Unlocked: Now what for Spurs?

The NBA lockout is almost over. The “nuclear winter” commissioner David Stern promised turned out to be a mild snowstorm. What can the Spurs expect from a shortened training camp, condensed free-agent period and truncated 66-game regular season slated to start after Christmas? Express-News Spurs beat writer Jeff McDonald takes a guess:

Will the shortened season really help an old team like the Spurs?

In 1999, when the Spurs parlayed a lockout-shrunken, 50-game season into the first championship in franchise history, their starting lineup averaged 30.8 years.

This season’s projected starting lineup averages 31. For an older team, it seems logical that fewer regular-season games should result in fresher legs once the playoffs roll around.

Last season, the Spurs were 54-12 and peaking at the 66-game mark. Had the postseason started then, perhaps they would have lasted past the first round.

How many back-to-backs (and back-to-back-to-backs) can older stars such as Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili be expected to handle?

The downside for an old team facing a compressed schedule: a greater percentage of those dreaded back-to-backs, and the possibility of back-to-back-to-backs as schedule makers attempt to shoehorn 66 games into a four-month window.

In a normal season, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is vigilant about resting his older stars during the rigorous portions of the schedule. With Duncan 35 and Ginobili 34, expect that caution to approach paranoia this season.

When Ginobili had to play eight games in 11 nights in an Olympic qualifier in Argentina this past summer, he complained of exhaustion by the end of it. Chances are, he won’t be given a chance to repeat that experience for Popovich.

What kind of shape will most players be in once training camp commences?

Don’t expect many fat, out-of-shape guys among the Spurs’ key players.

Throughout the lockout, Duncan has been leading regular workouts for San Antonio-based players and is reported to be in fine fighting shape. Ginobili has kept himself in shape after playing for Argentina. Tony Parker played for France and is now playing professional ball in that country.

The Spurs’ veterans have been there and done that and know how to prepare their bodies for the nightly grind of the NBA. Younger players, given too much downtime away from the watchful eyes of the Spurs’ new strength and conditioning staff, might not fare so well. It will be interesting to see who is gassed and who is not come the first day of camp.

Will Richard Jefferson still be here opening night?

The new collective bargaining agreement is expected to contain an amnesty provision that would allow teams to waive one player without incurring the accompanying salary-cap hit.

Richard Jefferson, the 31-year-old small forward who has mostly underwhelmed in two seasons in San Antonio, appears to be a prime candidate for the axe. But not so fast.

Jettisoning Jefferson and his $9.2 million salary wouldn’t put the Spurs below the cap, limiting their ability to replace him via free agency. It is possible, perhaps even likely, the Spurs hold on to Jefferson for the time being, using him as a de facto expiring contract at the trade deadline.

Or, they could wait and waive him until next summer, when the Spurs also have Duncan’s $21.3 million coming off the books, to create enough cap room to attract a higher class of free agents in 2012.

How active should we expect the Spurs to be in the December free agent frenzy?

Not very. Even if the Spurs do use amnesty provision on Jefferson and lose Antonio McDyess and his $5.2 million contract to retirement, they still won’t fall far enough below the cap line to make much of a splash in free agency.

For the Spurs, the free-agent period expected to start Dec. 9 — the same day teams can open camp — will probably look much like the one that usually starts July 1. The team will use its mid-level exception and minimum contracts to fill out the roster with role players (Shane Battier, anyone?) and hope the core of a team that won 61 games last season will be enough to keep it competitive this season.

How the most memorable 30 moments were chosen

I’ve already gotten a couple of e-mails and I’ve seen some of the internet chat wondering how we picked our Spurs Most Memorable Moments series that concluded earlier today.

Let me first say that the idea behind the series was to reflect on some of the most memorable moments — both good and bad — in team history. That’s why we included memories like Derek Fisher’s 0.4 shot and Charles Barkley’s jumper that closed HemisFair Arena in 1993 with all of the championships.

Some have asked if we underrated David Robinson’s contributions to the team and wondered why Tim Duncan’s lottery selection was placed above his.

It’s true that you could say that Robinson’s lottery selection saved the team in San Antonio. But the same could be said about Duncan’s as well. If the Spurs ended up with Ron Mercer, Keith Van Horn or Tony Battie instead of Duncan, that team today likely is in St. Louis, Anaheim or Louisville. After the 20-62 season in 1997, the Spurs had little momentum even with Robinson and Sean Elliott on the team. The drafting of Duncan catapulted them into the strata where they could legitimately challenge for NBA titles.

And that’s the major reason I ultimately picked the Spurs’ deciding victory over New York as a bigger moment than Elliott’s “Memorial Day Miracle.” Same playoff series. Different rounds. And the one that won the shooting match ranks as my most memorable moment.

Elliott’s game-winning shot was huge and gave the Spurs confidence they could advance where no team in the franchise’s history had ever been before — the NBA Finals. But they still needed two more games to win that series and both were relatively easy victories, despite playing in Portland.

And while the New York Finals series never was really a challenge, the reaction of San Antonio after those games concluded was what pushed it to the top. There’s something to be said about the first of anything and San Antonio’s first championship was that way to me.

