Tag: San Antonio Spurs

Butler’s comeback provides Spurs compelling prospect

By Tim Griffin
tgriffin@express-news.net

The memory still haunts Da’Sean Butler several months after his short stay with the Miami Heat ended.

Butler wasn’t healthy when he tried to earn his way onto the Heat’s roster as a rookie last fall.

Far from it, in fact.

As Butler attempted to overcome a serious knee injury, he did his best to convince Miami coaches he could still play at the level that made him one of the nation’s top college players the previous season.

But the nagging effects of the injury didn’t give him much of a chance to show what he could do.

“I remember my first training camp and how I couldn’t participate,” Butler said. “I practically cried sitting there.”

Butler was waived by the Heat and spent several months in basketball limbo before resurfacing with the Spurs late in the season with a waiver transaction on March 25.

The Spurs had no immediate expectations as they placed him on the inactive list. Butler continued his rehabilitation with the team’s strength staff.

Even with the lockout looming, Butler has big hopes he can start his NBA playing career with the Spurs when camps open.

“I love to play basketball, and I love to prove people wrong,” Butler said. “This is something I’ve been praying and leading to do during the last year. I’m close now.”

Such a recovery is stunning after Butler’s college career ended as it did in the 2010 Final Four semifinals.

After leading West Virginia to its first Final Four appearance in 51 seasons, Butler sustained a horrific injury to his left knee while driving to the basket late in a loss to eventual national champion Duke.

The image is still hard to shake more than a year later. Butler was writhing on the floor, biting on his hand trying to fight off pain. Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins was draped over Butler, whispering words of encouragement to him.

The diagnosis was a torn ACL, a sprained MCL and multiple bone bruises. His recovery was expected to take at least six months.

The injury caused his draft stock to plummet. After originally being projected as a mid-first-rounder, Butler fell to the 42nd overall pick in the middle of the second round.

As his recovery progressed, Butler tried to push his recovery as much as possible.

“Early on, I was really rushing,” Butler said. “I just wanted everybody to know that I would be fine and not let this injury slow me down.”

But he was clearly not the same player as before as he tried to recapture the form that enabled him to lead the Mountaineers in scoring and assists at 17.2 and 3.1 as a senior.

“I was treating it like an ankle sprain, and that’s definitely not the case,” Butler said.

Gradually, he’s recovered and is close to the form of his senior season.

Before his injury, the 6-foot-7, 230-pounder was known as a pure shooter whose high release was almost impossible to defend. He was also known for his high basketball intellect and his character — traits that would fit the Spurs’ profile of second-round late bloomers.

But his lack of athleticism was a concern, even before his knee injury.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich still hasn’t seen much of Butler’s on-court skills since his arrival.

“I have no idea,” Popovich said. “You can’t even tell if he’s a player or not. He’s out there running around pylons.

“Everybody just tells me he looked good in the tournament. But they also tell me he’s X number of pounds heavier than he was in the tournament. So I won’t even have an impression of him until camp comes.”

When that chance arrives, Butler vows to be ready.

“It feels like it’s been an extremely long, long year for me,” Butler said. “But it’s a big opportunity to get a chance with an organization like this one. This is a great second chance and a great place for me.”

Defending NBA champs on playoff precipice

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

DALLAS — First, the Spurs fell, a 61-win No. 1 seed ousted in the first round of the NBA’s Western Conference playoffs.

Soon, the West’s No. 2 seed, the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, may join them as idled observers, a legendary coach sent to early retirement in the process.

Dallas has a 3-0 lead in the best-of-7 Western Conference semifinals series that resumes today at American Airlines Center.

The Lakers are the 99th team in NBA history to face such a daunting deficit, defiance seemingly their final refuge. The first 98, after all, failed to overcome. But Lakers star Kobe Bryant insisted he has no doubt his team can be the first, starting with today’s game, and issued a warning to any teammate that might not share the belief.

“I’m going to keep this train moving,” he said, “so you’re either going to be on it, or in front of it. But the train will keep moving.”

