when I didn’t have any control over what players we brought in here. But now we’ve got a bunch of great players. At the time, we had no players that any other team wanted.”

Devoutly religious, Robinson always had a life to go home to. For better or worse, basketball was only so important.

Will Perdue, who played with both, once said the difference between Robinson and Michael Jordan was that Robinson never blamed teammates when things went wrong, and Jordan always did. Maybe that was one more reason why Jordan won all those titles ... and why he missed the competition so keenly, he had to come out of retirement twice.

Here Is Your Second Fiddle

Then along came Duncan.

Robinson was 32 and in his prime when Duncan arrived, averaging 21.6 points to the rookie’s 21.1. But Duncan was so good, it was inevitable he would take over the offense, and leave Robinson to do the dirty work.

Perhaps, in the nicest thing you could say about Robinson, the player, he never complained. The most he ever said was it was hard.

“Probably a little bit, mentally,” he said. “But I think for me, that’s always been my game. One of the things about this league, you’ve got to know who you are. You’ve got to know what kind of talent you have and what you can bring to the table.

“For my first eight years or so, I spent time trying to figure out how I could make this team better. That’s been my role, my mentality. I’ve never been a Michael Jordan kind of a player. That’s not my game. So I guess, in some ways, Tim kind of let me find my own place too, and I enjoyed that.”

In their second season, they won an NBA title, filling the void in Robinson’s resume, even if Duncan averaged 22 to his 16.

The difference became more dramatic each season and people forgot how much Robinson was giving up, assuming he was getting old. But at 34 in the 2000 playoffs, when Duncan was hurt, Robinson averaged 24 points and 14 rebounds.

In it to win it to the end, Robinson will now saddle up O’Neal and go for a last ride on that massive back.

Adding to the drama, they are not and have never been close. O’Neal, who went to high school here, complained about that autograph, but that doesn’t sound like Robinson.

However, Robinson does have some snap-out in him for such a nice guy, and in Shaq’s second season, it all came out on a 1993 NBA conference call, after West players ganged up on Shaq in the All-Star game, when Robinson said he was tired of hearing about O’Neal.

O’Neal has made up with, or said nice things, about his other rivals, such as Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning, but the thing with Robinson is ongoing.

“We haven’t gotten to our happy place yet,” said Robinson, laughing. “But that’s the nature of the league. That’s the way it was with me. I saw Hakeem [Olajuwon] and Patrick and I played against those guys and I didn’t like ‘em....

“And then, Olympics come around, I sit around and spend time with those guys, get to know them and now I have a tremendous amount of respect for those guys and I like them. But I think that takes time and while you’re playing, there’s just such a rivalry, everyone wants to be the best guy....

“That’s just the nature of the game. If you can’t live with that, you don’t understand what this is all about.”

Of course, Robinson and O’Neal were on an Olympic team together too, in 1996.

“We talked a little,” Robinson said, “but you know, when you’re right in the middle of a rivalry, it’s still pretty challenging.”

In 1996, O’Neal had just signed with the Lakers and yet to play his first game. As rivalries go, Robinson and O’Neal’s is a lot hotter now than it was then.

Now Robinson is headed for the sunset, but first he gets another shot at a title and one last joust with his arch-nemesis.

Is this a great life or what?