Tag: Gregg Popovich

Splitter struggles to score

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina — If Spurs fans have been fretting about the unimpressive numbers center Tiago Splitter has been putting up in the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifying tournament, Hall of Famer Gail Goodrich has an explanation.

“I just don’t see much offensive skill there,” said Goodrich, working as an analyst on ESPN’s English language telecasts of the games that will send the top two teams to the 2012 Olympic tournament in London next summer.

“For a guy who was supposed to be one of the best big men in this tournament, maybe the best, he’s really struggled.”

Indeed, Splitter’s offensive performance has been shockingly mediocre and inconsistent. The only NBA player on a very young Brazilian team, which scored a surprising 73-71 victory over host Argentina on Wednesday, Splitter totaled only 17 points in the four games that preceded a 17-point outburst in Brazil’s Thursday victory over Puerto Rico.

A player coach Gregg Popovich has called “a linchpin of the future” for the Spurs got off to a good start in the tournament. He made 7 of 8 shots and scored 17 points in Brazil’s first game, but since he has scored in double figures only once more in the six games that preceded the meeting with Puerto Rico.

He made 6 of 8 shots and scored 16 points, with 10 rebounds, in Brazil’s 79-74 victory over a Dominican Republic team that features Al Horford, the Atlanta Hawks’ two-time NBA All-Star center, and Charlie Villanueva, the Milwaukee Bucks veteran power forward. It was his most impressive performance of the two-week tournament, but he had struggled before breaking out against an undersized Puerto Rican team.

In Wednesday’s game against Manu Ginobili’s Argentine team, the 6-foot-11 center took only six shots — none from more than 5 feet from the basket — and missed them all. Three of them were blocked at the rim, including one by Ginobili and another by former Spurs center Fabricio Oberto, a solid post defender but never a renowned as a shot-blocker.

Splitter’s problems at the foul line also persist.

Though it is clear he is trying to adhere to the revamped free-throw stroke he learned last season from Spurs shooting coach Chip Engelland, his official free-throw percentage through seven games is 42.4. Three converted free throws were disallowed by the referees because of lane violations by overaggressive teammates, clearly anticipating misses and trying to gain rebounding position.

Those show up as misses on Splitter’s stats, but adding them in raises his accuracy to only 51.5 percent.

The good news for the Spurs? Splitter’s work on the boards and on defense has been solid, if not spectacular. His rebounding average, 7.6 per game, is seventh best in the tournament.

Splitter takes solace in Brazil’s 7-1 record and its victory over archrival Argentina. He feels his defensive presence is more important to Brazil’s team goals than his offensive work, especially when the semifinals arrive Saturday. Olympic berths will go to the winners of the two semifinal games.

“We know that now is the time to play and now is when the games really matter,” Splitter said. “Of course, you have more pressure now. You have everything on the line.

“We have figured out how to (play) defense better. Coach (Ruben) Magnano wants us to have good defense and then start the fast break. That is the key to our game, so I am trying to contribute most on defense and start the fast break. I am not worrying about getting my points. I mostly try to (play) defense and rebound.”

Meanwhile, Splitter awaits the end of the NBA lockout so he can resume working on smoothing the rough edges that have been on display in Ginobili’s home country.

“The good thing with Tiago is that he worked on it right after the season,” Ginobili said. “He stayed for a month and a half in San Antonio and worked with the coaches before the lockout. But it really (stinks) that we can’t work out in our gym or even talk to Pop. It’s really crazy, but it is what it is.”

Ginobili-led Argentina team coveting another run at Olympic glory

By Mike Monroe

mikemonroe@express-news.net

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina — The photo is slightly out of focus but has been blown up to 6-by-8 feet.

That gives it a slightly hazy look, almost like it was shot through a thin film of gauze. It hangs over the entrance to Bahiense del Norte, the storied basketball club in Bahia Blanca, an industrial port city of 275,000 on the Atlantic coast, some 500 kilometers southwest of Mar del Plata, where today the finals of the FIBA Tournament of the Americas will take place.

Bahia Blancans know the faces, no matter how blurred, and they know the moment: Manu Ginobili, Pepe Sanchez and Alejandro Montecchia, teammates from the club and key members of Argentina’s 2004 Olympic basketball team. The photo depicts the three standing at center court in Athens, smiling, holding a large Argentine flag, gold medals hanging from their necks.

It is the proudest moment in the history of basketball in Argentina.

While most Argentines cling to the glory of their country’s World Cup soccer championships in 1978 and ’86 as the apex of national sports glory, in Bahia Blanca the greatest moment always will be on the Olympic basketball court in Athens.

There, the three friends and Bahiense del Norte teammates were part of a select group of basketball luminaries forever known in Argentina as the Generacion Dorada, the “Golden Generation.”

Today, six members of that 2004 national team — Ginobili, Sanchez, former Spurs center Fabricio Oberto, Houston Rockets forward Luis Scola, Philadelphia 76ers forward Andres Nocioni and Sacramento Kings guard Carlos Delfino — will play what likely will be their last game together on native soil.

Time waits for no man, not even a golden hero.

“It is highly likely that the (2012) Olympics in London is going to be my last championship tournament,” said Ginobili, the Spurs guard whose immense popularity in San Antonio pales compared to the reverence with which he is held in his home country.

