Elevated by Harvey Araton
Author:Harvey Araton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2019-03-01T03:14:32+00:00
24. Deep in the Heart
Between Games 1 and 2 of the 2007 N.B.A. finals — a Spurs’ four-game demolition of a 22-year-old LeBron James and a random assortment of dudes named Boobie, Zydrunas and Sasha — Sam Smith and I followed Gregg Popovich out of his mass press conference and asked one of those leading questions that Popovich, typically too smart to play by reporters’ rules, usually bats away with a smirk.
“How is it,” I said, “that after three championships and the very good possibility of a fourth, and with a group that truly plays committed team basketball, the belief is still that the Spurs are not sexy enough to help the N.B.A. draw big ratings?”
Fortunately, Smith, then of the Chicago Tribune, and I had found Popovich in a playful but truthful mood. Here was the gem of a quote we recorded:
“That’s their problem, not mine,” he said. “I can’t help them, poor souls. They’ve got to live in their ignorance. I can’t make them keep watching us, but it’s always dumbfounded me, since the arrival of Tony [Parker] and Manu [Ginobili]. If you can’t enjoy watching those two guys play and you don’t understand that they’re as much fun to watch as a lot of other people in bigger markets, then I can’t help, and it means you’re not much of a fan and you don’t understand the game, anyway, and you should probably tune in HBO.”
I reminded Popovich that Game 2 of the finals would be going head-to-head with the final season’s last episode of the HBO blockbuster series, The Sopranos. He didn’t miss a beat.
“Fifty-fifty I’ll get booted so I can watch it,” he said.
I never tried to hide my fondness for Pop, Tim Duncan and the Spurs in my columns. Having grown up with the early 1970s Knicks of Red Holzman, Clyde Frazier and Willis Reed, I maintained that if the Spurs had been magically transplanted to New York, they would have the toast of the United Nations with their blend of international stars. Duncan would have been cast as the second coming of Willis, the always-in-motion Ginobili as the athletic enhancement of Bill Bradley and the unflappable Parker as a zippier, French version of Clyde.
It would take a quite a few more years before the Spurs got their due, thanks in part to LeBron.
May 2, 2004
The Spurs Are the Anti-Lakers
by Chris Broussard
SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Spurs do not have bickering superstars, rapping superstars or disgruntled superstars. They do not have a player who has declared disdain for his coach or a coach who is celebrated as a master of Eastern mysticism. They do not have anyone facing the prospect of life in prison and they do not have two future Hall of Famers who must rue the day they forsook millions of dollars for a season of dysfunction.
The San Antonio Spurs are a basketball team, not a soap opera.
The question is: In this day and age of trash talk, televised street ball, personality-driven
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