Tag: coach

Spurs still hunting for Parker’s backup

Last offseason, the Spurs tried to do the backup point guard thing right.

Not long after the NBA lockout ended, the team signed T.J. Ford — a veteran, pass-first, traditional point guard straight out of central casting — to play behind All-Star Tony Parker.

And for all 14 games the former University of Texas star appeared in wearing silver and black, it worked.

When a spinal injury nudged Ford into early retirement, coach Gregg Popovich handed the backup job to Gary Neal, a converted shooting guard, and held his breath.

Eight months later, on the cusp of a new season, that’s exactly how the Spurs’ depth chart still stands.

“Somehow or another, we never end up with a pure point to back up,” Popovich said. “We have these guys we sort of push into it somehow or another.”

On a team that returns every major player from a squad that went 50-16 and made the Western Conference finals last season, backup point guard is the one spot that remains unsettled.

Neal would be Parker’s primary backup “if we had a regular-season game tomorrow,” Popovich said, but fan favorite Patty Mills and second-year player Cory Joseph remain in the mix.

The jockeying for the position continues tonight, as the Spurs play their second preseason game — and first against an NBA opponent — against Atlanta at the ATT Center.

“It’s a very competitive environment, and that’s what I love about it,” said Mills, an affable 26-year-old Australian who will miss tonight’s game with a sprained right ankle. “We come out here and go at each other really hard and make each other better. Then we go back in the locker room and laugh with each other.”

Neal was the first point guard off the bench in the Spurs’ preseason-opening win over Montepaschi Siena, ending with a team-high 11 points on 5-of-8 shooting.

He also logged two assists, made only one turnover and earned high marks for keeping the second-unit offense on track.

“He’s significantly better now at doing point guard-type things than he was last year,” Popovich said.

Score-first guards all, none of the candidates for the role of Parker’s backup would pass muster at the Steve Nash School of Pure Point-Guard Playing.

Mills’ claim to fame in his short time with the Spurs: Exploding for 61 points combined in the final two regular-season games last season.

Joseph, a 21-year-old former UT standout, spent much of last season in the Development League but made palpable strides in his shooting and ball-handling over the summer. He had 10 points, two assists and three steals in the preseason opener.

(Another one-time point guard hopeful, French rookie Nando De Colo, has seen most of his playing time so far at off guard.)

“They’re seriously fighting hard,” Parker said. “It’s going to be Pop’s decision, but all of them are working hard.”

Neal, who is entering his third NBA season at age 28, admits it took him awhile to grow comfortable as a point guard last season.

The fact that he had to replace Ford, a more conventional point guard, made the transition more difficult.

“My whole career, I’ve judged my game on how I shoot the ball and the points I score,” Neal said. “When you play the point, it’s not really about that.”

Like a baseball manager who will play a slugger out of position in order to get his bat in the lineup, Popovich used Neal at point to get his scoring in the rotation.

Despite the position change, Neal’s final numbers looked remarkably similar to those he posted during an All-Rookie campaign in 2010-11 — 9.1 points per game, 2.1 assists, 1.1 turnovers.

“For somebody who is such a prolific scorer and is so used to doing just that, it was a tough adjustment for him,” Popovich said.

“Under those circumstances, he did a great job of trying to figure out what we needed him to do.”

Though not quite out of central casting, Neal is doing his best to act the part.

jmcdonald@express-news.net

Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

‘Jack’ happy with role, wishing for new deal

In a good place in both his basketball and music careers, there’s not much that can keep a smile off Stephen Jackson’s face these days.

Three days into his first Spurs’ training camp since 2002, Jackson wants the world to remember his new rap album drops at the end of the month.

“’Jack of All Trades’ coming Oct. 30,” he bellows to anyone within earshot at the team’s practice facility. “Be looking out for it. On iTunes and your nearest Best Buy. Go get it.”

Only one thing could make Jackson’s professional life better: An extension of his contract, worth $10 million in its final season.

“I want it, but I can’t control it,” Jackson said, toweling sweat off his face after Tuesday’s practice. “Every day when I walk in here I’m hoping they’ll call me in and say, ‘Jack, here’s your extension.’

“I think I deserve it, but at the end of the day I’m still happy to be here and all I can worry about is what I can control, and that’s my play.”

He should not be surprised the call hasn’t come. When he returned to the Spurs last season in a mid-March in a trade that sent Richard Jefferson to Golden State, coach and president of basketball operations Gregg Popovich alerted him an extension was not in the offing.

Given that the swingman practically forced the Bucks to trade him to the Warriors last season by declaring it “mandatory” they extend his deal, his promise to earn a new contract from the Spurs through his play qualifies as professional enlightenment.

Jackson also is content with an off-the-bench role, anxious to see how things shake out on a roster loaded with talented wing players.

“At the end of the day we know Pop will do the best job of getting the guys on the court to win the game,” he said. “As far as roles, the guys who have been here know our roles and we kind of expect the same type of situation next year. I don’t expect to start and I really don’t want to. I enjoyed my role last year. We love our roles and just want to be a better team than last year.”

At age 34, could maturity finally have caught up with Jackson’s exuberance?

“He’ll come off the bench, he knows that,” Popovich said. “At this stage of his career, he understands what makes teams tick and how rotations work and how teams are put together. Just like Manu (Ginobili) has come off the bench quite often, Jack understands that.”

Mostly, Popovich is optimistic that having Jackson from the first day of training camp will produce optimal results.

