A Welcome Addition to the Neighborhood

By MARK HEISLER

Nov. 13, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN ANTONIO — Just what everyone was hoping for, a little brother for David Robinson.

Well, everyone here was hoping for it. In the other capitals of the Western Conference, they liked the lineup--David and the Eleven Dwarf--just the way it was.

This whole thing was a longshot. The Boston Celtics had a 36% chance at the first pick in the lottery to the San Antonio Spurs’ 21%, but the next thing you knew, Tim Duncan was jumping over his couch, delighted that he wasn’t bound for a bad team and a wintry clime, and Rick Pitino, among others, was cursing his luck.

“We expected it to happen,” Houston Rocket Coach Rudy Tomjanovich says glumly, months later.

Why?

“Just because it could.”

When the Rockets came here on a preseason swing, they were in denial, trying to stir up trouble or both. Charles Barkley said the Spurs needed someone more emotional than the stoic Duncan next to the amiable Robinson. Eddie Johnson suggested Robinson wouldn’t like playing second fiddle to the kid.

Then they played the game.

“I have seen the future,” Barkley said afterward, laughing, “and it wears No. 21.”

Hakeem Olajuwon, whose first shot against Duncan was handed back to him, called him “a young warrior.”

“He has all the nice moves,” Olajuwon said, shaking his head. “So, the rivalry continues.”

Rivalries are re-forming everywhere, like the one with the Lakers that begins with tonight’s game. Maybe even within the Spurs.

Like many older brothers, Robinson had mixed feelings about this gift from heaven, although Duncan quickly proved to be humble, hard-working, eager to learn and ready to play. Two weeks into his pro career, he’s sixth in the NBA in shooting percentage, ninth in blocked shots and 11th in rebounding.

In the preseason, Robinson betrayed a certain anxiety. Like the Lakers and Rockets, he’ll have to deal with it because there’s no missing how good this kid is.

“I don’t expect him to save the world right away,” Robinson said, “but I expect it to come soon.”

“By Christmas?” someone asked.

“By Christmas,” Robinson said, laughing.

LEAVING NEVER-NEVER LAND

“Maybe I’m different. I’m not the norm. I did something that nobody else would do. I’m an original.”

--Tim Duncan, June 24, 1997

OK, but an original what?

For sure, Duncan did something few would have. Of all the college players who stayed in school for four years in the ‘90s, only Grant Hill had his kind of ability and no one had his temptations.

Duncan would have been the No. 1 pick in the draft three years ago, over Golden State’s Joe Smith, or two years ago, over Philadelphia’s Allen Iverson. Instead he stayed, earned a degree in psychology and, in basketball, seemed to make quantum leaps annually.

“He came into the ACC with all those big guys [North Carolina’s Rasheed Wallace, Maryland’s Smith] and then he came out of nowhere, blocking shots,” Indiana Pacer President Donnie Walsh said.

“I went to the ACC tournament when he was a freshman and he was killing those guys, but he had no other part to his game. The next year, he looked like Bill Walton in the post.”

Duncan was a gangly kid from St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, who started out as a swimmer. In 1988 he posted the 16th-fastest time nationally in his age class in the 400-meter freestyle, but he had to halt training a year later when Hurricane Hugo damaged the pool.

At 13, he began playing basketball. At 17, he wangled a scholarship to Wake Forest, though few had seen him and no one suspected stardom. Coach Dave Odom was going to redshirt him until Rodney Rogers turned pro and two other recruits were declared ineligible.

The rest was NCAA basketball history in the ‘90s.

Duncan became one of the most refined big men the college game has produced. Old-timers looking for comparisons have to go back to the arrivals of the all-time greats.

“Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,” suggests Pete Newell, the big man’s guru.

Not that this phenom was eager to arrive. Having taken the full four years, Duncan seemed to regret having to leave. On Seniors Night at Wake Forest last spring, he pointed a finger in the air, as his fans did the year before when they chanted “One more year.”

“I don’t see myself changing,” Duncan told the Raleigh News and Observer last spring. “Change is not good for me. I think I’ll always have this attitude and it’s hard for people to get used to me.

“This is who I am. I don’t think I’ll ever be a grown-up.”

Six months later, he has a job.

It pays $2.97 million a year, which is fine. He has had to relocate, but that’s OK for this child of the islands, since San Antonio’s climate is relatively mild. He has new teammates, but they’re nice. He’s under pressure but living up to it.

He has press obligations. Well, nothing’s perfect.

In interviews, Duncan runs the gamut from bland to brain-dead. He may be droll around intimates but he is closed off otherwise. Opponents often find him standoffish, like Duke’s Greg Newton, who called him “passive . . . baby-ish . . . soft.”

In your basic Duncan interview, the Spurs’ public relations director tells him so-and-so is waiting to talk to him.

Duncan’s shoulders sag. He walks over, looking as if he’s in pain and answers in the fewest possible syllables.

Q: Your teammate Will Perdue said last night’s exhibition was the first one so far in which you didn’t donate blood. (Duncan chases rebounds so fearlessly, he’s always running into elbows and shoulders).

Duncan: I didn’t come out planning to get injured. It just happened.

Q: Did you expect everyone to test you?

Duncan: I knew everybody would test me from the get-go. That’s how they do rookies. I didn’t expect any different.

Q: You don’t change expressions on the floor. Are you really excited underneath?

