By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net
As he has for 14 years running, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich expects to be able to chisel Tim Duncan’s name into his starting lineup for the 2011-12 campaign, whenever it begins.
Though Duncan has passed his 35th birthday, he remains under contract for next season, and Popovich sees no reason to doubt the two-time MVP will return for another go-round.
“Timmy’s given me no indication he’s considering retiring, or anything like that,” Popovich said.
In what has seemed to be an annual offseason ritual ever since David Robinson hung up his Nikes, the search is on for someone to be Duncan’s frontcourt running mate.
With the playoff wounds inflicted by Zach Randolph and Memphis’ bruising frontcourt still fresh, and with Antonio McDyess all but officially retired, Popovich said this week that finding a partner for Duncan will be the team’s top offseason personnel priority.
The Spurs have not ruled out exploring the trade or free-agent markets to accomplish that goal, once they open for business, but are more likely to look in-house to fill the void.
One returning candidate is 22-year-old DeJuan Blair, an undersized forward at 6-foot-7 who started 65 games, but battled weight issues and fell out of favor in the postseason. Another is 25-year-old Tiago Splitter, a 6-foot-11 former first-round draft pick who arrived last summer amid a frenzy of fanfare only to have his rookie season undermined by alternating spates of injury and inactivity.
Two weeks removed from a playoff ouster, and with plenty of offseason in front of him, Popovich hasn’t committed to anyone just yet. At times, however, he appears willing to talk himself into the dawning of the Splitter era.
“I think Tiago has to be a linchpin for our future here, because he has the size, the length, the toughness, the grit, the consistency,” Popovich said. “He’s going to be a stalwart of this team going forward.”
A limited offensive player, Splitter already has begun offseason work with Spurs shooting guru Chip Engelland to work on his free-throw stroke and to move his game a bit further from the basket. That work, however, is likely to be interrupted when Splitter joins the Brazilian national team for preparations for the Tournament of the Americas later this summer, and won’t resume until the NBA’s collective bargaining issues are settled.
Though Splitter did not spend much time paired with Duncan this season, and doesn’t have a jumper to spread the floor as McDyess did, Popovich thinks the two could coexist. For proof, he points to Fabricio Oberto, a player similar to Splitter who started next to Duncan on the Spurs’ 2007 championship team.
“We played with two bigs before, when Fab was here,” Popovich said. “Fab and Timmy were the starters, and we got it done.”
Splitter appeared in 60 games as a rookie, after missing all of training camp and the preseason with a calf injury. He did not see action in the postseason until Game 4 against Memphis, after which he became a rotation fixture.
“When you miss the entire training camp and you’re a rookie, you’re going to have a tough time in any program,” Popovich said. “After that, he got injured once or twice more. At the time, when he would get a little healthy and be available, we were rolling. DeJuan was starting, so we didn’t change it.”
Blair averaged 8.8 points and 7.3 rebounds as an unorthodox starting center. In mid-March, he was benched in favor of McDyess, whose defensive chops the coaching staff deemed more valuable in the postseason.
After Blair ballooned to nearly 300 pounds late in the season, Popovich challenged him to shed excess weight. In response, Blair dropped 20 pounds by cutting fast food out of his diet.
Heading into the summer, Popovich has challenged Blair again.
Blair’s future with the Spurs, the coach said, is not aligned with “working on his jumper or developing a jump hook. It’s not defense.”
“It’s personal discipline, responsibility and maturity,” Popovich said. “That will get him to the next level. Short of that, he’ll have a hard time.”
As it has been for nearly a decade of offseasons now, when it comes to Spurs’ big men, Duncan is the only sure thing.
