David Robinson - The Reason I Became A Spurs Fan

David Robinson - The Reason I Became A Spurs Fan

I became a Spurs fan right before David Robinson joined the team, but he was the reason I became a fan. Let me explain: I remember watching a game the season before he joined the team (the Spurs were 21-61 that year), and they showed highlights of The Admiral and said that he would be with the team next year. From that point on, I was hooked, because I was amazed at what I saw in those clips of him at Navy. All I kept seeing was him with those powerful dunks, that leaping ability, blocking shots in bunches, and those muscles. As a matter of fact, I even had this jacket when I was in the 6th grade, as well as the David Robinson's Supreme Court video game. The Admiral went on and put together this resume:

Career Highlights And Awards

-Naismith College Player Of The Year (1987)

-AP College Basketball Player Of The Year (1987)

-Adolph Rupp Trophy (1987)

-John Wooden Award (1987)

-USBWA College Player Of The Year (1987)

-NABC Player Of The Year (1987)

-NCAA Silver Anniversary Award (2012)

-2x Olympic Gold Medalist (1992, 1996)

-2x NBA Champion (1999, 2003)

-NBA MVP (1995)

-NBA Defensive Player Of The Year (1992)

-10x NBA All-Star (1990-1996, 1998, 2000-2001)

-10x All-NBA Selection (4 First Team, 2 Second Team, 4 Third Team)

-8x NBA All-Defensive Team Selection (4 First Team, 4 Second Team)

-NBA Scoring Champion (1994)

-NBA Rebounding Champion (1991)

-NBA Shot-Blocking Champion (1992)

-NBA Rookie Of The Year (1990)

-NBA All-Rookie First Team (1990)

-NBA Sportsmanship Award (2001)

-NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team

-Jersey #50 Retired (Spurs)

David Robinson started helping the Spurs the moment they won the lottery. They had such an uncertain future at the time, that some were advising him to use his 2-year Navy commitment to become an unrestricted free agent and go to a team with a higher profile. As a matter of fact, the Lakers even tried to steal him away from the Spurs to replace Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after he retired. Ownership flew The Admiral to San Antonio when his Naval career began and started giving him VIP treatment, including a parade along the San Antonio River and a pep rally in the parking lot of Red McCombs' car dealership. The Admiral had become sold on San Antonio, its pleasant climate, and open spaces. The Spurs did something they had never done.....paid big money, signing The Admiral to an 8-year $26 million contract, including a $1 million per year for each of his 2 years in the Navy, and got a clause that guaranteed that he would never be lower than the 2nd highest paid player in the NBA the 5th year of his contract. The hardest part wasn't the contract, it was convincing him to come to SA, because the Spurs had no leverage. David Robinson's commitment to the Spurs was also the key to the Spurs hiring Larry Brown as their head coach. Attendance and revenue also increased in anticipation of The Admiral's arrival in 1989. Let me paint a picture for you of the Spurs' situation before then.

Before David Robinson arrived, the Spurs were:

-playing in an outdated arena 

-had no marquee players 

-declining home attendance for several consecutive seasons  

-last in the NBA in season ticket sales and most other measurements of success

David Robinson had the "Bill Russell 2.0" label attached to him coming into the NBA, and that was who Larry Brown wanted him to pattern his game after, but The Admiral didn't have that luxury because the Spurs didn't have the players around him that would allow him to focus primarily on defense. He had to carry the whole load on offense and defense. It was believed that The Admiral would become one of the 10 greatest players ever. It was even said that the Bulls were having internal discussions about offering the Spurs Michael Jordan for him straight up before the '92 and '93 seasons. That's how good everybody thought David Robinson would be. Here are a couple of quotes to support that:

"He's the spitting image of Bill Russell, only a better athlete."  

                                                                                                     -Pat Riley

"Bird, Magic, MJ......they're all MVPs, but this guy is more. He's the greatest impact player this league has seen since Kareem." 

