Don’t believe the hype -- Spurs are real deal

LeBron who?

Real greatness is at hand, all right, it’s just not the hype ABC and Nike are peddling.

If Cleveland’s 22-year-old LeBron James is the face of the Finals, however briefly, the Spurs are everything else, including overwhelming favorites.

If the Spurs sound familiar but you just can’t place them, they’re the little team from Nowhere, Texas ... that’s expected to win its fourth title in nine seasons ... which would put San Antonio one ahead of the Lakers over the same span.

In other words, barring a historic upset, the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant Lakers are not only history, they’re about to be eclipsed by their old foils, who may or may not have been as great but indisputably stood the test of time.

In an age and a league dominated by ego, the Spurs are the Great Anomaly.

Not that it’s going to turn around their image as the team America least wants to see in the Finals.

Of course, it’s one thing to be foils to O’Neal and Bryant and another to be overshadowed by a post-adolescent, who’s the only player on the Cavaliers who would start for the Spurs.

Being the Spurs, they don’t care and barely notice.

“I’m just hoping every once in a while, they’ll throw the Spurs in there between LeBron highlights,” said Tim Duncan last week. “That would be nice.”

This is an amazing disconnect between reality and hype. Duncan is a proven great, on the threshold of his fourth title, which would tie him with O’Neal.

If James was the most-hyped prospect in the game’s history, Duncan is the least-hyped superstar ever, with a personality so low-key, his cute sense of humor is overlooked.

For all James’ acclaim after living up to a monstrous buildup, he has little to say and a personality more bland than Duncan’s, as James demonstrated again in Wednesday’s news conference.

Duncan does have a hookup with Adidas but as teammate Robert Horry noted, he appears in ensemble commercials and if you blink, you miss his part.

Maybe that’s all that’s missing -- a series of commercials with him playing a variety of roles, THE DUNCANS!

Not that Duncan and his teammates are completely ignored. Sometimes the press insults them, as when the Spurs beat the crowd-pleasing Phoenix Suns and people began noting how ratings cratered in prior Finals appearances.

You may have missed the Spurs’ five-game romp in the West finals, which ended the week Kobe went off.

Under the headline, “In other news, Spurs win West,” the Dallas Morning News’ David Moore called it “the NBA’s fifth-biggest story behind Kobe’s desire to be traded, Kobe’s hurt feelings, Kobe’s indecision and Kobe’s declaration that he wants to be a Laker for life.

“Luckily, no one asked Kobe Bryant whom he would have chosen to replace Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank. Otherwise, the Spurs wouldn’t have cracked the top five.”

The Spurs don’t even have their old Boy Scout image anymore. After the Suns’ ballerina troupe whinnied about how rough they were, a hue and cry arose, claiming the Spurs were dirty.

This was nonsense. Lots of people, including Phil Jackson, complain about Bruce Bowen, who just grabs and holds. Jackson once had Dennis Rodman, who was Hannibal Lecter compared to Bowen.

In the business, everyone knows all about the Spurs. Their businesslike operation is widely copied, by no one more than the Cavaliers, who got General Manager Danny Ferry, Coach Mike Brown and assistant coach Hank Egan from here.

“This definitely is a model franchise,” Brown said. “We can’t be the Spurs. We don’t have the same makeup as them or anything like that.”

Phoenix Coach Mike D’Antoni had a nightmare series, trying to get his players to compete at the Spurs’ level before the stunning suspension of Amare Stoudemire.

Nevertheless, afterward, D’Antoni said, “There’s no question they’re one of the three or four best teams of the past 20 years, along with the Bulls, Lakers and Pistons....

“I promise you, it’s not difficult to compliment them for what they’ve done, because it’s the truth.”

The Spurs once took their cues from the gentlemanly David Robinson and the stoic Duncan. Now, with no fanfare, Coach Gregg Popovich’s submerged, commanding personality has taken over.

If the Spurs are inclined to act like grown-ups, they also know Popovich won’t tolerate anyone saying anything out of line. Nevertheless, unlike Miami, another buttoned-up organization with a gloomy don’t-bother-us-we’re-at-war atmosphere, Spurs officials are personable and easy to work around.

Popovich, himself, is a mystery -- an Air Force Academy graduate who once worked in intelligence, whose politics lean to the left -- who intends to stay that way.

Wednesday he did his standard denial (“The success we’ve had, very frankly, as we all know or should know, when David Robinson was followed by Tim Duncan, your major job is not to screw that up. A lot of people would have liked to have that opportunity to be successful under those circumstances.”)

However, in an aside that didn’t make the transcript, Popovich was asked whether he took pride in all the Spurs have become, “assuming you let it in.”

“You got it right there,” he said.

Tonight his overlooked little team will come out of its hole, draw itself up to its full height like the great dragon it is and look down upon James and the Cavaliers lined up behind him. After that, hype means nothing.

mark.heisler@latimes.com