Remember how San Antonio fans piled into the streets to celebrate that 1999 title. There were no reports of major damage or arrests afterwards.

Nearly a quarter of San Antonio’s population turned out to the parade after that title. Every San Antonio commercial television station broadcast the proceedings later in the Alamodome when the title was celebrated. For the long-suffering minions of Spurs Nation, those were heady times indeed.

It’s interesting to see how much luck was a part of the Spurs’ run of four championships in nine seasons. Getting Robinson and Duncan meant that the Spurs had to finish No. 1 in the lottery, but also the right lottery.  

The Spurs were fortunate to be able to pick at the top when iconic players like Duncan and Robinson who were among the best of their generation were available. They could have won the lottery when the top picks were Michael Olowokandi and Pervis Ellison.

But at  the same time, it’s also interesting to note the job that Gregg Popovich, R.C. Buford and others on the Spurs staff have done in surrounding those players with draft steals like Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. They’ve done the best job of any modern dynasty of managing a team concept rather than building a title squad where  superstar talent was the biggest reason for success.

Winning the other titles were certainly moments to be remembered, although it seemed to me that the attitude became more blase with each resulting championship. They were still fun, but there were a few other moments bigger than Parker winning the MVP award in the Spurs’ four-game sweep against Cleveland in 2007. And most Spurs fans probably remember Robert Horry’s “Big Shot Rob” moment in Game 5 of the 2005 series more readily than when the Spurs finished out the Pistons two games later.

I was pleased to be able to include most of the most memorable Spurs players in a moment. I would have liked to included a Ginobili moment a little higher, but his bat moment was one that resonated to me. He’s won games in the past, but none have really stood out like some of the other clutch shots in big games like his other teammates.

Obviously, most of the memories from the championships have come since Popovich has taken over, but I’m glad to have included some of the old ABA memories to round out the list. Anybody who watched that great league as I was privileged to do — even though my team of memory was the Memphis Pros/Tams/Sounds — will remember the legacy that era provided for the teams that survived into the NBA.

It was interesting to research all of these  memories. I’d like to thank the folks at the downtown branch of the San Antonio Public Library, who were so unfailingly helpful in steering me in the right direction during my research. 

And I’d also like to acknowledge some of the coverage of other reporters before me like Barry Robinson, Kevin O’Keeffe, Glenn Rogers, Jeff Grossman, David Flores, Mike Bruton, Jim Hutton, Ray Evans, Johnny Ludden, Tom Orsborn, Jerry Briggs, Kelley Shannon, Jim Lefko and Brad Townsend. Along with our current group of Jeff McDonald, Mike Monroe and Buck Harvey, the Spurs have always been extremely well covered by the local print media over the years.

It was a lot of fun to look back and remember some of these great and not-so-great memories for Spurs Nation.

But I’m actually about ready for some real games to begin.

How about you?

Phil Jackson still hammering Spurs about 1999 ‘asterisk’ season

Spurs Nation has held a special grudge against Phil Jackson for a long time.

It’s not just because he always seemed to end up playing the Spurs in a competitive playoff series with the Lakers.

Most Spurs fans have never forgiven Jackson for branding the Spurs first title team in 1999 as an “asterisk” team because they won the championship after playing in a truncated 50-game schedule after tghea lockout.

Now with the league in the midst of the same kind of work stoppage, Jackson is talking about the Spurs first championship again. He’s remembering that season in a way that he believes would be bad for the league after the lockout ends.

Jackson told the Chicago-based Waddle and Silvy Show about his and how different that 1999 season was from a normal one.

And yes, Spurs Nation, he has another not-so-subtle tweak about that championship season. (Hat tip: Sports Radio Interviews.com/Project Spurs.com)

“You want to have a season that is comparable to what it is like to play a season of basketball,” Jackson said. ” The year they patched together [1998-99 season] when they played 50 games they lost more than a third of the season and then they rushed to play those games into a magnified schedule and it questioned the teams that were really going to have a chance to win it like Indiana and Utah.

“New York finished 8th that year and obviously an up-and-coming San Antonio team, which turned out to be quite a great team, but those were the teams that ended up in the finals. When teams would play 18-19 games in the last month of the season it broke down some of the older steady teams because of that impact of a heavy schedule.

“I always kind of term that as an asterisk season out of this fun at poking fun at San Antonio. In reality it changes the complexity of how you play the game and what you make your team up with. You have to have young players and you have to have healthy players to win. So they want to have a representative season and we have some terrific teams in the NBA right now and there are some teams that are very, very good. It should be interesting to see how a lot of them come out and a lot of teams don’t want to lose that opportunity.”

A shortened season will pose some unique challenges for Gregg Popovich and the Spurs this season. They are much older than that 1999 team, so a shortened season would be favorable in that sense. But cramming multiple games into too short of a period with a lot of back-to-back games could be catastrophic for an older team.

It will be interesting to see. But whoever emerges as the champion will have to battle the same stigma the Spurs have faced since that first title because of playing a less-than-complete season.