duncan228
09-03-2009, 12:04 AM
Robinson's bad luck led to Spurs' success (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Robinsons_bad_luck_led_to_Spurs_success.html)
Jerry Briggs - Express-News
David Robinson suffered from a few bad bounces during his 14-year career with the Spurs.
He endured his share of rotten luck.
But as if ordained by the gods of basketball, Robinson always seemed to benefit from more than a few turns of good fortune along the way, as well.
And, curiously, his worst luck sometimes immediately preceded the best of times.
Six years after retiring from the NBA, Robinson is riding high again, headed for induction on Sept. 11 into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Robinson will join hoops icons Michael Jordan, John Stockton, Jerry Sloan and other inductees in the Class of 2009 at ceremonies in Springfield, Mass.
Robinson met the local media Wednesday at the Carver Academy, an elementary school that he funded and built eight years ago on the city's East Side.
In a 90-minute trip down memory lane, Robinson shared his thoughts on a remarkable career and called the Hall of Fame induction “a phenomenal honor” that encompasses every award, trophy and title that he ever won.
“It's kind of a picture of all the things together,” Robinson said.
In the past few days, friends and acquaintances have recalled the U.S. Naval Academy graduate's ability to deal with adversity and find a way to win.
Not that the Spurs lost much during the Robinson era, mind you.
They won 65 percent of their games and two championships before he retired after the 2002-03 season.
Still, as the No. 1 overall pick in the 1987 NBA draft, much was expected of Robinson, and so his high-profile setbacks sometimes had the feel of citywide crises.
Robinson said the low point for him personally was the 1995 loss to Houston in the Western Conference finals.
The Spurs entered the playoffs with the best record in the league at 62-20.
But Robinson couldn't stop Houston center Hakeem Olajuwon, and the Rockets won the series, then went on to capture their second straight world title.
“For me,” Robinson said, “that was the lowest point and the most discouraging.”
A little more than a year later, Robinson threw out his back, then broke his foot, forcing him to sit and watch for the last 31/2 months of the 1996-97 season.
A frightful, 62-loss disaster ensued.
“Ridiculous,” Robinson said, recalling the year in which most of the Spurs' front-line players went down with injuries. “It was a mess.”
It was also the start of something divine. The Spurs won the lottery in 1997 and claimed the No. 1 draft pick, power forward Tim Duncan.
Duncan has since led the Spurs to four NBA titles.
Robinson, who evolved from a big-time scorer to defensive stopper after Duncan arrived, won his long-coveted championships in 1999 and 2003.
In that sense, Robinson's misery in his lost season was nothing more than a mirage.
“That was a loss that was a win,” former Spurs guard Avery Johnson said. “It's amazing when you lose and you're winning at the same time. When you're going through it, you don't even recognize it.”
Former Spurs guard George Gervin said it was “almost like fate” that Robinson, down and out of the game temporarily, would suddenly get the help that he needed to win his first championship.
“David is a faith-believin' man anyway, a very spiritual guy,” said Gervin, the franchise's first Hall of Fame player. “As the old saying goes, ‘God works in mysterious ways,' and it kind of fits into his character, because of his faith.”
Robinson played the end of the 1995-96 season with a hernia that got worse during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
“It got so bad that the doctor gave me a patch to put on my stomach to keep everything in,” he said.
After the Olympics, he underwent surgery to correct the issue. But with Spurs training camp looming, Robinson knows now that he might have needed a little more time to build up the muscles in his core.
He went down with the back injury in a preseason game at the Louisiana Superdome.
Did the limited time to rehabilitate from the surgery lead to the back injury?
“Possibly, yeah,” he said. “Would it have happened anyway? I don't know ... I'm sure it played a role.
“If I had had my surgery a month earlier, would that have made a difference?” Robinson asked rhetorically. “I don't know. But then, we wouldn't have gotten Tim Duncan.
“So, it turned out to be a great decision.”
A stroke of good fortune for a faith-believin' man.
*********************
Basketball Hall of Fame
What: Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
When, where: 5:30-8 p.m., Sept. 11; Springfield, Mass.