“That’s why I really wanted to be here in Mar del Plata, and I really want to be in there next year. The game (Saturday) told us we are going. It’s very important to me. I really enjoyed my previous two Olympic Games, and I didn’t want to retire without making it again. I know I won’t make it to Rio (De Janeiro for the 2016 Olympic Games) when I am 39 years old, so this is a great opportunity.”

It was at the 2002 FIBA World Championships in Indianapolis that Americans first took notice of the audacious Argentines.

Scoring the first victory over a U.S. team made up entirely of NBA players, Argentina’s fast-breaking, slick-passing unit came within a clock tick of winning the gold medal. A tie-breaking basket in the finals against Serbia by Huge Sconoccini controversially was ruled to have been released after the final buzzer.

Serbia won in overtime. Argentines still believe their team had the title.

There was no controversial ending in Athens. In the semifinals, Argentina again defeated Team USA, a group that included Spurs captain Tim Duncan, with Gregg Popovich on the bench as an assistant coach.

Not even Bahia Blancans expected that outcome.

“I watched the game with one of my brothers at our home,” said 32-year-old Bahia Blanca native Federico Groppa, whose Liniers of Bahia Blanca basketball club was one of Bahiense del Norte’s rivals. “We came out to the streets celebrating, guys in cars blowing the horns, because nobody had expected this — maybe not even the guys on the national team.”

Ginobili believes the selfless play that has characterized the national team since the golden generation came together has been as meaningful as their success.

“I’m not going to disclose anything new by saying this group is very special,” he said. “We accomplished a lot of things on the court, but I probably think we accomplished more outside, in how we play as a team, how egos have never been an issue. On a team where you have five NBA players and people who on their own teams are big-time, and then they come to a national team, well, it may happen that there are problems. But we have never had them here.

“We have received many great compliments from people all over the world about our team and from other national teams that want to become like us. So it’s remarkable what we have accomplished.”

At 41, Leandro Ginobili is the oldest of the three basketball-playing Ginobili brothers. He knows his countrymen have seen egos at play on national soccer teams. This, he said, reinforces the character of the golden generation.

“It’s an example that the Argentine people must see,” Leandro Ginobili said. “A basketball team is a little society because, as a group, it must put together all the pieces and put the egos to the side and pursue a common objective. You can see Manu now plays like a playmaker. It doesn’t matter if he has six points, seven. If the team wins, all is nice. They all work together for the main objective.

“They are friends. They enjoy playing together, and the Argentine jersey fits them like a tattoo.”

Manu Ginobili doesn’t know what awaits at the golden generation’s last waltz in London. He understands it has a legacy to be cherished, no matter what.

“It’s the first team not being U.S., Yugoslavia or Russia to win the Olympic gold,” he said. “That is nothing to take lightly. Nobody probably in Argentina ever dreamed of winning gold in an Olympic Games.

“It’s hard to say now where we would be ranked — if there is a ranking — but I think we accomplished a lot of things. To make it to the semifinals in four consecutive tournaments is not an easy thing. We made it in Indianapolis, Athens, Japan (2007 World Championships) and Beijing.

“We are going to keep writing different chapters in the book in London; see if we can shoot for another medal. Then we’ll talk about it.”

Spurs’ Blair mulls deal with Russia

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

DeJuan Blair could become the next and most prominent Spurs player to take his talents overseas during the NBA lockout.

Blair, who started 65 games at center for the Spurs last season, has an offer on the table from the Russian team Krasnye Krylya, his agent, Happy Walters, said Wednesday. All it is awaiting is Blair’s signature.

“If he signs it, then he’ll go,” Walters said. “The ball’s in our court.”

Should Blair opt to head to Russia, he would have some company abroad.

So far, 32 players who ended the 2010-11 season on an NBA roster have signed deals overseas. Among them are Spurs swingman Danny Green (Slovenia) and third-string point guard Chris Quinn (Russia).

According to the French publication Le Progres, All-Star point guard Tony Parker will join ASVEL, the French League team he co-owns, by mid-October if the lockout is still in progress.

Like all players with existing NBA contracts who aim to spend the lockout abroad, Blair’s deal in Russia would contain an out clause allowing him to return to the Spurs once the labor impasse is resolved.

Blair, 22, is under contract with the Spurs for the next two seasons at a total of $2.04 million, though only $500,000 of that figure is guaranteed. Blair would obtain insurance protecting his NBA contract against injury should he decide to play overseas, his agent said.

Walters said he expects Blair’s decision to come before the end of the week. If he accepts, Blair would leave for Samara — the sixth-largest city in Russia and Krasnye Krylya’s home base — next week.

With the lockout lumbering into its third month, any bit of on-court work would be welcome for Blair. Admitting a weakness for Whataburger, the 6-foot-7 Blair struggled with his weight last season, his second in the NBA, approaching 300 pounds at one point.

Blair averaged a career-best 8.3 points and seven rebounds but late in the season relinquished his starting job to Antonio McDyess, as coach Gregg Popovich chose to favor experience heading into the playoffs.

With the NBA locked out, and few other good options to play professional-level games, Walters views Russia as a good career-building move for Blair.

“He’s a young guy who wants to play,” Walters said. “It’s a way for him to stay in great shape, and at the same time get better. You’re not going to play 30 minutes a night and not get better.”