The Spur they needed

Sporting News, The, March 27, 2000 by Ira Winderman

Sean Elliott's emotional return has given the defending NBA champs new life, but it's going to take a prodigious effort--and a perimeter game--to survive the Western Conference gantlet

By design, Sean Elliott's return to the San Antonio Spurs' lineup would have been a story solely about courage, perseverance, dedication.

It also would have come with little pressure attached, merely the opportunity to join a postseason favorite on the way toward the defense of an NBA championship he had helped secure nine months earlier.

Instead, another challenge remains, not only for Elliott, 32, whose return from a kidney transplant ranks him among the comeback players of all time in athletics, but for a franchise that on June 25, 1999, appeared poised to do it all over again. This, after all, was a team that not only had vanquished the Knicks in five games in the NBA Finals but also had rolled through the postseason with a 15-2 record.

In a league where repeats have grown redundant--every NBA champion since the 1987 Lakers has won at least consecutive titles--Tim Duncan and David Robinson appeared ready to stand tall once again.

Even when a gaunt Elliott revealed early in the summer he had played through the playoffs with a failing kidney and had contributed to sweeps of the Lakers and Trail Blazers even as he was in the latter stages of renal failure, there was sense of a hope for both forward and franchise, a compassion for Elliott and conviction that the Spurs only were getting started.

Through the months, Elliott grew stronger, erased the doubts of coach Gregg Popovich, battled through pneumonia, and finally was embraced upon his return March 14 at the Alamodome.

But through those same months, as the doubts about Elliott subsided, doubts about the Spurs persisted.

These are not the same Spurs, the feel-good story of a franchise able not only to build upon its ABA roots but to build support for the construction of a new arena in a small-sized market in jeopardy of losing its lone pro franchise.

In retrospect, it is remarkable the Spurs were able to achieve what they achieved. This never was a deep team, a well-rounded roster, but rather a collection of enthusiastic mix-and-match parts. This season, it has become all too apparent that the 1998-99 championship may have been nothing more than a confluence of friendly fate that ultimately proved to be a perishable providence.

Avery Johnson, the soul of the Spurs well before the start of that championship season, apparently has been spurred by different demons this season. There was an ugly incident with teammate Malik Rose after a loss in Cleveland. There were harsh words from released forward Chucky Brown, who claimed Johnson had undermined him in the locker room. And there were trade winds that, at least temporarily, sapped the spirit of a point guard whose game is built on emotion.

Duncan, a portrait in fortitude his first two seasons, finally turned mortal at midseason, removed from the lineup for four games by the same type of abdominal strain that hampered Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal throughout the '98-'99 season. It was the first time in his career Duncan was unable to play.

In addition, Jaren Jackson, the playoff sparkplug who kept the Knicks honest for the balance of the Finals with a 17-point performance in that series opener, appeared at camp out of shape and seemingly all too content with his new free-agent contract.

And then there is Elliott, who spent more than half a season re-energizing a body made whole again by one of his brother's kidneys.

Whenever the outside shots weren't falling, whenever the perimeter defense was failing, there was Elliott, at the scorers table but unable to check in, instead working as a team broadcast analyst, a missing piece who was missed far more than anyone could have anticipated.

Johnson and Jackson don't figure to make it all the way back to where they were last season.

Elliott could, but there are no guarantees, just scores of insurance waivers filed away by team lawyers.

"If we can get him back 100 percent, or even close to it, that'll really help us defensively," Rose says. "That, as everyone knows, fuels everything we do."

As for Duncan, there have been the tribulations of fighting through his first injury as a professional and the constant questions about his impending free agency.

"It's been frustrating for him because of his injury," says Robinson, who also will be a free agent in the offseason. "I've never seen him get frustrated. He's awesome once he gets on a roll. We believe in him and we'll keep going to him."

Belief. Faith. Hope. That has been a holy trinity for the Spurs this season. With Elliott's return, it is as if a cloud has been lifted. Considering the odds faced by the former All-Star forward, can divine intervention be so easily dismissed?

"Getting Sean back is really going to help us, no question," swingman Mario Elie says. "If he continues to progress, we could be strong going into the playoffs. Our starting five had a great feel for each other last year."