Tag: Gregg Popovich

Mike Monroe: Mavs taking circuitous route to success

DALLAS — The Spurs this season will suit up four players from their 2003 NBA title team, and that’s one more than the Mavericks retained from the outfit that overachieved its way to the 2011 championship.

Even allowing that Stephen Jackson played for five teams before Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford brought him back in March, the Spurs’ commitment to continuity stands in contrast to what the Mavericks have done in 16-plus months since winning their first title.

The only Mavericks who remain from the 2011 title run: Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion and Roddy Beaubois.

This doesn’t mean the Mavericks are any less committed to winning another title, just maybe not this year.

“Winning the championship that year, it was kind of tough to bring the boys back,” Nowitzki said at Mavs media day Friday. “We had a bunch of guys who were free agents. We decided to keep our salary cap open for the first time in my career.

“Unfortunately, last year we had some big fish available, and we didn’t get them. So you can do one of two things: Blow the whole thing up and start over, or keep signing guys to short contracts to stay a player in the free-agent market the following year. That’s the route we took.”

It’s the smart course but doesn’t sit well with all those Mavs Fans For Life. As he greeted eight new players with guaranteed contracts, Mavs coach Rick Carlisle cited the high expectations they were about to discover.

“My feeling is people know what we’re about as an organization and what our city is about,” he said on media day. “You show up, and you’re playing for a title, regardless of what people may or may not think about your roster or how many new guys you have. We don’t care about that.”

As jarring as the dismantling of the Mavericks’ roster has been, it makes sense long-term. Clearly, Mark Cuban and GM Donnie Nelson knew their team had overachieved in 2011, catching fire at just the right moment. Didn’t Nowitzki and Jason Terry hit every clutch shot in the playoffs?

It’s tempting to say that J.J. Barea had a once-in-a-lifetime performance when he averaged 16 points in the last two games of the Finals. Then again, he was also dating Miss Universe at the time. Safe to say, he was at the very top of his game. But could the Mavericks depend on that type of performance with a multi-year contract?

Letting Tyson Chandler leave in free agency also made sense, especially with the expectation that Dwight Howard would be available in the summer of 2012.

The Mavericks looked at the rosters of the Heat, Bulls, Spurs, Lakers, Thunder and Celtics and realized they would again have to overachieve to keep up with those elites. Was that realistic long-term?

Freeing up enough salary-cap space for Howard and Deron Williams in the summer of 2012 was a gamble worth taking. It was a gamble that lost but for the right reasons. Now they have Chris Kaman, Elton Brand and Darren Collison and cap flexibility aplenty next summer.

With a team built on the fly, the Mavericks will likely compete for nothing more than first-round home-court advantage this season.

But it is understandable that they dare to dream. They overachieved once; why not again?

mikemonroe@express-news.net

Twitter: @Monroe_SA

Popovich prods Spurs with memories










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By Jeff McDonald

For teams across the NBA, the first day of training camp is a day of rebirth, a time for new beginnings and new hope, a prelude to 82 games of untapped promise.

It is a time when every team is undefeated, and every team — except maybe for the one in Charlotte — can consider itself a contender.

Yet before coach Gregg Popovich would allow his Spurs to talk about where they hope this nascent season is headed, he first wanted them to reflect on how the last one ended.

So before players were released to fulfill media day obligations Monday, Popovich convened the season’s first team meeting, then cued up footage from last June’s collapse against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference finals.

“He wanted us to be fired up,” guard Manu Ginobili said, “knowing we were very close, and we let it go.”

For a Spurs team that had won 20 games in a row before losing its final four last season, the film session made for painful viewing.

For All-Star point guard Tony Parker, who came perilously close to suffering a career-altering injury to his left eye not long after the playoff ouster, it was a relief to be able to watch anything at all.

After three hours of exams, Parker has been medically cleared for full participation when training camp opens this morning. He will not require the protective goggles doctors prescribed for his stint at the London Olympics in August.

Parker suffered a scratched cornea in a June 15 bar fight in New York between hip-hop stars Drake and Chris Brown and their entourages.

According to reports, Parker was an innocent bystander in the melee. Still, he said the incident helped him “put life in perspective.”

“You just think of stuff different,” Parker said. “In life, stuff happens, and you just learn from it, and you try to be more careful.”

Popovich says he naturally frets about the health of his players when they break for the summer, especially those who participate in international competition.

“Tony’s situation was scarier,” Popovich admitted.

The Spurs return 13 players from last year’s team that tied for the NBA’s best record at 50-16 and came within two wins of returning to the Finals for the first time since 2007.

Few are as important as Parker, who was the team’s leading scorer and assist man in what was an All-NBA campaign.

Parker’s positive medical evaluation has allowed Popovich to breathe easier — and has allowed Parker’s teammates to declare open season on the 30-year-old point guard.

Leading the needling has been puckish captain Tim Duncan, who has gigged Parker about everything from his “chic” choice of eyewear to the June incident’s effect on the Spurs’ goody-goody reputation.

“We’re trying to get street cred,” said Duncan, who in July signed a new three-year, $30 million deal to resume his role as team provocateur. “That’s what this team’s all about.”

Once Parker is done dodging the slings and arrows coming from the Spurs’ Hall of Fame-bound power forward, the mission will be for him to repeat what Popovich often has called his best professional season.

