EVENTS
 Sportsman of the Year
 Heisman Trophy
 Swimsuit 2001

CENTERS
 Fantasy Central
 Inside Game
 Video Plus
 Statitudes
 Your Turn
 Message Boards
 Email Newsletters
 Golf Guide
 Cities
 

CNNSI.com GROUP
 Sports Illustrated
 Life of Reilly
 SI Women
 SI for Kids
 Press Room
 TBS/TNT Sports
 CNN Languages

COMMERCE
 SI Customer Service
 SI Media Kits
 Get into College
 Sports Memorabilia
 TeamStore

This club is still stinging from a nasty playoff sweep by the Lakers. Will that make the Spurs better, or worse?

By Jack McCallum

The ever-brilliant Duncan expects to gain motivation from the L.A. humiliation, but he'll do it with a new supporting cast.   John W. McDonough Enemy Lines An opposing team's scout sizes up the Spurs "Going from Avery Johnson to Antonio Daniels was not a plus for them. Avery is an excellent leader who made great decisions and knew how to get them into their secondary offense. With him, they were not an all-out speed team but an attacking team always going at your weakness. Daniels is capable of getting it done, but they looked a lot more solid with Johnson. ... Tony Parker can push it up with speed, but I don't know how comfortable they'll feel about using him. He's not a great shooter at this stage. ... Tim Duncan and David Robinson , obviously, are still the keys. They can run the floor, they can shoot, they can pass, they're smart. There's been some drop-off with Robinson. He no longer creates shots for himself. You have to be aware that he's more of an elbow isolation-type guy. Duncan has no weakness. You have to double him, but he'll find the open guy or put it on the floor. He has a great jump hook that he almost never has to use. Plus, he'll get to the line. ... It's similar to what you face with Utah: You spend so much time thinking about two guys that the other ones kill you. You can't let Malik Rose or Danny Ferry get off on you and score 20, no matter how much Duncan and Robinson are hurting you down low. ... Bruce Bowen 's big plus will be on defense. He can defend twos or threes. He'll get his points in transition and other little ways, and most important, he won't demand the ball. ... Steve Smith 's a guy anybody would want. He was more than a good trade-off for Derek Anderson. "

Shooting guard Steve Smith had hardly been in San Antonio long enough to visit the Alamo before he found himself lighter in the wallet, having kicked in on a $25,000 donation to a Spurs-supported fund for families of local military reservists called to duty. "I was glad to do it," says Smith, 32, who was acquired in July from the Trail Blazers for guards Derek Anderson and Steve Kerr. Contributions other than financial, however, will now be asked of the 6'8" Smith, one of three newcomers to the lineup, alongside Tim Duncan and David Robinson. Changing 60% of the starters on a team that owned the league's best regular-season record last year seems like radical surgery, but such was the impact of the Lakers' four-and-out humiliation of San Antonio in the Western Conference finals.

"We were so bad that people got mad at us," says coach and general manager Gregg Popovich. "One guy in the press called us 'disgusting pigs.'" Popovich, who last month received a contract extension that will pay him $4 million annually through 2005-06, shook his head, smiled ruefully and asked, "You ever been called a disgusting pig?"

As barnyard bad as the Spurs were in losing Games 3 and 4 by a combined 68 points, the changes do not have the smell of desperation about them. One was contract-based; San Antonio was unable to come to terms with free-agent Anderson. Smith is five years older than Anderson and much less explosive offensively, but he is more versatile and plays excellent team defense, which fits in well with the Spurs. With the departure of point guard Avery Johnson, who signed with the Nuggets, San Antonio lost a steadying influence, especially since his replacement, 26-year-old Antonio Daniels, is one of those points who says he feels "just as comfortable at either guard position" -- a proclamation that sounds suspiciously like "running quarterback." But Daniels proved his mettle in the playoffs (he and Duncan were the only two Spurs not to go AWOL in any of the games) and will amp up the team's defensive intensity.

So will Sean Elliott's successor at small forward, 6'7" Bruce Bowen, who was named second-team all-defense last year with the Heat. Add spaced-out, tatted-up frontcourt reserve Cherokee Parks and supercharged 19-year-old rookie point guard Tony Parker from Paris -- "a fast break by himself" as Robinson puts it -- and the Spurs, the familiar presence of Duncan and the Admiral notwithstanding, look rather un-Spurs-like. "Management's main concern was getting us younger and more versatile," says Robinson, who had a rare contract contretemps before signing a two-year deal worth $20 million. "It remains to be seen how it plays out, but we accomplished those goals."

It remains to be seen, too, whether the Spurs can forget about the series against the Lakers, who seemed to expose them as gutless frauds (please don't call them disgusting pigs) caught shivering in the shadow of Shaq and Kobe. "Forget it?" says Duncan. "We don'twantto forget it. Remembering that series gives us our focus." Says Popovich, "What I couldn't accept is that our guys lost their belief, gave in to their doubts."

Popovich may now have a team less inclined to give in. Daniels is a cocky, give-me-the-ball type, and Bowen doesn't sound like a man uncertain of his ability, having perfected the third-person mode of speech familiar to superstar athletes. An example: "It's not Bruce replacing Sean Elliott. It's just Bruce coming in and trying to fill a void. Sean was a more polished offensive player, so don't look for Bruce to do the things he did. At the same time, you'll get a certain production from Bruce all the time."

You get the picture; Bruce gets the picture. Now we'll see if the rest of the Spurs get it too.

Issue date: October 29, 2001

Click here to look back at CNNSI.com's preseason Spurs preview.