                                                     -Cotton Fitzsimmons

To paraphrase Bill Simmons (The Book Of Basketball), if we ever started cloning basketball players one day Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, David Robinson, and LeBron James would be 1-4 in some order. On paper, you couldn't ask for a better center than The Admiral. He had every conceivable tool you would want:

-Bill Russell's defensive instincts

-Wilt Chamberlain's strength and agility

-Wilt/Dwight Howard's leaping ability

-Hakeem Olajuwon's hand-eye coordination and footwork

-Robert Parish's ability to run the floor

In addition to all of the above, he was left-handed. The advantages for being a left-handed basketball player, especially a big man. For starters, it throws off opponents because you usually expect a guy to drive to your left (his right), so a defender is used to going left when they slide. When that happens, the lefty usually has a step in front of the defender since he's playing the wrong side of the drive. Natural lefties are also said to have better visual temporal skills. Left-handed big men have an advantage because they don't have to reach across their body to block the shot of a right-handed opponent. It also requires an adjustment to play with a lefty because his passing, footwork, and positioning are all different too. 

The 2 biggest things that stood out to me about David Robinson were: 

1.) He was a physical specimen.

2.) He was an athletic freak of nature.

A lot of people don't remember what kind of an athletic freak The Admiral was. I honestly believe that he's the most freakish athlete I have ever seen play basketball in my lifetime. There was no other 7-footer out there who could do what he did. For starters, he was a big man chasing down point guards, could jump through the roof and had hang time, rebounded like a machine, and blocked shots in bunches. He was the fastest man on ALL of his teams. Gregg Popovich has even confirmed that The Admiral was still faster than Tony Parker........at 37 years old in his last year in the league, with a bad back and all. Even against modern NBA players, it looked to me like he was running in a completely different gear than everybody else. This man had the explosiveness and agility of a guard, and his body didn't get slower as it got bigger like with most big men. I have even seen him do 360 dunks with 2 hands in games before. The Admiral also had incredible upper body strength, which was obvious by looking at how big and sculpted his arms were, and the fact that he could walk the entire length of a basketball court on his hands.....he competed in gymnastics when he was growing up. The Admiral was a 1-on-1 physical mismatch for any player in the league in his prime because there was no big man that was faster than him, Shaquille O'Neal was about the only man stronger, and he had very quick hands that enabled him to rack up on steals, becoming the Spurs' all-time steals leader. Plain and simple, at 7'1" The Admiral was doing things that were unheard of for a man his size.

It was believed that David Robinson lacked the dedication to become an extraordinary pro basketball player. Because he did so many things on the court so well and with such apparent effortlessness, he has always been considered an underachiever even though he had achieved so much. Once in a while I even catch myself wondering how much better he could have been if a few things were different. Here are the biggest issues that I believe kept him from reaching his full potential:

1.) Being A Late Bloomer

As a result of staying in college all 4 years and serving 2 years of active duty in the Navy, David Robinson's career got off to a late start, making him a rookie at 24 years old. He didn't play a whole lot of basketball before he got to the Spurs. With only one year of high school basketball and 4 years at the Naval Academy, a college that didn't play a whole lot of big games, The Admiral didn't have the same background as most NBA players. After going back and watching old Spurs games from his early years, you could see it. I noticed that there were some situations that came up where he looked awkward and didn't know what to do. As he continued to develop, those situations didn't happen as often. When he first got to the NBA, The Admiral had unlimited physical abilities, but limited basketball skills. Because he wasn't properly developed, it was much harder for him to develop a complete offensive game early in his career. He had next to no offense and was using his height, speed, and leaping ability to get away from his opponents. Once he put in the work and put together a package, he became even more dangerous, and the accolades just kept flowing in.

2.) Too Many Head Coaches

Another hindrance in David Robinson's career was a lack of continuity, playing for 5 head coaches in his first 6 years. Each coach asked him to do something different. One coach wanted defense, one coach wanted rebounding, and one coach wanted offense. It wasn't until the Spurs hired Bob Hill that The Admiral finally had a coach that wanted balance from him. Bob Hill required the whole package from him, including leadership. Here is a quote from The Admiral on that situation: 

"I used to have the idea that I just had to come here and take care of my job. I thought that was what professional basketball was all about. I do my job. You do your job. If we all do our jobs, we win. I know now that I have to do more than that. My energy level fuels half the team. I tell these guys that if you prepare yourself physically, you'll be able to do well. If you don't, you won't." 

