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The Spurs Save Humanity
In 1990 or 1991, Austinist’s older brother won a Pizza Hut-sponsored sweepstakes. He got to be the ballboy at an upcoming Spurs home game, and came back with a whole raft of Spurs autographs. There was, however, one missing. David Robinson, Danny said, had declined to sign the basketball because he had to “rest his thumb.”
And that’s the only bad thing Austinist has ever heard about the Admiral. During his 14-year career with the San Antonio Spurs, Robinson racked up a slew of honors without ever making an ass of himself. He showed more commitment to the team and the dopey, sprawling city of San Antonio than most people show to their children; and in keeping with his legacy, the Spurs are one of the NBA’s few bastions of sportsmanship and integrity.
Usually, sportsmanship is the kind of thing you have if you’re a losing Little League team. But the Spurs are actually very good. They’re certainly better than the Phoenix Suns, whom they defeated last night to take a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference finals. While Suns Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire turned in gargantuan games, they were simply outplayed.
Tim Duncan, anchoring the team while wobbling on a sprained ankle, came up with 30 points. We were too distracted by Manu Ginobili’s achingly good looks to keep a very close eye on what happened to the ball after it left his hands, but post-game research suggests that he turned in 26 points. 24 from Tony Parker, who, at 6’7”, looks a little homoncular next to Duncan, but is still a pretty foxy Frenchie. Nazr Mohammed, newly relieved of the burden of being a Knick, drove the team’s first quarter performance while Manu and Duncan eased into the game, and pre-Raphaelite Robert Horry topped off the evening with a soaring three-pointer in the game’s final minutes. Beautiful, virtuous, and good at what they do: If Plato were alive today, there’s no doubt that he’d be a Spurs fan.
All of this leaves Phoenix loyalists—and there appear to be one or two out there—in a difficult position. “The Suns have saved the NBA,” wrote Austinite Neal Pollack yesterday in Slate. From what? Their own previous mediocrity? Pollack goes on to compare the Spurs to “one of those cartoon supervillains that absorb the powers of whomever they’re fighting.”
With the exception of our youngest brother’s swim team, we can’t think of a less villainous team than the San Antonio Spurs. Manu Ginobili keeps a diary, in which he writes things like, “Eliminating the Lakers was nice.” Tim Duncan, with his furrowed brow and knock-kneed stance at the free throw line, is an all-time great with the modesty of a JV athlete. If the Suns have saved the NBA, we might as well say that the Spurs have saved humanity.
Games 3 & 4 of the Western Conference will be played in San Antonio on Saturday and Tuesday.
*Actually, we think he might be Belgian.
Thanks to Eva for her reporting on this!
