Memory Lane: David Robinson

Okay, a little background first. I moved to San Antonio my junior year in high school when David Robinson is a rookie. I remember VIVIDLY watching Game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals matchup against Portland where Rod Strickland threw the infamous no-look out-of-bounds pass. I recall that although the elimination was a bummer, Spurs fans were high on championship expectations. As we all knew, it would take nearly a decade for David to capture his first championship.

We all know that David Robinson was consistenly surrounded by has beens or at least borderline has beens and bargains.

Please recall the Sports Illustrated cover cerca 1995 where David posed as "St. David" and the softness image was magnified (which was criminally inaccurate). Spurs fans enjoyed regular season and a little first round success, but mostly they had to endure endless jibes by rivals such as Houston and Utah, not to mention the national media, for being softer than their pink fiesta court colors.

Recall that era from 1990-1998 (pre-Tim Duncan), and excluding Michael Jordan, who is the one player you think the Spurs realistically could have signed to make a difference, or the coach to make a difference, or the style of play to make a differnce, or the role players to make a difference...which would've resulted in at least one championship.

That's a really tough question Dave. It's very hard to remember what the contracts were at that time. I think Clyde the Glide would have fit in quite well with that team, but I really have no idea if there would be any way to swing that.

We all know that Malone or Hakeem would have pushed that team over the top, but I'm sure they were impossible to get.

Imagine if the Spurs had picked Shawn Kemp in 89 instead of Sean Elliott? Sacrilege, I know, but the Spurs picked Sean with number 3. Kemp wasn't picked until number 17. The Spurs could have traded down with their 3 pick, and gotten maybe another 1st rounder, or another SF in trade. Shawn was a great player for the Spurs, but I have to believe that a frontline of Kemp and the Admiral would have made the Spurs the Bulls chief rivals in the 90s and would have probably given the Spurs a couple more championships...but then they'd have probably missed out on Duncan...agggh!

All that team needed was 1 more stud player, either a post or a guard, and 1 or two rings would have been in order.

No offense to Vinney Del Negro but I really think a 2 guard would have been huge.

You know I wonder what that 94-95 team could've done if you subtracted Bob Hill and added Pop. Rodman was a hell of a defensive player and of course the best rebounder of his time. Although, I'm sure Pop would've had no tolerance for players like Chuck Person, Del Negro, etc. That teams strength was more in its offense, but it still had great defensive players, mainly Elliot, DR, and Rodman. We shoulda taken the Rockets.

I like VoWolf's Clyde Drexler idea. The Spurs had no bonafied big time scorer after David Robinson, nobody near Manu or Parker's games, for example. They would have greatly benefited from Drex.