3.) Supporting Cast

Like I mentioned earlier, David Robinson was supposed to be Bill Russell......but with a jump shot. Like Bill Russell, he could run players down from behind and block their shots, recover from the weak side to block a shot or grab a rebound, and he could even block shots to ignite fast breaks. The Admiral has led the league in blocks and rebounds, but he also had to lead the league in scoring because he was on a team without an offensive star. He didn't have a post game, but he had to score against Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Patrick Ewing, who were the best centers of that era and also selections of the NBA's 50 greatest players. Not only did he have to score against them, he had to keep them for scoring and lead the fast break. Here is a quote from The Admiral in 1999, basically admitting that he wasn't a scorer:

"I'm not a Michael Jordan-type player. I don't handle the ball. I can't go out there and take 30 shots a game. That's not my style. I had to figure out what is my style. That's part of what's great about being where we are right now."

Let's look at it this way: 

What if Bill Russell came into the NBA in 1989 and went to a team with only one player besides him (Sean Elliott) who would ever make an All-Star team, and that was the case for the first 8 years of his career? And even though he is a defensive specialist, he has a supporting cast of sub-par offensive players, poor or limited range shooters like Avery Johnson and Vinny Del Negro, and a transcendent rebounder in Dennis Rodman who couldn't even make a layup. Now check this out: What if David Robinson came into the NBA in 1956 as a lean, athletic and intelligent young player that was only asked to do 2 things.....rebound and block shots? He has a supporting cast stacked with Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, and Tommy Heinsohn, 3 of the greatest offensive players of that era who will make All-Star teams for many years to come, as well as the Hall Of Fame. The next year, he ends up getting Sam Jones, another HOFer, who would become one of the all-time great shooters in NBA history.

Which one of these men would have the 11 championships?

After giving that some thought, you can't help but wonder how much different things would have been for The Admiral if the Spurs had the pieces in place that would have allowed him to thrive as a defensive specialist. They had a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY to make that a reality in the Summer of 1992, and almost did until Red McCombs blocked the move at the last minute. The Spurs and the 76ers had a trade worked out that would send Terry Cummings and Willie Anderson to the Sixers, and Charles Barkley back to the Spurs. Both teams had already agreed to the trade, but Red McCombs vetoed it at the last minute because he didn't want to pay Chuck. After the Spurs passed on that trade, Terry Cummings blew out his knee playing a pickup game in Chicago, and the Sixers traded Chuck to the Suns, where he went on to be the league MVP the following season and lead the Suns to the NBA Finals. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't be happier with the way things worked out for the Spurs to get Tim Duncan, but think about it for a second: The Spurs would have had a Big 3 of David Robinson, Charles Barkley, and Sean Elliott.........IN THEIR PRIMES!! If you have a chance to get a player like Charles Barkley without having to give up one of your best players, YOU HAVE TO DO IT. You just can't pass on that kind of opportunity to improve your team. Chances to get an MVP-caliber player for next to nothing don't come around too often. 

When you have a franchise player like David Robinson, who had teams with a higher profile pursuing him, the way to show your appreciation for his loyalty is to build the best team possible around him to maximize your chances to win championships. That was too much to ask out of Red McCombs, because he was so cheap. It's hard to have anything more than mixed feelings about him. Not only did he fail David Robinson by not putting better players around him, he also feuded with Rod Strickland publicly, and let him leave in free agency. To add insult to injury, Red got tired of paying The Admiral all of the money he was paying him and started shopping him. There was even talk about a cost-cutting trade that would have sent The Admiral to the Knicks for Patrick Ewing. Fortunately, none of those trades ever came close to happening. If I were David Robinson, I would have felt insulted. How could you even think about trading the man that had that big of an impact on your franchise in such a short time, not to mention staying loyal to the team that drafted him? If you didn't want to pay him, why did you go through so much trouble to get him to play for you? I'll give Red McCombs credit for keeping the Spurs in San Antonio, but other than that he was a TERRIBLE owner. It's disappointing that somebody with his resources wasn't more aggressive in improving the team. 

