STAYING POWER
Tom Orsborn EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER
Publication Date : June 3, 2007
As the Spurs aim for their fourth NBA title in nine seasons and third in the past five -- a remarkable accomplishment that would enshrine the team in basketball's pantheon -- the nation's sports fans are responding with a collective yawn.
The Spurs "will never be the people's choice," a columnist for Yahoo!Sports wrote recently.
Blame it on the market, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame says.
"You are tucked away in Texas. What can I tell you," says Boston Celtics great Tommy Heinsohn, who won eight NBA titles in nine seasons with the Celtics in the 1960s and added two more rings as the team's coach in the 1970s.
"If this team was in New York, take my word for it, they would be the greatest of two centuries," Heinsohn says of the Spurs.
Despite the lack of national love, the Spurs of Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan have something the Dallas Cowboys of Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith and the Los Angeles Lakers of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal -- two recent multi-championship teams that captured the nation's imagination -- never obtained.
Staying power.
The Cowboys won an unprecedented three Super Bowls in four years during the 1990s but soon fizzled, the victims of free agency, excessive partying and owner Jerry Jones' massive ego.
The Bryant-O'Neal Lakers appeared in the NBA Finals four times in a five-year span, winning three-straight titles from 2000-2002. But the Lakers' dynasty collapsed when O'Neal was traded after an internal squabble with Bryant.
The Spurs? They just keep on winning.
"There was a time not so long ago that we all expected the Lakers, with Shaq and Kobe and (coach) Phil Jackson, to be a long-term dynastic franchise, but they imploded," says Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports marketing expert.
"The Spurs, though, have never imploded, never self-destructed. And in this age of self-aggrandizement, self-promotion and ridiculous sums of money, that is extraordinary."
The same can be said of the Spurs' .709 regular-season winning percentage over the past 10 seasons -- the best in that span of any franchise in the four major pro sports.
With just four more victories, the Popovich-coached, Duncan-fueled Spurs will have exceeded the number of championships won by Larry Bird's Boston Celtics and be only one crown shy of matching the five that Magic Johnson collected with the "Showtime" Lakers.
Blame it on market
For the Spurs to have such an extended run of excellence in the era of free agency, the luxury tax and the salary cap is something that will be remembered as one of the greatest achievements in modern league history, NBA experts say.
"There's no question they're one of the three or four best teams of the past 20 years, along with the Bulls, Lakers and Pistons," Phoenix Suns coach Mike D'Antoni says. "I know they beat us twice in the last few years, preventing us from getting to the Finals with teams I really believe were good enough to get there.
"But I promise you, it's not difficult to compliment them for what they've done, because it's the truth."
D'Antoni's comments about the Spurs are typical of knowledgeable basketball people. But despite their success, the Spurs still are largely an afterthought in fan conversations about the NBA's greatest teams, making them one of the most underappreciated dynasties in the history of pro sports.
Again, blame it on the market, says Jack Ramsay, an ESPN.com analyst and former NBA coach whose association with the game spans six decades.
"If the New York Knicks had won three titles since '99 like the Spurs have," Ramsay says, "they'd already be immortalized."
Playing in the nation's No. 37 media market, the Spurs often are overlooked by fans outside South Texas.
Without a stylish superstar like Michael Jordan or Bryant that casual fans can latch on to, the Spurs drew fewer fans on the road this season than 18 other NBA teams.
Ramsay can relate. As coach of the 1976-77 NBA champion Portland Trail Blazers, he often wondered if anybody outside Oregon appreciated the greatness of his Bill Walton-led team.
"The entire state just feasted on our team," Ramsay said. "But outside of Oregon, we were not a high-profile team. In fact, after we won the championship, CBS opted to go to the Kemper Open right away. And the Kemper Open is not a high prestige golf tournament.
"It's similar with San Antonio. And that's sad because they are a truly great team."
It's all about modesty
Not all championship teams in small markets have struggled to capture the nation's imagination. The Green Bay Packers dominated the NFL in the 1960s and gained fans from coast to coast.
Of course, the Packers had a charismatic coach (Vince Lombardi), a handsome, larger-than-life running back (Paul Hornung) and a loquacious offensive lineman (Jerry Kramer) who wrote a best-selling book about the story line-rich team.
The Spurs stand in sharp contrast to that colorful bunch. With their self-deprecating, publicity-shy core of Popovich, Duncan and general manager R.C. Buford, they seem content to go about their business with little fanfare. Even point guard Tony Parker and his fiancee, "Desperate Housewives" diva Eva Longoria, don't exactly burn up the red carpet.
"I believe the reasons they have not received proper recognition around the country are the same reasons why they are so successful," Ganis says. "With the Spurs, it's about the team-first attitude, the modesty of the players and their disdain for 'SportsCenter' highlights."
