1998-10-04, By Johnny Ludden
Spurs staff, players prepare for a season that’s up in air
Three months, three days have come to pass since the NBA shut down operations and Roger Maris’ home-run record and Magic Johnson’s talk-show career have been obliterated. The stock market and a presidential administration teeter precariously. The Streak has ground to a halt in both Baltimore and Prairie View.
And, apparently - if a yellow sport coat and two-day-old stubble serve as proof - Commissioner David Stern has even discovered 'Miami Vice" reruns.
But the lockout, or as the players’ association wants you to remember, the owner-imposed lockout, is rolling along just famously. Catholics and Protestants, Israelis and Palestinians, Northwest Airlines and its pilots - even Van Halen and David Lee Roth - have all made greater strides toward peace.
To date, the NBA has indefinitely postponed training camp and rookie orientation and canceled 25 exhibition games. The remainder of the preseason schedule is expected to be wiped out this week. The two sides are scheduled to meet Thursday, but few expect any movement until after arbitrator John Feerick delivers his decision, making the Nov. 3 season opener highly unlikely.
So with Tuesday supposed to mark the Spurs’ annual trek to Kerrville for camp, basketball fans are instead left with 22-year-old Tim Duncan’s tongue-piercing as 10 o’clock news. With the exception of hiring new trainer Will Sevening, little else has officially changed since the Spurs shipped Carl Herrera and the rights to Felipe Lopez to Vancouver for Antonio Daniels on draft night.
Will Perdue is still on the team. Vinny Del Negro, Jaren Jackson, Monty Williams, Reggie Geary and Malik Rose are still free agents. And after the latest TIF tiff, Spurs chairman Peter Holt still doesn’t have an agreement for a new arena.
Avery Johnson continues to run off-season workouts, scout potential backcourt mates, work on his jumper and solve the Y2K problem. All from Houston’s Westside Tennis Club.
Chuck Person and Sean Elliott continue to rehab. And David Robinson, when he’s not working out with Johnson and Duncan in Houston or alone in Aspen, Colo., continues to be a hit on the banquet circuit.
After delivering an inspiring lecture at the UTSA Business Auditorium on Sept. 24, Robinson gracefully answered questions about the size of his feet (17), whether Red McCombs will move the Minnesota Vikings to San Antonio (ask Red) and whether the Spurs should resign Duncan (yes). He was, however, unable to predict the start of the season.
“What can you tell (the fans)? You can’t encourage them that something is going to happen because you don’t know that something is going to happen,” Robinson said. “We would like to say something positive to them and be there for the fans and say, ‘Hey, look, we’ll get it resolved.’ But we can’t promise anything.”
As for Spurs coach and general manager Gregg Popovich, he and the rest of the front office are in the unique position of trying to conduct business as usual when, technically, there is no business to conduct.
Since the lockout was imposed July 1, Popovich and other team officials are barred from speaking to players or their agents. And under mandate from a league-wide gag order, he can’t even publicly speak about players or the lockout.
With the players following conditioning and workout plans given to them by the team, Popovich and his staff have spent the extended off-season reviewing videotape of last season, beginning with blowout losses.
“With the 15- or 20-point stuff, we try to figure out what the heck went wrong,” Popovich said. “Then we look at tight games, close games, playoff games, about 30 or 35 games in detail. We look at what’s common about them, what we did really well and what we didn’t.”
The coaches also have scouted the World Championships, Goodwill Games, Los Angeles Summer League and Nike and adidas high school camps in addition to planning preseason drills, scripting new plays and looking at ways to improve a defense that held opponents to an NBA-record-low 41.1 percent from the field.
“That’s why (assistant coach) Hank Egan is here,” Popovich said. "He says, ‘Pop, get back to reality. Don’t screw up a good thing.’ "
Upgrading the roster requires more work. Popovich, along with player personnel director Sam Schuler and scouting director R.C. Buford, have compiled their annual list of free agents to pursue. But until terms of the new collective bargaining agreement are set, team officials don’t even know exactly what they can offer to whom.
A case in point is Jackson, who under the old rules the Spurs could give only a 20-percent raise above his league-minimum salary. But with the minimum expected to increase significantly from $272,250, Jackson, who has toiled for 13 teams and three leagues in nine years, is content to wait out the lockout.
“I can’t worry about what’s going to happen,” said Jackson, who has been working out at Georgetown University and at home in New Orleans. “That’s the way my career has been. I never know where I’m going to end up. The way I look at this is me and my wife get to spend more time together.”
For now, he and the rest of the Spurs’ players and coaches continue to separately prepare for a season that no one knows when will start.
By Johnny Ludden, via San Antonio Express-News