For just about David Robinson's entire prime, when the Spurs made the playoffs his supporting cast was usually weaker than the opponent's, making it easier to focus on him. And since he didn't have a post game, his offense was driving to the basket and dunking, but the driving lanes close in the playoffs and teams force you to beat them inside. That was the biggest killer for the Spurs because they didn't have anybody who could consistently make open shots to open up the lane. That allowed teams to double and triple team The Admiral and dare the other Spurs to beat them. It wasn't until his 9th season, when Tim Duncan became a Spur, that The Admiral was able to just concentrate on anchoring the defense. Once the Twin Towers got their chemistry together, it noticed that The Admiral seemed more comfortable in his new role. His last 6 seasons actually seemed to be his more meaningful seasons, and he was actually more valuable to the Spurs as a complimentary player than as a scoring champion and MVP. I also see some similarities in The Admiral with Wilt Chamberlain: They both were freakish athletes with huge bodies that put up ridiculous statistics for their respective eras. They both scored points in bunches. Both players were also a lot more well-rounded than people think. They both also came up short in the playoffs much too often for players with their abilities, usually against a rival at the same position. Eventually, both players were able to get redemption later in their careers when their roles changed and they gave up some of the scoring load. A great player is only as good as the teammates that compliment him and the role he is asked to play.

4.) Many Interests Outside Of Basketball

A lot of people interpreted David Robinson having many other talents and interests outside of basketball as proof that he didn't play hard. That wasn't the case at all. He always played hard and gave the Spurs everything he had, but at the end of the day, he knew that there was much more to life than basketball. The Admiral has said that he was always curious and wanting to learn a little bit about a lot of things. It was said all throughout his career until he retired that the same sense of duty that made him a noble man kept him from being an ever greater player. The knock on him was that he never developed a ruthless, cutthroat, and cold-blooded edge to him that was required to be a champion, and that he lacked the prerequisite leadership skills to carry his team. I have to slightly disagree with that last part......the man was an officer in the United States Armed Forces!! With me being ex-military myself, I know that there are not too many better places out there to develop strong leadership. What the media also fails to realize, is that leading troops in combat is not the same as leading a basketball team on the court. It takes different skill sets to do those 2 things. To me, that's a lot like being in a leadership position on your job and trying to use those management skills at home to raise your children. 

David Robinson has admitted that it took him a lot longer than expected to become the player that the Spurs organization expected him to be. Another knock on him was that at certain points of certain games he didn't get involved. He said it was because of immaturity and mental lapses. He has also admitted that it took him a while to learn the game and what his coaches wanted from him. A big part of it was that his love for the game didn't match his talent level, and it took him a while before he understood what it was all about. It's true that he struggled early in his career to handle the pressure of the NBA playoffs, but at the same time, not having a 2nd All-Star did hurt his chances to compete with the best teams in the West. But no matter how hard The Admiral played and dominated, it was never enough until the Spurs got Tim Duncan. Before The Dream won those back-to-back championships, The Admiral was regarded as the best center in the NBA. The failings of his teammates lessened the perceptions of his contributions, and the media is notorious for ignoring the strength of teammates when they evaluate an individual player's standing in history. 

One other misconception about David Robinson that I want to address is the "soft" label that was put on him. He was different than most athletes because he wasn't defined by basketball.....he had a strong identity, unflappable pride, and an unmatched soul before he even became a basketball player. The Admiral knew that at the end of the day, basketball was just a game, and that was how he approached it. Because he didn't eat, sleep, and breathe basketball, people took that as him treating it like a hobby. Then, there was the the criticism that he played a soft style of basketball (see point #1 above), and that's not necessarily true. It's just that the NBA wasn't used to a man The Admiral's size with his athleticism shooting 15-foot jumpers. There were constant questions about why he never camped out in the paint like most centers. That doesn't make him the least bit soft. Anybody that has closely followed the Spurs for at least the past 15 years knows that The Admiral had no problems playing physical basketball against somebody like Shaq, and hold him to numbers well below his averages up until the very end of his career. The fact the he won DPOY, rebounding and shot-blocking titles should prove that he was dominant around the basket. Soft players don't become stars on defense, especially if they are stationed in the paint.