In that sense, the Spurs are more in tune with the New England Patriots, an NFL franchise that has won three Super Bowls in the past seven years but isn't widely recognized as one of the league's greatest teams.
Like the Spurs, the Patriots have a coach (Bill Belichick) and front-office chief (Scott Pioli) who shun the spotlight, a star player who puts team goals ahead of his individual needs (quarterback Tom Brady) and a roster largely made up of players who give back to the community and stay out of trouble.
"In this day and age," Ganis says, "it's a telling thing that a team like the Spurs doesn't get the recognition it deserves because it does things so modestly and with so much class. The Patriots are similar in that regard."
Like the Patriots, the Spurs are considered their league's model franchise.
"The Spurs," former NBA coach turned ABC/ESPN analyst Hubie Brown says, "won't just be remembered as one of the greatest teams in league history. They'll also go down as one of the best organizations, from top to bottom, that's ever been.
"People who follow basketball -- not just those in the U.S. but around the world -- all know that. Knowledgeable basketball people don't shortchange the Spurs."
Doing a good job
Part of that admiration stems from the Spurs' ability to win championships despite having a roster experts say isn't as rich in talent as some of the more recent NBA dynasties, including the Jordan-led Chicago Bulls that won six titles in the 1990s.
That means Popovich is doing a job that ranks among the best ever by an NBA coach, says former NBA coach Jeff Van Gundy, an analyst for ABC/ESPN.
"I don't think everyone knows just how great he really is," Van Gundy says. "That's not to underestimate their players, but I don't think any coach has achieved a championship level of success with less."
Nor has any team in recent memory been more adept at adding valuable pieces via free agency.
"You could probably hunt up a few mistakes they've made personnel-wise, but those are going to happen if you stay in the business long enough," former Spurs general manager Bob Bass says. "But they've kept them at a minimum."
Same goes for the draft.
"When you are lucky enough in the lottery to get (the rights to draft) David Robinson and then Tim Duncan, you are going to be pretty darn good for about 15 years," D'Antoni says. "But they've done a great job of putting people around those two guys to win championships.
"You have to give them credit for getting Manu Ginobili in the second round and Parker late in the first round. They're all-stars, and Ginobili is one of the 10 best players in the whole league. Maybe even one of top five."
FoxSports.com analyst Charley Rosen says the bottom line is that the Spurs' brain trust of Popovich, Buford and owner Peter Holt excels at running a team in the modern era.
"What the Spurs have done is highly impressive, but what makes it even more impressive is the changeability of rosters these days because of free agency," Rosen says.
"Of course, it was that way during the Shaquille O'Neal-Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers dynasty and the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls dynasty, but there are even more outstanding players available in free agency now that can change the balance of power. So to do what the Spurs have done over this extended period is even more impressive than winning three in a row or something like that."
Says Bass: "In this era, to be good this long is truly something."
So why aren't more people singing the team's praises?
Rosen points to what he calls a "thrill-a-minute culture" that wants nothing but spectacular dunks and finds the Spurs' five-man coordinated defense and share-the-ball offense boring. Brown and Van Gundy fault the media.
"Media drives perception," Van Gundy says. "If the media can't appreciate the Spurs, well, that's a shame because it's their job to recognize greatness. And the Spurs have sustained a level of excellence the last 10 or 11 years that has been as good as any modern team."
In typical Spurs fashion, Holt takes it all in stride.
"We know we are in a small media market and we understand sometimes we don't get recognized," Holt says. "But would I trade recognition over wins? Over championships? No, I like winning. We like winning. Luckily, I've got guys on this team and in the front office that get it, that understand that."
Others are confident the public will one day do the same.
"The Spurs are a great team and they will go down in history as a great team," says former NBA point guard Mark Jackson, an ABC/ESPN analyst. "They are great because of the titles they've won. They are great for having one of the best players ever. They are great because of their coach. And they are great because they have a front office that surrounds Duncan with a great supporting cast.
"What the Spurs do is about substance, not style. Sometimes we get caught up in style. But, at the end of the day, when you put the numbers together and realize what they've done, you can't help but appreciate them."
torsborn@express-news.net
Staff Writer Mike Monroe contributed to this report.
He knows his basketball though, so I was bit startled to hear that from him. Personally, I'm going with Spurs in 5, but they did get swept by the Cavs in regular season, so we'll see how it goes!
My favorite team, Blazers, they have said in the past that they want to be like the Suns. Unfortunately, that style only works if you are as deep as the Suns, offensively. With the addition of Greg Oden in the '07 Draft(hopefully), I hope the Blazers will model after a defensive team like the Spurs, and not the "run-and-gun-lose in the playoffs" style.
Wow very nicely put. 👍
), it was so blatant. Wow......