Class of 2009: David Robinson, Michael Jordan, Jerry Sloan, John Stockton, C. Vivian Stringer
TV: ESPN
Jerry Briggs - Express-News
David Robinson suffered from a few bad bounces during his 14-year career with the Spurs.
He endured his share of rotten luck.
But as if ordained by the gods of basketball, Robinson always seemed to benefit from more than a few turns of good fortune along the way, as well.
And, curiously, his worst luck sometimes immediately preceded the best of times.
Six years after retiring from the NBA, Robinson is riding high again, headed for induction on Sept. 11 into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Robinson will join hoops icons Michael Jordan, John Stockton, Jerry Sloan and other inductees in the Class of 2009 at ceremonies in Springfield, Mass.
Robinson met the local media Wednesday at the Carver Academy, an elementary school that he funded and built eight years ago on the city's East Side.
In a 90-minute trip down memory lane, Robinson shared his thoughts on a remarkable career and called the Hall of Fame induction “a phenomenal honor” that encompasses every award, trophy and title that he ever won.
“It's kind of a picture of all the things together,” Robinson said.
In the past few days, friends and acquaintances have recalled the U.S. Naval Academy graduate's ability to deal with adversity and find a way to win.
Not that the Spurs lost much during the Robinson era, mind you.
They won 65 percent of their games and two championships before he retired after the 2002-03 season.
Still, as the No. 1 overall pick in the 1987 NBA draft, much was expected of Robinson, and so his high-profile setbacks sometimes had the feel of citywide crises.
Robinson said the low point for him personally was the 1995 loss to Houston in the Western Conference finals.
The Spurs entered the playoffs with the best record in the league at 62-20.
But Robinson couldn't stop Houston center Hakeem Olajuwon, and the Rockets won the series, then went on to capture their second straight world title.
“For me,” Robinson said, “that was the lowest point and the most discouraging.”
A little more than a year later, Robinson threw out his back, then broke his foot, forcing him to sit and watch for the last 31/2 months of the 1996-97 season.
A frightful, 62-loss disaster ensued.
“Ridiculous,” Robinson said, recalling the year in which most of the Spurs' front-line players went down with injuries. “It was a mess.”
It was also the start of something divine. The Spurs won the lottery in 1997 and claimed the No. 1 draft pick, power forward Tim Duncan.
Duncan has since led the Spurs to four NBA titles.
Robinson, who evolved from a big-time scorer to defensive stopper after Duncan arrived, won his long-coveted championships in 1999 and 2003.
In that sense, Robinson's misery in his lost season was nothing more than a mirage.
“That was a loss that was a win,” former Spurs guard Avery Johnson said. “It's amazing when you lose and you're winning at the same time. When you're going through it, you don't even recognize it.”
Former Spurs guard George Gervin said it was “almost like fate” that Robinson, down and out of the game temporarily, would suddenly get the help that he needed to win his first championship.
“David is a faith-believin' man anyway, a very spiritual guy,” said Gervin, the franchise's first Hall of Fame player. “As the old saying goes, ‘God works in mysterious ways,' and it kind of fits into his character, because of his faith.”
Robinson played the end of the 1995-96 season with a hernia that got worse during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
“It got so bad that the doctor gave me a patch to put on my stomach to keep everything in,” he said.
After the Olympics, he underwent surgery to correct the issue. But with Spurs training camp looming, Robinson knows now that he might have needed a little more time to build up the muscles in his core.
He went down with the back injury in a preseason game at the Louisiana Superdome.
Did the limited time to rehabilitate from the surgery lead to the back injury?
“Possibly, yeah,” he said. “Would it have happened anyway? I don't know ... I'm sure it played a role.
“If I had had my surgery a month earlier, would that have made a difference?” Robinson asked rhetorically. “I don't know. But then, we wouldn't have gotten Tim Duncan.
“So, it turned out to be a great decision.”
A stroke of good fortune for a faith-believin' man.
*********************
Basketball Hall of Fame
What: Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
When, where: 5:30-8 p.m., Sept. 11; Springfield, Mass.
Class of 2009: David Robinson, Michael Jordan, Jerry Sloan, John Stockton, C. Vivian Stringer
TV: ESPN