The problem with how David Robinson was perceived stems from people taking "nice" and "soft" to mean the same thing. It's all because of how our culture views sports. We have a tendency to want players to be responsible and stay out of trouble, but also play their sport mean and angry. A "sports slang" was even developed based on violent and military terms. For example, when a team blows another team out, we say they "killed" or "murdered" them. We describe a good shooter or accurate quarterback as a "marksman". We say a quarterback with a strong arm has a "gun" or a "cannon". We describe a 3-point shot or a deep pass in football as a "bomb". Bottom line, we take a GAME, make a life or death event out of it, and expect the players to play that way. David Robinson didn't see it that way, which is why he went and served his first 2 years of the Navy on active duty before he joined the Spurs. Once again, he understood that there were bigger things in the world than basketball. One example I can give for that, is that he once said in an interview that he got himself ready to play by thinking about the troops that gave their life in war so his family could prosper in a free America. The Admiral also didn't look for vengeance because foul play was beneath him. The Admiral is most definitely a winner, he just didn't respond to controversy the same way most athletes do, and his reactions didn't meet expectations that had been set by other great athletes. With that being said, David Robinson can't be called soft. He had his faults like every other player, but he didn't take plays off or shy away from physical contact.

I personally think David Robinson is TOUGH AS NAILS.......a true warrior!! For starters, he could have went to any college he wanted to, but instead he picked a military school, and it takes a certain level of toughness to graduate from an institution like that. Also, it's awfully hard to call a man soft that has credentials in Taekwondo and boxing, along with other defense skills and tactics that he learned in the Navy. I definitely wouldn't want to mess with him. David Robinson played basketball through a lot more pain than people realized, and gave everything he had to the Spurs organization. Here is a list of the biggest ailments that I know of that he played through:

-sprained wrist

-sliced pinkie

-torn thumb ligament

-pinched nerves in his shoulder

-shoulder contusions

-hernia

-hip pointer

-cervical spasms

-chipped disc

-nerve damage in his back, legs, and foot (from the chipped disc)

-floating particle in his back

-synovitis in left knee

-chondromalacia in right knee

By David Robinson's last year, his back bothered him so bad, it hurt him just to sit. He was so used to playing with pain that he blocked it out, and even forgot sometimes to tell his team when he was hurting. His last 2 seasons were the most painful for him, mostly from all of the back problems. The Admiral's troubles all started when he first suffered his hernia close to the end of the '95-'96 season. Then, the hernia flared up again in the middle of one of the games in the Olympics......and he PUSHED IT BACK IN AND KEPT PLAYING!!! HE COULD HAVE DIED FROM THAT!!! Even after his days in the Navy he was still putting his life on the line for his country. The Admiral went on to lead Dream Team II to a gold medal in the 1996 Olympics, as their top scorer. He put off having surgery on the hernia until after the Olympics, allowing his stomach and back muscles to deteriorate, increasing the vulnerability of a back injury, which happened in the Olympics. After the hernia surgery, The Admiral wasn't able to work out while he was recovering, causing his back to deteriorate even more. The back problem had gotten so bad, that when the 1996 training camp started, he couldn't even run. The Admiral made an appearance in a preseason game and ended up straining his back, causing him to miss the first 18 games of the season. He made his comeback on December 10 against the Suns, only to play 6 games before he broke his left foot in a game against the Heat. I believe that the broken foot came as a result of him trying to compensate for the bad back. Another contributor might be the had poor jumping mechanics that The Admiral had developed, using his lower back for lift instead of using his legs more. 

With The Admiral on the shelf, the Spurs went 20-62 for the season, and of course winning the 1997 NBA Draft Lottery for the right to draft Tim Duncan. The rest is history. When The Admiral came back the next season from the back and foot injuries, he might have been 80% at best, which was still better than a lot of other players at 100%. The Admiral at 100% along with The Big Fundamental would have been NASTY.......I'm talking about total dominance!!! He was still pretty good for having numbness and pain from a chip floating around in his spinal column. In 2002, it was suggested that The Admiral have surgery to remove the floater in his back. He felt like the risk wasn't worth it. He didn't want the surgery for 2 reasons:

1.) Back surgery guarantees nothing. 