“I think more than anything, it’s about him being healthy, being in great shape,” Popovich said. “He knows our system really well, since he was already here. I think easing into things is going to benefit him, rather than jumping in like last year and having to get going off the bat. It kind of put him behind the curve, I thought.

“Being able to do this at a decent pace will help him be more valuable to us.”

Jackson averaged 8.9 points, 3.9 rebounds and two assists in 21 regular-season games with the Spurs last season. His role expanded in the playoffs, especially the final four games of the Western Conference finals, when he made 15 of 21 3-pointers and averaged 15.8 points in just under 27 minutes a game.

When Popovich forced his players to re-watch the lowlights of their series collapse against the Thunder on media day, Jackson cringed right along with every example the coach had picked out from Games 3 through 6, but with the knowledge he had been at his best as pressure mounted.

“He wasn’t calling my name too much,” Jackson said. “I had a decent series so he wasn’t singling me out. It was tough because we’re not a team known not to finish. We were up 2-0. We didn’t finish that series. I watch that series all the time and I’m still upset about it.”

mikemonroe@express-news.net

Twitter: @Monroe_SA

Business model for SS&E based on Spurs’ success

By Richard Oliver

Roughly 10 years after its creation, Spurs Sports Entertainment has finally seen its operations across the board begin to match the success of its famous flagship franchise.

The reason, officials say, is as elementary as a Tony Parker layup.

The organization’s business model, from overseeing teams to a spreading entertainment portfolio and the 10-year-old ATT Center, is designed to mirror that of the four-time NBA champion Spurs.

“I think the values of the organization are consistent throughout,” said R.C. Buford, general manager of the Spurs as well as president of sports franchises for Spurs Sports Entertainment. “Where you have values driving your decisions, then your performance — if you’re consistent to your values — should follow a similar path to consistency.”

It’s a game plan that’s starting to show dividends, on many levels.

While the Spurs, fresh off their league-best 15th consecutive postseason run, remain the unquestioned centerpiece, the team’s peripheral interests have reached a crossroads of longevity and triumph.

The Silver Stars of the WNBA and Rampage of the American Hockey League, both celebrating their 10-year anniversaries, have evolved into what officials say are profitable franchises, including marked upswings in attendance and the standings.

In June, the Austin Toros, acquired by SSE five years ago, captured the NBA D-League championship.

Additionally, the organization’s charity arm, Silver Black Give Back, has seen its Team Up Challenge program for youngsters blossom to more than 15,000 participants. Its signature annual banquet, Tux ’n Tennies, netted more than $500,000 for charity this year — about double its previous high.

“We talk about what has happened with the Spurs team as an example and a model all the time,” said Rick Pych, president of business operations for SSE. “We consider all of our business activities a team sport, and it’s the whole of the team that’s more important than any individual of the team.”

For devotees of the Spurs ballclub, modeled after coach Gregg Popovich’s pounding-the-rock philosophy, it’s a familiar mantra.

SSE, with Pych promoted to his current post by owner Peter Holt in 2008, reorganized its landscape to get away from what department heads termed “silos” of operation. While each sports and entertainment entity runs as a separate enterprise, interdepartmental cross-promotion and collaboration is encouraged.

“We’re not competitive,” said Ryan Snider, director of business operations for the Rampage. “The Rampage is its own business unit, but I am just as vested in seeing the Silver Stars succeed as I am seeing the Rampage succeed. I think we all feel that way. We want to help each other out.”

The evidence can be seen at most events at the ATT Center, the Bexar County-owned arena managed by SSE. At each Spurs game, for instance, concerts, Rampage and Silver Stars contests and other attractions are routinely pitched, an evolution of proactive partnership that until recently wasn’t in place.

“It’s taking what Pop and R.C. have created on the basketball side, quite honestly, and applying it to the business side to pound that rock every day,” said Frank Micelli, senior vice president of marketing and sales. “You look at that philosophy, and there’s a game every day and another one tomorrow, when you own what we own.

“It doesn’t always work, and sometimes you say, ‘Today the bear got us, tomorrow we’re getting the bear.’ It’s kind of going right after it, over and over and over.”

There have been tests. Last year’s NBA labor strife, which scrapped most of the 2011 portion of the schedule, left the Spurs’ staff scrambling to fill the 18,581-seat ATT Center.

Without a season schedule available until early December, Micelli’s staff had only a few weeks to solicit individual and group sales to ballgames.

“Normally, from August to October, you have pretty much three months to contact group leaders to decide what games they want to go to and make all the agreements,” Pych said. “With only a couple of weeks, it was not an adequate time.”

As a result, several early Spurs games saw pockets of empty seats in the arena despite the team’s successful start en route to the top seed in the Western Conference. On several discount sites online and through ticket brokers, upper-level seats were available for sharp discounts for some less-anticipated games.

The Spurs rallied solidly, finishing with an average of 18,397 per game — ranking 12th among the 30 NBA teams. The team had 27 sellouts in its final 33 regular-season home games, selling out their final 27 in a row, including seven playoff games.

The Rampage and Silver Stars boasted their own attendance boosts. The hockey club, in reaching the conference semifinals for the first time, set a franchise mark with 7,134 fans per game. The Silver Stars, during their 2011 season, drew 8,746 on average, a 9 percent gain from 2010.

“Everybody is singing from the same hymnal here,” Micelli said. “The old advertising saying is, ‘When you promise the moon, you better have some moons.’ We have that.”

roliver@express-news.net
Twitter: @RichardCOliver