Admiral anchored a franchise
Mike Monroe
It is nearly impossible to overstate the impact David Maurice Robinson had on the sports landscape of South Texas, but it is simple to try.
Imagine San Antonio without the Spurs.
Robinson is scheduled for enshrinement Friday into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He will be honored in Springfield, Mass., the birthplace of basketball, for his achievements on the court: These include two NBA championships, two Olympic gold medals, one NBA Most Valuable Player award, 20,790 career points, 10,497 career rebounds and 2,954 career blocks.
Robinson's most enduring basketball achievement, however, can't be quantified. He was pro basketball's savior in San Antonio.
“Certainly, David saved the NBA for San Antonio,” said B.J. “Red” McCombs, a member of the Spurs' ownership group that drafted Robinson in 1987. “I truly believe we would not have been able to continue to operate if we had not had something dramatic happen.”
Drafting, and signing, Robinson was the drama McCombs required.
Though flattered by the notion, Robinson's humility prevents acknowledging his starring role in the play.
“That's a very nice thing to say,” Robinson said. “Obviously, a lot of people had a say-so in basketball staying in San Antonio. But I think I got a great sense of the situation the first time I came down and had a meeting with (then-owner) Angelo (Drossos), about the state of basketball in San Antonio, and that they were very concerned about the team not being here.
“So, looking back on it now, and seeing where we've come, all those many years ago, I'm very, very happy and very proud of what we've accomplished and what we've been able to build.”
What Robinson helped construct was one of the most successful franchises in all of professional sports. Four championship banners hang from the rafters at the AT&T Center, the first two secured with the significant help of “The Admiral,” as Robinson was known, then and now.
“Everywhere I go where people know San Antonio, they know the Spurs,” he said. “So, I can't imagine the city without them.”
Robinson's impact spread beyond basketball, too.
“David Robinson gave people a reason to go to San Antonio,” said Avery Johnson, Robinson's good friend and former Spurs teammate. “His success in putting the Spurs on the map as a legitimate playoff contender made more people want go on down to the River Walk. The city of San Antonio and all of South Texas benefited from David Robinson being drafted by the Spurs.”
Wooing process
Without Robinson, the Spurs had struggled through the mid-1980s.
Before they made Robinson the No. 1 overall pick of the 1987 draft out of the U.S. Naval Academy, the Spurs had just completed their fourth consecutive non-winning season. Attendance lagged.
“We had fallen off in season ticket sales, and the team wasn't performing well,” McCombs said.
At udes about the Spurs began to change as soon as Robinson was drafted.
The basketball decision to draft the athletic, 7-foot-1 Robinson was easy, but his military status made things dicey. He had a two-year commitment to serve in the U.S. Navy after graduating from Annapolis. If the Spurs couldn't sign him before the two years were up, he could become a free agent.
Some teams didn't wait before letting Robinson know they wanted him, a violation of NBA rules.
“We knew there had been tampering by other clubs,” McCombs said. “You can't prove it, but it was well known he was going to do his two-year (military) commitment, and there were other clubs trying to interest him in waiting for them.”
In response, McCombs organized an event to show Robinson just how much he was valued in the Alamo City. He brought Robinson and his agent, Lee Fentress, to San Antonio for a visit before the start of the 1987-88 season.
McCombs calls Robinson's selection of Fentress, an agent regarded for his impeccable integrity, the most important factor in the Spurs' successful pursuit of a contract. But McCombs believes the community proved to Robinson how welcome he would be.
“Henry Cisneros was mayor, and I told Henry we had to turn out people like never before and make David ‘King For A Weekend,'” McCombs said.
Indeed, Robinson was treated like royalty. The civic outpouring of goodwill had the desired effect, but so did the commitment promised by the Spurs to put a championship-caliber team around Robinson.
“They did the parade and the river and flew me around the city in a helicopter,” Robinson said. “That was all very exciting. Obviously, that has an impression on you as a young guy. But I was focused more on the basketball side. Can we build? Is this really a team that's one we can make into something? I felt like we could.”
Robinson signed his first Spurs contract on Nov. 6, 1987. The deal paid him a minimal salary during his two years of military service, then was heavily back-loaded once he began playing. Eventually, it guaranteed he always would be one of the league's highest-paid players.
McCombs bought out the rest of the Spurs' ownership group, then made another move he considered vital to the survival of the franchise in San Antonio: hiring Larry Brown, fresh off coaching the Kansas Jayhawks to the NCAA le, as head coach.
McCombs believed Brown's presence was crucial to the Spurs' turnaround and knew the prospect of Robinson's arrival was the lure he needed to land him.
“Larry wasn't really interested in San Antonio,” McCombs said. “It was where the Baseline Bums had thrown guacamole on his head. But he was interested in coaching David. The deal with Larry wouldn't have happened without David.”
Brown, who will be one of two presenters at Robinson's enshrinement ceremony this week, regards the opportunity to work with Robinson as one of the highlights of his Hall of Fame coaching career.
“I don't doubt that David was the one that saved that franchise, or helped it get where it is today, as good as any franchise in the league,” Brown said. “Not only the fact he was a great player, but he was an unbelievable young man and stood for all the things we all value.
“I stand for a lot of things as a coach, and he embodied all of those. Anyone who talks about good people and role models, he is everything you want in those. Sometimes when you talk about how good a person he was, I think it takes away from how good he was as a basketball player.”
How good he would become was immediately apparent. He averaged 24.3 points and 12.0 rebounds in a 1989-90 NBA Rookie of the Year season that produced 56 victories.
Thirteen years, two les and one Tim Duncan later, Robinson left the Spurs as one of pro sports' best franchises — and still situated in San Antonio.
I got to meet David when he flew into town that day back in 1987, and he was every bit as cool back then as he is to his fans who meet him now. Those two years he was serving felt like one long Christmas Eve to all the Baseline Bums and I. We couldn't wait to finally get David in town, and it was sweet when we finally got to see our boys beat the Lakers down in his first game.
Without DROB, McCombs, Drossos and Tim, there was the always the possibility of the Spurs not being permenent. After 1999, they set it in concrete for decades to come. No small feat.
I remember first going to the Spurs game strictly for the "cheap beer' nites in the old ABA. Different time and culture back then, (Pre-MADD) and such and I think Pearl or Lone Star (Harry Jerzig?) had a small ownership stake/promotion stake/sponsor in fact. Beers were a dime back then. You'd avoid the HemisFair parking fee and then we'd go to the River to clubs that don't exist anymore. I bought a very ugly Spurs cap for $2.00. I wish I still had it. Funky Spurs logo. Or head over to Mi Tierras for grub or margaritas a couple of sheets into the wind..
A long time ago and then DROB showed up after Ice went to Chicago and Alvin did his best to hold the fort down. And look at the team today.
When the Spurs win it all this June...it will be special. What an amazing Spurs decade.
BTW, that was a good Monroe article.
Typical Brown: "where [the Spurs are] today, as good as any franchise in the league".
As good? He meant "way better than most".
The baseline bums threw guacamole on Brown's head. That is awesome.
i must have been like 7 yrs old the first time i squeezed between those bars behind the hemisfair just to run up to DRob and say hi. very cool guy! then i got to play in his jersey mid court during half time at 8 yrs old and got 2 bags of peanuts for my bball efforts vs the coyote.
Great read
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