The Mavericks have outscored the Lakers in the fourth quarter of each of the first three games because they have kept Bryant from dominating. In the final five minutes of Dallas’ 98-92 Game 3 victory, Bryant missed all four of the shots he attempted and committed two turnovers.

Meanwhile, center Andrew Bynum, on the brink of a breakout game after scoring 21 points through the first 3??1/2 quarters, did not touch the ball.

“The last five minutes is when I go to work,” Bryant explained, “and I didn’t the last game. I’ve got to get the ball and make those plays.”

Lakers coach Phil Jackson has hinted all season that he will retire at season’s end, whenever that may be. Veteran Lakers such as Bryant and Derek Fisher, starters on the five Lakers teams Jackson has coached to NBA titles, don’t want to get swept and have that be Jackson’s final experience.

“It means more to myself and Derek than anybody else on this team, the history that we have,” Bryant said, “but you try not to think of that. You just try to think of the game.”

In a pre-practice meeting, Jackson told his players to forget about him and any legacy issues, then fell back on a longtime playoff ploy: Complaining about the officiating, hoping the referees working today’s game will notice.

Jackson said his All-Star power forward, Pau Gasol, has struggled in the first three games of the series because defenders are breaking a rule.

“I’ve resisted this the whole playoffs, but the NBA used to call it ‘knee up the butt,’?” Jackson said. “You couldn’t lift your knee off the floor to run a guy off the post. They’re doing it every time. They’re taking him out of the post so he can’t get a post-up.

“We didn’t complain about it against New Orleans, but the Mavs are doing the same damn thing. So we’re kind of resigned that they’re not going to change the rules. .?.?. I mean go back to what they used to have as a rule.”

Meanwhile, the Mavericks quietly go about their business of making the two-time defending champions look old, and in the way.

“We’re up against an opponent that’s very experienced and has got a lot of weapons,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “We’ve got to stay on task.

“I feel like they’re going to play better, and we’ll have to play better, too.”

Pop unmoved by tales of Rondo’s heroism

Much of the basketball-watching public was willing to cast Rajon Rajon’s return from a dislocated elbow in Boston’s Game 3 victory over Miami in the Eastern Conference semifinals last week as his “Willis Reed moment.”

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, however, wasn’t one of them.

As the playoffs have progressed, Popovich — who had  star guard Manu Ginobili dealing with an elbow injury in the Spurs’ first-round ouster against Memphis — has been unmoved by the tall tales of Rondo’s heroism.

“It’s really been hard to watch the playoffs and have them make Rondo out like Willis Reed,” Popovich said Thursday, in wide-ranging interview with the Express-News. “It’s like, Manu couldn’t even play the first game (against Memphis), and we  probably shouldn’t have played him again. He went out there and worked through it, and you didn’t hear any of that kind of crap.”

Ginobili sprained his right elbow in the Spurs’ regular-season finale at Phoenix and was limited throughout the Memphis series, a turn of events Popovich believes played a prime role in the Spurs’ early ouster.  Ginobili averaged 20.6 points in five games against the Grizzlies.

“If Manu ain’t heathy, historically, we go nowhere,” Popovich said.  ”When he was hurt against Dallas (in 2009), they beat us. Last year, we  beat them in the first round, because Manu was healthy. Manu was half-assed one year against the Lakers (in 2008), or they don’t win three (Western Conference titles) in a row. His health is huge for us.”

Rondo was injured in the third quarter of Boston’s 97-81 victory over Miami on May 8, but returned to dish out 11 assists and score a pair of baskets in the fourth quarter. The Heat went on to win the series in five games.

Popovich says Ginobili should have  received similar kudos for laboring through a similar situation.

“It’s like Rondo is the next coming of Willis Reed, the thing he did and the character he showed,” Popovich said. “Maybe he did show character and  he was tough and all that, but it is no different than what  Manu did. That just kind of angers me on a selfish level, so to speak.”