Duncan: Am I excited to play? Yeah, I’m having a lot of fun. That’s what I’m here for. I’m not one to jump up and down just because I’m playing basketball. I love being here and I love playing.

Q: Did you really jump over your couch when the Spurs drew the first pick in the lottery?

Duncan: Yup.

Even the young Shaquille O’Neal, who confined his remarks to mumbled cliches, showed more life than that, an occasional grin, a wry aside. On the other hand, this isn’t a personality contest.

Duncan may be a big kid--he likes movies such as “Revenge of the Surf Nazis,” collects knives, has large tattoos on his chest and back--but on the job he’s a grown-up. He has been hard at work since summer, when he played for the Spurs’ team in the Rocky MountainRevue, then accepted Robinson’s invitation to train together in Colorado.

“Disposition-wise, I didn’t know we were getting that mature an individual, who was that mature, who was that . . . non-MTV-like,” Coach Gregg Popovich says.

“He’s just a joy to be around. In the beginning, I think people thought I was exaggerating about what kind of person he is, but you don’t even see him go and talk to a referee. He just takes it as it comes. . . . Whether he blocks your shot or you block his, you never notice the difference.”

Duncan has neither Shaq’s overpowering size and strength nor Robinson’s combination of size and athleticism. He’s not even a 7-footer. Not that anyone will complain after they see his array of post moves, his remarkable passing ability, soft hands, hustle, etc.

“He’s probably not seven feet, but he’s pretty close. Close enough for government work,” says Robinson, laughing.

“I was in the government. I know.”

ARISE, FALLEN ANGEL

“Athletic ability, he [Robinson] is the best I’ve ever seen or ever played with. . . . Can run faster than most guards. Can jump higher than about anybody in the league. He has a God’s-gift body. I think the only thing he didn’t have is an understanding for the game and a passion for the game. . . .

“If you asked him if he wanted to go out and play basketball or play with his computer, he’d have said play with his computer.”

--Former teammate Doc Rivers

For a man making $12.4 million this season, who has been an MVP and appeared on a Sports Illustrated cover as an angel, complete with wings and halo, the ‘90s haven’t been easy.

Robinson’s teams have struggled in the playoffs. His postseason numbers have faded. In 1995, after he collected his most-valuable-player award, Olajuwon outplayed him in a memorable duel.

There was always a buzz among teammates, most of whom were from the inner-city, that this smiling suburbanite wasn’t as hungry as they were. Successive disappointments hardly lowered the volume.

Fair, unfair, whatever, Robinson says it’s OK.

“The thing is, we’re the ones getting paid the big dollars,” he says, the words spilling out in his usual torrent.

“We’re the ones who are supposed to be all-stars, supposed to be superstars so . . . I accept the criticism. People expect a lot and if they didn’t expect a lot, I’d be disappointed. I want to deliver a lot . . .

“I expect it. Just like I know that when we win, they give me a lot of credit and maybe that’s not fair either, but that’s the way it is. You live with it. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

Without Robinson last season, the Spurs went into rigor mortis, revealing how thin they were. Now he’s back, slowly regaining his old form, full of motivation, like Michael Jordan returning from sabbatical.

“Until the big guy on any team wins a championship, somebody is going to say something negative about him,” Popovich says. “David has always loved the game but never missed it before.

“At this point in his career, I’ve never seen him more committed. He never worked harder than he did this summer. Evidence of that, he’ll play a game the night before, he’ll come in the next day and work as hard as anybody else in a very physical practice. He wants it badly and that’s pretty obvious.”

Duncan has upgraded the supporting cast immeasurably, good news for Robinson . . . although, at first, he seemed to wonder if he, himself, was destined for the supporting cast. As nice as he is, and as thankful for such high-quality help, this other thing kept popping up as Robinson noted the “tension” he felt before they met.

“A lot of it’s just there, you’re competing against one another, it’s an ego thing,” Robinson said recently. “The tension comes from just your competitive drive.

“Shoot, he’s a seven-footer, I’m a seven-footer. When we go out there to compete against one another, there’s going to be tension. I want to be the best player. He thinks he’s the best player.”

By now, they look like they were born to play together. Robinson is outgoing and experienced, Duncan new and shy. Robinson is wiry and agile, with a 32-inch waist that made it tough for him to rumble. Duncan is a hard-nosed 250-pounder who likes the rough and tumble.

“They’re going to test him a little bit,” Robinson says. “I told him that. But you can’t know until you get out there how it is. You get a Karl Malone flipping that elbow at you. Or you get a Charles Barkley trying to do something dirty or a Charles Oakley, trying to get you. . . .

“He’s been fantastic. I told him this is going to be his team one day. Even though he’s a rookie, he needs to take some of the reins and understand, rookie or no rookie, you’re a leader of this team.”

Duncan couldn’t believe it when Robinson said that. Duncan says he still doesn’t, but the day isn’t far off when he will. Then everyone in Texas, the West and the NBA will be in trouble.

Maybe by Christmas. For sure, it won’t be too many of them.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Dynamic Duo

A look at the statistics of rookie Tim Duncan and David Robinson and their impact on the Spurs:

DUNCAN

* Scoring:15.2

* Rebounds: 10.9

* Blocks: 2.6

* Assists: 2.1

ROBINSON

* Scoring: 26.0

* Rebounds: 11.7