2.) It could have forced him to miss the next season, in effect ending his career.

Another thing David Robinson should get props for is his loyalty. Loyal athletes are a dead breed, and have been for over 20 years now. Just to show you how much things have changed, I want to point out that the 1975 Dallas Cowboys only had 1 player (Preston Pearson) who had been with another team. Today, less than 2% of players who go into pro sports stay with the team that drafted them. There is no sense of loyalty with athletes with anything other than money. As soon as free agency was started, athletes have had less motivation to stay with the same team for their whole career. Sometimes you might have a player that might want to stay with his team, but then he'll have an agent in his ear telling him that he can get a better deal somewhere else. If The Admiral had played for another team, it wouldn't have been his first choice, and it even came close to happening late in his career.

Here are the 3 "close-calls" we had with the possibility of David Robinson leaving the Spurs:

1.) As mentioned above in detail, at one point, Red McCombs got tired of paying The Admiral the money he was paying him and started shopping him.

2.) In 1999, the Spurs struggled to a 6-8 record to start the season, and there were fans wanting Gregg Popovich fired and The Admiral traded. The rumored trade at that time was The Admiral to the Seattle SuperSonics for a package with Vin Baker as the centerpiece, which a lot of Spurs fan supported.

3.) In 2001 when Chris Webber was a free agent, the Spurs reached out to him to gauge his interest, making a lowball offer to David Robinson at the same time while they waited on C-Webb to get back to them. Coach Pop was an assistant coach for the Warriors during C-Webb's rookie season, and that might have been part of the reason for the intrigue besides finding a long term replacement for The Admiral. Anyway, C-Webb never called the Spurs back when they reached out to him. He ended up re-signing with the Kings, and later admitted that he was tempted to sign with the Spurs. The day after that went down, a lot of angry callers blew up the Spurs' phones demanding that they re-sign The Admiral, which they did for a 2-year $20 million contract to end his career.

Even in 2002, there were letters to the San Antonio Express News from fans demanding that the Spurs get rid of David Robinson and his "fat contract". Most of them said that he was either on the injured list or on the court screwing up. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I felt like The Admiral deserved every penny he got and earned the right to finish his career with the Spurs on his terms. I don't even want to know what things would have been like if he did leave. I just know that Coach Pop would have felt the kind of heat he had never felt, and I believe that San Antonio would have been one angry city. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear about a riot breaking out. If the Spurs would have let David Robinson leave in any of those situations I just mentioned above, it would have been disrespectful to the man that saved the team from relocation, helped the team win enough games to make them financially viable, and gave the city a recognizable face of dignity.......a man that represents what pro sports is truly all about. Did I mention how much time and money he donated to the city? The Spurs did the right thing and let him retire in his own city with full appreciation for what he did for them, which is something that James Silas and George Gervin didn't get to do.

To sum it all up, here is David Robinson's impact on the Spurs in a nutshell:

-Saved the Spurs from relocation with his commitment to the team

-A 35-game turnaround during his rookie season (then NBA record)

-Altered his game to accommodate Tim Duncan's game

-Cut his vacation short to go back and talk Tim Duncan out of leaving, saving the Spurs a 2nd time

-2 championships

-A new arena

-Announced his retirement plans a year ahead of time to allow the Spurs to prepare for Summer 2003

Taking all of this into account, I personally believe that David Robinson is underrated historically. Bill Simmons has him ranked at #28 in The Book Of Basketball, but I feel like he should be somewhere inside the top 20. I think his impact on the Spurs organization alone should be enough for him to be ranker higher. Once again, without his signature in 1987, there is no pro basketball in San Antonio. Without him taking a lesser role to Tim Duncan, there is no championship. Without a championship, there is no approval for the AT&T Center. Writing this blog has made me appreciate and respect The Admiral even more than I already did.