“That’s what he’s getting paid to do,” Popovich said. “He’s got to be committed and disciplined enough to repeat what he did last year. He knows what we expect out of him.”

After finishing a career-best fifth in the league MVP voting last season, Parker believes himself up to the task.

“I think it’s a great challenge to do the same thing,” he said. “I feel like the next three or four years are going to be the best basketball of my career.”

Before Parker and the Spurs could get too far ahead of themselves, Popovich pulled them back as only he can.

The scars of what slipped away against Oklahoma City remain fresh with his players. He hopes they never fully get over it.

“I think we all still feel (disappointed), and that’s good,” Popovich said. “We’ve got to use that.”

jmcdonald?@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

New Spurs guard faces big learning curve

By Jeff McDonald

Nando de Colo, the Spurs’ latest international import, is fluent in three languages: his native French, Spanish and English.

He fully admits there are still gaps in his grasp of the last of these.

For instance, when Gregg Popovich compliments de Colo as “a poor man’s Danny Ainge,” the 25-year-old guard’s new coach might as well be speaking Swahili.

“In France, it’s difficult to follow the NBA,” de Colo said with a shrug. “So I didn’t see a lot of games growing up.”

For de Colo, the crash course in NBA 101 starts now.

When the Spurs open training camp Tuesday, de Colo will be the new kid on the block, the most notable addition on a team otherwise content to double down on last season’s Western Conference finals appearance.

Selected with the 53rd overall pick in 2009, de Colo — who at 6-foot-5 can man either guard spot — spent the past three seasons honing his craft for ? Spanish League power Valencia.

He made the jump to the Spurs in July, signing a two-year deal totaling a little more than $2.8 million.

“I think I’m ready,” de Colo said.

The Spurs are not expecting de Colo to come in and be a star. He might not even be a rotation fixture at first. Like their most recent overseas arrival, Brazilian center Tiago Splitter, de Colo has been a described as a high-IQ role player.

He averaged 12.5 points, 2.5 assists and 1.2 steals in three seasons with Valencia and is eager to throw himself into the competition for minutes backing up All-Star point guard and fellow Frenchman Tony Parker.

Though Spurs management insists it is far too early to tell what they have in de Colo, those who have watched him in recent pickup games have marveled at his passing skills.

“He’s just a basketball player,” Popovich said. “He’s got good size. Not a great athlete, but a good enough athlete. He really understands the game.”

Hence, the comparison to Ainge, a heady combo guard who won a pair of championships with the Boston Celtics in the 1980s.

“Danny was a better athlete than this kid is, and a little bigger, but he really understands how to play the game,” Popovich said. “He fits in well with the group, makes good decisions, finishes on the break. He’s going to be fun to watch.”

Like most European boys, de Colo was raised with a soccer ball at his feet. Like many of his American counterparts, he also grew up with a basketball in his hands.

Both his parents played professionally in France, as did two of his sisters.

Growing up in Arras, France, a town of about 42,000 near the Belgian border, de Colo’s basketball idol was not Parker, widely regarded as the greatest player in the country’s history.

It was his older sister Leila, 10 years his senior, who played in France’s top women’s league.

“When I was young, I didn’t watch guys,” de Colo said. “It was only girls, because I watched my sister play.”

A basketball player all his life, de Colo realizes the NBA is a whole new ballgame.

“It’s a new experience for me,” said de Colo, who won a EuroCup title in 2010 with Valencia. “It’s different than in Europe. I must work every day and try to learn about the NBA game.”

Under different circumstances, the start of training camp might be a lonely time for de Colo.

With the Spurs’ lone 2011 draft choice, second-rounder Marcus Denmon, set to begin his pro career in Europe, de Colo is the only drafted rookie on the roster. (Denmon, incidentally, has signed with Cholet, the French team with which de Colo cut his teeth from 2006-09).

It helps de Colo’s transition that he is surrounded by fellow Frenchmen.

He is one of three on the Spurs’ roster, joining Parker and center Boris Diaw in reuniting the French national team in South Texas.

In August, the trio helped lead Les Bleus to the Olympic quarterfinals in London.

Since his arrival in San Antonio last week, de Colo has been living with Diaw at Parker’s estate outside of town while he hunts for a place of his own.

“It’s great to play with some other French guys,” de Colo said. “If you need something, if you don’t understand something, it’s easier to speak with them.”

Perhaps, if de Colo is lucky, one of them might even be able to explain how he reminds them of Danny Ainge.

THE NEW GUY

Nando de Colo, a 25-year-old rookie from France, was the lone addition to the Spurs’ guaranteed roster this offseason. Here is a glance at the new kid on the block:

Position: Guard

Height: 6-foot-5

Born: June 23, 1987, in Arras, France

How acquired: Drafted 53rd overall in 2009

Pro résumé: Three seasons with French club Cholet, then three-year stint with Spanish League power Valencia from 2009-10 to 2011-12

French connection: One of three members of French national team on Spurs that advanced to Olympic quarterfinals, joining Tony Parker and Boris Diaw

What they’re saying: “You never know how he fits until someone gets into your group, but he’s got good size for the position and can go back and forth between the 2 and the 1.” — Spurs general manager R.C. Buford

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN